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Create an unattended installation script for the Microsoft Entra application proxy connector

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This topic helps you create a Windows PowerShell script that enables unattended installation and registration for your Microsoft Entra application proxy connector.

This capability is useful when you want to:

  • Install the connector on Windows servers that don't have user interface enabled, or that you can't access with Remote Desktop.
  • Install and register many connectors at once.
  • Integrate the connector installation and registration as part of another procedure.
  • Create a standard server image that contains the connector bits but is not registered.

For the Application Proxy connector to work, it has to be registered with your Microsoft Entra directory using an application administrator and password. Ordinarily this information is entered during Connector installation in a pop-up dialog box, but you can use PowerShell to automate this process instead.

There are two steps for an unattended installation. First, install the connector. Second, register the connector with Microsoft Entra ID.

Important

If you are installing the connector for Azure Government cloud review the pre-requisites and installation steps. This requires enabling access to a different set of URLs and an additional parameter to run the installation.

Install the connector

Use the following steps to install the connector without registering it:

  1. Open a command prompt.

  2. Run the following command, in which the /q means quiet installation. A quiet installation doesn't prompt you to accept the End-User License Agreement.

    AADApplicationProxyConnectorInstaller.exe REGISTERCONNECTOR="false" /q

Register the connector with Microsoft Entra ID

There are two methods you can use to register the connector:

  • Register the connector using a Windows PowerShell credential object
  • Register the connector using a token created offline

Register the connector using a Windows PowerShell credential object

  1. Create a Windows PowerShell Credentials object $cred that contains an administrative username and password for your directory. Run the following command, replacing <username> , <password> and <tenantid>:

    $User = "<username>"
$PlainPassword = '<password>'
$TenantId = '<tenantid>'
$SecurePassword = $PlainPassword | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force
$cred = New-Object –TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential –ArgumentList $User, $SecurePassword

  2. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Azure AD App Proxy Connector and run the following script using the $cred object that you created:

    .\RegisterConnector.ps1 -modulePath "C:\Program Files\Microsoft AAD App Proxy Connector\Modules\" -moduleName "AppProxyPSModule" -Authenticationmode Credentials -Usercredentials $cred -Feature ApplicationProxy -TenantId $TenantId

Register the connector using a token created offline

  1. Create an offline token using the AuthenticationContext class using the values in this code snippet or PowerShell cmdlets below:

    Using C#:

    using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.Identity.Client;

class Program
{
   #region constants
   /// <summary>
   /// The AAD authentication endpoint uri
   /// </summary>
   static readonly string AadAuthenticationEndpoint = "https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/v2.0/authorize";

   /// <summary>
   /// The application ID of the connector in AAD
   /// </summary>
   static readonly string ConnectorAppId = "55747057-9b5d-4bd4-b387-abf52a8bd489";

   /// <summary>
   /// The AppIdUri of the registration service in AAD
   /// </summary>
   static readonly string RegistrationServiceAppIdUri = "https://proxy.cloudwebappproxy.net/registerapp/user_impersonation";

   #endregion

   #region private members
   private string token;
   private string tenantID;
   #endregion

   public void GetAuthenticationToken()
   {
      IPublicClientApplication clientApp = PublicClientApplicationBuilder
         .Create(ConnectorAppId)
         .WithDefaultRedirectUri() // will automatically use the default Uri for native app
         .WithAuthority(AadAuthenticationEndpoint)
         .Build();

      AuthenticationResult authResult = null;

      IAccount account = null;

      IEnumerable<string> scopes = new string[] { RegistrationServiceAppIdUri };

      try
      {
      authResult = await clientApp.AcquireTokenSilent(scopes, account).ExecuteAsync();
      }
      catch (MsalUiRequiredException ex)
      {
      authResult = await clientApp.AcquireTokenInteractive(scopes).ExecuteAsync();
      }

      if (authResult == null || string.IsNullOrEmpty(authResult.AccessToken) || string.IsNullOrEmpty(authResult.TenantId))
      {
      Trace.TraceError("Authentication result, token or tenant id returned are null");
      throw new InvalidOperationException("Authentication result, token or tenant id returned are null");
      }

      token = authResult.AccessToken;
      tenantID = authResult.TenantId;
   }
}

    Using PowerShell:

    # Load MSAL (Tested with version 4.7.1) 

Add-Type -Path "..\MSAL\Microsoft.Identity.Client.dll"

# The AAD authentication endpoint uri

$authority = "https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/v2.0/authorize"

#The application ID of the connector in AAD

$connectorAppId = "55747057-9b5d-4bd4-b387-abf52a8bd489";

#The AppIdUri of the registration service in AAD
$registrationServiceAppIdUri = "https://proxy.cloudwebappproxy.net/registerapp/user_impersonation"

# Define the resources and scopes you want to call

$scopes = New-Object System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection["string"] 

$scopes.Add($registrationServiceAppIdUri)

$app = [Microsoft.Identity.Client.PublicClientApplicationBuilder]::Create($connectorAppId).WithAuthority($authority).WithDefaultRedirectUri().Build()

[Microsoft.Identity.Client.IAccount] $account = $null

# Acquiring the token

$authResult = $null

$authResult = $app.AcquireTokenInteractive($scopes).WithAccount($account).ExecuteAsync().ConfigureAwait($false).GetAwaiter().GetResult()

# Check AuthN result
If (($authResult) -and ($authResult.AccessToken) -and ($authResult.TenantId)) {

   $token = $authResult.AccessToken
   $tenantId = $authResult.TenantId

   Write-Output "Success: Authentication result returned."
}
Else {

   Write-Output "Error: Authentication result, token or tenant id returned with null."

}

  2. Once you have the token, create a SecureString using the token:

    $SecureToken = $Token | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force

  3. Run the following Windows PowerShell command, replacing <tenant GUID> with your directory ID:

    .\RegisterConnector.ps1 -modulePath "C:\Program Files\Microsoft AAD App Proxy Connector\Modules\" -moduleName "AppProxyPSModule" -Authenticationmode Token -Token $SecureToken -TenantId <tenant GUID> -Feature ApplicationProxy

Next steps