Internet access for your VMs in Azure (due 2025)

[dougbu]

We received notification that default outbound access for Azure VMs will be retired on 30 September 2025. We have until then to adjust.

As noted in a DNCEng email thread, we use outbound HTTPS connections extensively. E.g., helix-scripts/ get new work items, download correlation and work item payloads, and report test results using outbound connections. Similarly, tests that run on Helix VMs and builds in 1ES pools frequently use dotnet restore (our public feeds are actually public 😁).

Release Note Category

• Feature changes/additions
• Bug fixes
• Internal Infrastructure Improvements

Release Note Description

We did a scary thingy 😬

[premun]

How about VMs used by SF clusters? Like where the Helix service or Maestro run? Possibly those might be affected as well?

[dougbu]

@premun from what the email said, this will affect all VMs. The requirement is to make that access explicit using e.g., Azure NAT Gateway, Azure Load Balancer outbound rules, or a directly attached Azure public IP address.