CloudNetDraw – Instantly generate Azure network diagrams
Hi everyone, I wanted to share a tool I’ve built that might help some of you who regularly document or review Azure network topologies. CloudNetDraw is a free tool that generates Azure network diagrams (HLD and MLD) directly from your environment. It supports both user login and service principals — or you can self-host it. What it does: Visualizes hub and spoke topology Shows all subnets with CIDRs Highlights NSG and UDR presence Exports editable Draw.io files Hosted version available, or deploy it yourself Open source on GitHub Try it here: https://www.cloudnetdraw.com GitHub repo: https://github.com/krhatland/cloudnet-draw Privacy & Security: CloudNetDraw does not collect any information about your network resources or environment. Drawings are generated in memory and deleted immediately after use. We do not store, access, or analyze your topology data. Would love to hear your thoughts or suggestions! Thanks, Kristoffer
BGP Routing from and to VPN Gateway
Hello All, I am setting up a lab concerning vWAN connection to onprem via SDWAN and I have some issues getting the routing to work properly. I have a hub which symbolizes the on-premises hub with a VPN gateway (gw-onprem) and a VM (on-prem-hubvm) deployed. Attached to the onprem-hub is a) on-prem spoke with a VM (on-prem VM). b) two vnets that symbolize the sdwan. Both of which have a VPN gateway as well as one VM each deployed (gw-sd-1/2) The SDWan Gateways are connected via s2s to two different vWAN hubs in two different locations. The vWAN has a third Hub which is not directly connected to on-prem What I am trying to lab is what direction the traffic is tacking from the vWAN Hubs to the last on-premise VM. The traffic currently goes all the way through the s2s vpn connection, but it gets dropped afterwards. I am struggling to set-up the routing from the sd-gw's to the on-premises machine. The routing needs to work through BGP The goal of the Lab is to see which path to on-premises is preferred if the hub preference is AS Path (shortest BGP Path). BGP is enabled on all VPN Gateways The SD GWs are peered to the onprem Hub GW but no vnet peering. The on-premises Vnets are peered. Somehow the VPN Gateways are not learning the routes to on-premises. I tried pointing the way with UDRs but somehow it also isnt working I've tried setting up UDRs so that the traffic would be the following vWAN Hub -> sd GW > sd VM > GW-onprem (> on-prem-hubvm) > on-prem VMDeploy Dynamic Routing (BGP) between Azure VPN and Third-Party Firewall (Palo Alto)
Overview This blog explains how to deploy dynamic routing (BGP) between Azure VPN and a third-party firewall. You can refer to this topology and deployment guide in scenarios where you need VPN connectivity between an on-premises third-party VPN device and Azure VPN, or any cloud environment. What is BGP? Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol used to exchange routing information across the internet and between different autonomous systems (AS). It is the protocol that makes the internet work by enabling data routing between different networks. Here are some key points about BGP: Routing Between Autonomous Systems: BGP is used for routing between large networks that are under different administrative control, known as autonomous systems (AS). Each AS is assigned a unique number. Path Vector Protocol: BGP is a path vector protocol, meaning it maintains the path information that gets updated dynamically as routes are added or removed. This helps in making routing decisions based on path attributes. Scalability: BGP is designed to handle a large number of routes, making it highly scalable for use on the internet. Policy-Based Routing: BGP allows network administrators to set policies that can influence routing decisions. For example, administrators can prefer certain routes over others based on specific criteria such as path length or AS path. Peering: BGP peers are routers that establish a connection to exchange routing information. Peering can be either internal (within the same AS) or external (between different AS). Route Advertisement: BGP advertises routes along with various attributes such as AS path, next hop, and network prefix. This helps in making informed decisions on the best route to take. Convergence: BGP can take some time to converge, meaning to stabilize its routing tables after a network change. However, it is designed to be very stable once converged. Use in Azure: In Azure, BGP is used to facilitate dynamic routing in scenarios like connecting Azure VNets to on-premises networks via VPN gateways. This dynamic routing allows for more resilient and flexible network designs. Switching from static routing to BGP for your Azure VPN gateway will enable dynamic routing, allowing the Azure network and your on-premises network to exchange routing information automatically, leading to potentially better failover and redundancy. Why BGP? BGP is the standard routing protocol commonly used in the Internet to exchange routing and reachability information between two or more networks. When used in the context of Azure Virtual Networks, BGP enables the Azure VPN gateways and your on-premises VPN devices, called BGP peers or neighbors, to exchange "routes" that will inform both gateways on the availability and reachability for those prefixes to go through the gateways or routers involved. BGP can also enable transit routing among multiple networks by propagating routes a BGP gateway learns from one BGP peer to all other BGP peers. Diagram Pre-Requisite Firewall Network: Firewall with three interfaces (Public, Private, Management). Here, the LAB has configured with VM-series Palo Alto firewall. Azure VPN Network: Test VM, Gateway Subnet Test Network Connected to Firewall Network: Azure VM with UDR pointing to Firewall's Internal Interface. The test network should be peered with firewall network. Configuration Part 1: Configure Azure VPN with BGP enabled Create Virtual Network Gateway from marketplace Provide Name, Gateway type (VPN), VPN SKU, VNet (with dedicated Gateway Subnet), Public IP Enable BGP and provide AS number Create Note: Azure will auto provision a local BGP peer with an IP address from Gateway Subnet. After deployment the configuration will look similar to below. Make a note of Public IP and BGP Peer IP generated, we need this while configuring VPN at remote end. Create Local Network Gateway Local Network Gateway represents the firewall VPN network Configuration where you should provide remote configuration parameters. Provide Name, Remote peer Public IP In the Address space specify remote BGP peer IP (/32) (Router ID in case of Palo Alto). Please note that if you are configuring static route instead of dynamic you should advertise entire remote network ranges which you want to communicate through VPN. Here BGP making this process much simpler. In Advanced tab enable BGP and provide remote ASN Number and BGP peer IP create Create Connections with default crypto profile Once the VPN Gateway and Local Network Gateway has provisioned you can build connection which represents IPsec and IKE configurations. Go to VPN GW and under Settings, Add Connection Provide Name, VPN Gateway, Local Network Gateway, Pre-Shared Key Enable BGP If Required, Modify IPsec and IKE Crypto setting, else leave it as default Create Completed the Azure end configuration, now we can move to firewall side. Part 2: Configure Palo Alto Firewall VPN with BGP enabled Create IKE Gateway with default IKE Crypto profile Provide IKE Version, Local VPN Interface, Peer IP, Pre-shared key Create IPSec Tunnel with default IPsec Crypto profile Create Tunnel Interface Create IPsec Tunnel: Provide tunnel Interface, IPsec Crypto profile, IKE Gateway Since we are configuring route-based VPN, tunnel interface is very necessary to route traffic which needed to be encrypted. By this configuration your tunnel should be UP Now finish the remaining BGP Configurations Configure a Loopback interface to represent BGP virtual router, we have provided 10.0.17.5 IP for the interface, which is a free IP from public subnet. Configure virtual router Redistribution Profile Configure Redistribution Profile as below, this configuration ensures what kind of routers needed to be redistributed to BGP peer routers Enable BGP and configure local BGP and peer BGP parameters Provide Router ID, AS number Make sure to enable Install Route Option Configure EBGP Peer Group and Peer with Local BGP Peer IP, Remote (Azure)BGP Peer IP and Remote (Azure) BGP ASN Number. Also Specify Redistribution profile, make sure to enable Allow Redistribute Default Route, if you need to propagate default route to BGP peer router Create Static route for Azure BGP peer, 10.0.1.254/32 Commit changes Test Results Now we can test the connectivity, we have already configured necessary NAT and default route in Firewall. You can see the propagated route in both azure VPN gateway and Palo Alto firewall. FW NAT Name Src Zone Dst Zone Destination Interface Destination Address Service NAT Action nattovm1 any Untrust any untrust_inteface_pub_ip 3389 DNAT to VM1 IP nattovm2 any Untrust any untrust_interface_pub_ip 3000 DNAT to VM2 IP natto internet any Untrust ethernet1/1 default 0.0.0.0/0 SNAT to Eth1/1 Stattic Route configured: Azure VPN GW Connection Status and Propagated routes Azure Test VM1 (10.0.0.4) Effective routes Palo Alto BGP Summary Palo Alto BGP connection status Palo Alto BGP Received Route Palo Alto BGP Propagated Route Final Forwarding table Ping and trace result from Test VM1 to test VM2 Conclusion: BGP simplifies the route advertisement process. There are many more configuration options that we can try in BGP to achieve smooth functioning of routing. BGP also enables automatic redundancy and high availability. Hence, it is always recommended to configure BGP when it comes to production-grade complex networking.
How to over-ride default route to another region, so that AVD/RDP traffic stays local to region?
I'm setting up an AVD Host Pool in Southeast Asia, for local users, but I need to set a default route on the Hostpool network so that all network traffic is routed via a peered VNet with our Azure Firewall located in West Europe (for Internet filtering, access to West Europe Systems, and also onwards to our on-prem systems in Europe). Now, I don't want the AVD/RDP traffic to be routed from SEA to West Europe and back to the users in Asia due to this default route - as this will kill the latency/performance of their connection. So, how do I configure a route to over-ride this default route for just the AVD/RDP traffic - so that goes out the local SEA Region's Microsoft Backbone directly to the users? I presume I need to create a route on the Hostpool network for the WindowsVirtualDesktop service tag - but I am not sure what to set the next hop type and destination boxes to. Is this correct, and if so, how should I configure it? Further, I note from this doc https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/safe-url-list?tabs=azure#session-host-virtual-machines - that there are a bunch of other services that AVD requires access to. Do I also need to route these out locally instead of allowing them to go via the default route to West Europe?Setting up an Azure Big IP F5 device
I've inherited an Azure F5 implementation. Below is the subnet layout. external 192.168.20.0/24 (234 Addresses) internal 192.168.30.0/24 (244 Addresses) *F5 Route configuration = Gateway 192.168.30.1 management 192.168.1.0/24 (244 Addresses) GatewaySubnet 192.168.0.0/26 (59 Addresses) Note: The *F5 Route configuration is a configuration item in the F5 operating system. The subnet layout and F5 configuration above is currently in production and functioning as expected. I've inherited the F5 subnet layout below. Looking at the subnet layout below, what is the "internal" subnet gateway? How is this determined? external 172.20.0.64/27 (32 addresses) internal 172.20.0.96/27 (32 addresses) Gateway Address (??????) management 172.20.7.0/24 (248 addresses) GatewaySubnet 172.20.0.0/26 (59 addresses) Subnet FAQ's Are there any restrictions on using IP addresses within these subnets? Yes. Azure reserves 5 IP addresses within each subnet. These are x.x.x.0-x.x.x.3 and the last address of the subnet. x.x.x.1-x.x.x.3 is reserved in each subnet for Azure services. x.x.x.0: Network address x.x.x.1: Reserved by Azure for the default gateway x.x.x.2, x.x.x.3: Reserved by Azure to map the Azure DNS IPs to the VNet space x.x.x.255: Network broadcast address
