Azure Windows Virtual Machine Agent

Owned by Roger Cruz
Apr 25, 2021
1 min read

Intro

 

The Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine Agent (VM Agent) is a secure, lightweight process that manages virtual machine (VM) interaction with the Azure Fabric Controller. The VM Agent has a primary role in enabling and executing Azure virtual machine extensions. VM Extensions enable post-deployment configuration of VM, such as installing and configuring software. VM extensions also enable recovery features such as resetting the administrative password of a VM. Without the Azure VM Agent, VM extensions cannot be run.

 

Documentation

 

 

Tips and Tidbits

 

IP address 168.63.129.16 is a virtual public IP address that is used to facilitate a communication channel to Azure platform resources. Customers can define any address space for their private virtual network in Azure. Therefore, the Azure platform resources must be presented as a unique public IP address. This virtual public IP address facilitates the following things:

  • Enables the VM Agent to communicate with the Azure platform to signal that it is in a "Ready" state.

  • Enables communication with the DNS virtual server to provide filtered name resolution to the resources (such as VM) that do not have a custom DNS server. This filtering makes sure that customers can resolve only the hostnames of their resources.

  • Enables health probes from Azure load balancer to determine the health state of VMs.

  • Enables the VM to obtain a dynamic IP address from the DHCP service in Azure.

  • Enables Guest Agent heartbeat messages for the PaaS role.



 

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