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Quickstart: Create a basic public load balancer using the Azure portal

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Get started with Azure Load Balancer by using the Azure portal to create a basic public load balancer and two virtual machines.

Prerequisites

Note

Standard SKU load balancer is recommended for production workloads. For more information about SKUs, see Azure Load Balancer SKUs.

Sign in to Azure

Sign in to the Azure portal.

Create the virtual network

In this section, you'll create a virtual network and subnet.

  1. In the search box at the top of the portal, enter Virtual network. Select Virtual Networks in the search results.

  2. In Virtual networks, select + Create.

  3. In Create virtual network, enter or select the following information in the Basics tab:

    Setting Value
    Project Details
    Subscription Select your Azure subscription
    Resource Group Select Create new.
    In Name enter CreatePubLBQS-rg.
    Select OK.
    Instance details
    Name Enter myVNet
    Region Select West US 3

  4. Select the IP Addresses tab or select the Next: IP Addresses button at the bottom of the page.

  5. In the IP Addresses tab, enter this information:

    Setting Value
    IPv4 address space Enter 10.1.0.0/16

  6. Under Subnet name, select the word default.

  7. In Edit subnet, enter the following information:

    Setting Value
    Subnet name Enter myBackendSubnet
    Subnet address range Enter 10.1.0.0/24

  8. Select Save.

  9. Select the Security tab.

  10. Under BastionHost, select Enable. Enter this information:

    Setting Value
    Bastion name Enter myBastionHost
    AzureBastionSubnet address space Enter 10.1.1.0/26
    Public IP Address Select Create new.
    For Name, enter myBastionIP.
    Select OK.

  11. Select the Review + create tab or select the Review + create button.

  12. Select Create.

Important

Hourly pricing starts from the moment that Bastion is deployed, regardless of outbound data usage. For more information, see Pricing and SKUs. If you're deploying Bastion as part of a tutorial or test, we recommend that you delete this resource after you finish using it.

Create load balancer

In this section, you create a load balancer that load balances virtual machines.

During the creation of the load balancer, you'll configure:

  • Frontend IP address
  • Backend pool
  • Inbound load-balancing rules

  1. In the search box at the top of the portal, enter Load balancer. Select Load balancers in the search results.

  2. In the Load balancer page, select + Create.

  3. In the Basics tab of the Create load balancer page, enter, or select the following information:

    Setting Value
    Project details
    Subscription Select your subscription.
    Resource group Select CreatePubLBQS-rg.
    Instance details
    Name Enter myLoadBalancer
    Region Select West US 3.
    SKU Select Basic.
    Type Select Public.

  4. Select Next: Frontend IP configuration at the bottom of the page.

  5. In Frontend IP configuration, select + Add a frontend IP.

  6. Enter myFrontend in Name.

  7. Select IPv4 or IPv6 for the IP version.

  8. Select Create new in Public IP address.

  9. In Add a public IP address, enter myPublicIP for Name.

  10. In Assignment, select Static.

  11. Select OK.

  12. Select Add.

  13. Select Next: Backend pools at the bottom of the page.

  14. In the Backend pools tab, select + Add a backend pool.

  15. Enter or select the following information in Add backend pool.

    Setting Value
    Name Enter myBackendPool.
    Virtual network Select myVNet (CreatePubLBQS-rg).
    Associated to Select Virtual machines.
    IP version Select IPv4 or IPv6.

  16. Select Add.

  17. Select the Next: Inbound rules button at the bottom of the page.

  18. In Load balancing rule in the Inbound rules tab, select + Add a load balancing rule.

  19. In Add load balancing rule, enter or select the following information:

    Setting Value
    Name Enter myHTTPRule
    IP Version Select IPv4 or IPv6 depending on your requirements.
    Frontend IP address Select myFrontend.
    Backend pool Select myBackendPool.
    Protocol Select TCP.
    Port Enter 80.
    Backend port Enter 80.
    Health probe Select Create new.
    In Name, enter myHealthProbe.
    Select TCP in Protocol.
    Leave the rest of the defaults, and select OK.
    Session persistence Select None.
    Idle timeout (minutes) Enter or select 15.
    Floating IP Select Disabled.

  20. Select Add.

  21. Select the blue Review + create button at the bottom of the page.

  22. Select Create.

Create virtual machines

In this section, you'll create two VMs (myVM1 and myVM2).

The two VMs will be added to an availability set named myAvailabilitySet.

  1. In the search box at the top of the portal, enter Virtual machine. Select Virtual machines in the search results.

  2. In Virtual machines, select + Create > Virtual machine.

  3. In Create a virtual machine, type or select the values in the Basics tab:

    Setting Value
    Project Details
    Subscription Select your Azure subscription
    Resource Group Select CreatePubLBQS-rg
    Instance details
    Virtual machine name Enter myVM1
    Region Select West US 3
    Availability Options Select Availability set
    Availability set Select Create new.
    Enter myAvailabilitySet in Name.
    Select OK
    Security type Select Standard.
    Image Select Windows Server 2022 Datacenter - Gen2
    Azure Spot instance Leave the default of unchecked.
    Size Choose VM size or take default setting
    Administrator account
    Username Enter a username
    Password Enter a password
    Confirm password Reenter password
    Inbound port rules
    Public inbound ports Select None.

  4. Select the Networking tab, or select Next: Disks, then Next: Networking.

  5. In the Networking tab, select or enter:

    Setting Value
    Network interface
    Virtual network Select myVNet
    Subnet Select myBackendSubnet
    Public IP Select None
    NIC network security group Select Advanced
    Configure network security group Select Create new.
    In the Create network security group, enter myNSG in Name.
    Under Inbound rules, select +Add an inbound rule.
    In Source port ranges, enter 80.
    In Service, select HTTP.
    Under Priority, enter 100.
    In Name, enter myNSGRule
    Select Add
    Select OK
    Load balancing
    Place this virtual machine behind an existing load-balancing solution? Select the box
    Load balancing settings
    Load balancing options Select Azure Load Balancer.
    Select a load balancer Select myLoadBalancer.
    Select a backend pool Select myBackendPool.

  6. Select Review + create.

  7. Review the settings, and then select Create.

  8. Follow the steps 1 through 7 to create one more VM with the following values and all the other settings the same as myVM1:

    Setting VM 2
    Name myVM2
    Availability set Select myAvailabilitySet
    Network security group Select the existing myNSG

Note

Azure provides a default outbound access IP for VMs that either aren't assigned a public IP address or are in the backend pool of an internal basic Azure load balancer. The default outbound access IP mechanism provides an outbound IP address that isn't configurable.

The default outbound access IP is disabled when one of the following events happens:

  • A public IP address is assigned to the VM.
  • The VM is placed in the backend pool of a standard load balancer, with or without outbound rules.
  • An Azure NAT Gateway resource is assigned to the subnet of the VM.

VMs that you create by using virtual machine scale sets in flexible orchestration mode don't have default outbound access.

For more information about outbound connections in Azure, see Default outbound access in Azure and Use Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) for outbound connections.

Install IIS

  1. In the search box at the top of the portal, enter Virtual machine. Select Virtual machines in the search results.

  2. Select myVM1.

  3. On the Overview page, select Connect, then Bastion.

  4. Select Use Bastion.

  5. Enter the username and password entered during VM creation.

  6. Select Connect.

  7. On the server desktop, navigate to Windows Administrative Tools > Windows PowerShell.

  8. In the PowerShell Window, run the following commands to:

    • Install the IIS server

    • Remove the default iisstart.htm file

    • Add a new iisstart.htm file that displays the name of the VM:

     # Install IIS server role
 Install-WindowsFeature -name Web-Server -IncludeManagementTools

 # Remove default htm file
 Remove-Item  C:\inetpub\wwwroot\iisstart.htm

 # Add a new htm file that displays server name
 Add-Content -Path "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\iisstart.htm" -Value $("Hello World from " + $env:computername)

  9. Close the bastion session with myVM1.

  10. Repeat steps 1 to 9 to install IIS and the updated iisstart.htm file on myVM2.

Test the load balancer

  1. In the search box at the top of the page, enter Load balancer. Select Load balancers in the search results.

  2. Find the public IP address for the load balancer on the Overview page under Public IP address.

  3. Copy the public IP address, and then paste it into the address bar of your browser. The custom VM page of the IIS Web server is displayed in the browser.

Clean up resources

When no longer needed, delete the resource group, load balancer, and all related resources. To do so, select the resource group CreatePubLBQS-rg that contains the resources and then select Delete.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you:

  • Created a basic public load balancer.

  • Attached 2 VMs to the load balancer.

  • Tested the load balancer.

To learn more about Azure Load Balancer, continue to:

What is Azure Load Balancer?