Transitive Behaviour

Lab Overview

Now that we have successfully setup a virtual network peering, let’s see how transitive peering works.

Lab Diagram

Create a vNet

We will use CLI to create a virtual network vnet2, add a subnet vnet2-subnet1 and add a virtual machine vnet2-vm1 in the subnet.

1. Define variables

   ResourceGroup=rg-lab
   VnetName=vnet2
   VnetPrefix=10.2.0.0/16
   SubnetName=vnet2-subnet1
   SubnetPrefix=10.2.1.0/24
   Location=westus2
   

2. Create a virtual network vnet2, with one subnet vnet2-subnet1

   az network vnet create -g $ResourceGroup -n $VnetName --address-prefix $VnetPrefix --subnet-name $SubnetName --subnet-prefix $SubnetPrefix -l $Location
   

Attach the NSG

1. Add another variable

   Nsg=nsg1
   

2. Attach the NSG to vnet2-subnet1

   az network vnet subnet update -g $ResourceGroup -n $SubnetName --vnet-name $VnetName --network-security-group $Nsg
   

Create a VM

1. Additional variables

   VmName=vnet2-vm1
   SubnetName=vnet2-subnet1
   AdminUser=azureuser
   AdminPassword=Azure123456!
   

   Note: The above parameters provide a username and password for simplicity. Please create a user with a strong password known only to you!

2. Create a virtual machine

   az vm create --resource-group $ResourceGroup --name $VmName --image UbuntuLTS --vnet-name $VnetName --subnet $SubnetName  --admin-username $AdminUser --admin-password $AdminPassword
   

Peer virtual networks

Next, let’s peer virtual networks vnet-hub and vnet2.

1. In the Search box at the top of the Azure portal, begin typing vnet2. When vnet2 appears in the search results, select it.

2. Go to Settings  Peerings, and then select + Add, as shown in the following picture:

   

3. Enter, or select, the following information, accept the defaults for the remaining settings, and then select OK.

   Setting	Value
   Name of the peering from vnet1 to remote vNet	peer-vnet2-to-vnet-hub
   Subscription	Select your subscription
   Virtual network	vnet-hub
   Name of the peering from vnet-hub to vnet1	peer-vnet-hub-to-vnet2
   Allow forwarded traffic from vnet1 to vnet-hub	Enabled
   Allow forwarded traffic from vnet-hub to vnet1	Enabled

   Verify the peering status. This should show as Connected.

4. Verify the routes in vnet2.

   Go to the virtual machine vnet2-vm1 page and go to Settings → Networking tab.

   Click on the network interface name and go to Support + troubleshooting → Effective Routes. You should be able to see a route to the vnet-hub network 10.0.0.0/16 with Next Hop Type as VNet Peering.

Verify reachability between the peered vnets:

Let’s try to reach virtual machines across the two peers.

1. From the Azure portal, go to the Virtual machines page

2. Note the Public IP of VM vnet2-vm1

3. Note the private IP of VM vnet-hub-vm1

4. Connect to virtual machine vnet2-vm1 using its public IP

   ssh <username>@<Public_IP_of_VM>
   

5. Ping private IP of virtual machine vnet-hub-vm1

6. Verify pings are successful

Transitive Peering

So far, we have a hub and spoke topology where we have vnet-hub connected to vnet1 and vnet-hub also connected to vnet2. Note that vnet1 and vnet2 are not directly peered. Let’s check connectivity between virtual networks vnet1 and vnet2.

1. From the Azure portal, go to the Virtual machines page

2. Note the Public IP of VM vnet2-vm1

3. Note the private IP of VM vnet1-vm-mgmt1

4. Connect to virtual machine vnet2-vm1 using its public IP

   ssh <username>@<Public_IP_of_VM>
   

5. Ping private IP of virtual machine vnet1-vm-mgmt1

• Were you able to ping successfully?

Conclusion

The connectivity between vnet1 and vnet2 does not work because transitive peering is not allowed.

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