Monitor incoming network traffic

Question

Hi,

I created virtual machine, virtual network and public IP address for virtual machine. After that I added few inbound rules in network security group to allow SSH and RDP from some specific IP addreses to virtual machine. Everything works fine. But I would like to monitor when and whether virtual machine receives incoming connections from those IP addreses.

Does Azure provides free ways to monitor those incoming connections I have speicifed in network security group? Or I have to pay for Azure Monitor or use another paid tool?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi @Tomass Pētersons ,

Standard Public IP Addresses support traffic aggregation under the resource Monitoring > Metrics. If you've split your traffic between different IP Addresses on the Virtual Machine, then you can pull up each Public IP resource overview and check their Byte Count Metric, then split the aggregation by Direction, or Port.

The Virtual Machine's Network Interface Resource also provides traffic aggregation through Bytes and Packets. Here's a full list of Platform Metrics that might be useful: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/essentials/metrics-supported#microsoftnetworkpublicipaddresses

Additionally, if you do want to use the service Network Watcher, it provides features like packet capture and flow logs. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/network-watcher/#overview