Azure Cloud Service - Enable Remote Desktop Using Azure Management Portal

This article is a part of a series of articles related to one of the Azure Compute options- “Cloud Services”.
Here is the list of other articles of this series.

• Azure Cloud Service Introduction
  
• Azure Cloud Services - Create Hello World Cloud Service Using Visual Studio
  
• Azure Cloud Service Examine Files
  
• Azure Cloud Service – Add existing Web Application to Cloud Service
  
• Azure Cloud Service – Compute Emulator
  
• Azure Cloud Service - Create Package using Visual Studio
  
• Azure Cloud Service – Create a new Cloud Service using Azure Management Portal
  
• Azure Cloud Service – Deploy Cloud Service using Azure Management Portal
  
• Azure Cloud Service – Create Staging Slot using Azure Management Portal
  
• Azure Cloud Service – VIP Swap using Azure Management Portal
  
• Azure Cloud Service – Delete Slot using Azure Management Portal.
  
• Azure Cloud Service – Scale up Instance Size
  
• Azure Cloud Service – Scale Out Instances using Visual Studio
• Azure Cloud Service – Enable Remote Desktop using Visual Studio

In our previous articles, we have learned how to create, deploy, and scale up the size of the required VMs. In this article, we will learn how to log into the VMs that are created within the Cloud Service using the Remote Desktop.

Below is the screenshot that provides details of the Virtual Machines that got created after we deployed the application to the cloud service. For more details on how to deploy the Cloud Service to Azure, please read Azure Cloud Service – Deploy Cloud Service using Azure Management Portal.



Let’s say, you would like to log into these Virtual Machines to perform some additional configuration (You can install third party components as well into these Virtual Machines). By default, you cannot do so because the Remote Desktop is disabled for these VMs.

Let’s see how to enable Remote Desktop for these VMs of the Cloud Service.

Log into the Azure Management portal and navigate to the Cloud Service, as shown below.



In the Settings blade, click on the “Remote Desktop” option to navigate to the following screen.



You can either enable the “Remote Desktop” to “All Roles” or a “Single Role” (by selecting a role in the “Roles” dropdown).

For this example, I selected “All Roles” and clicked on “Enabled”. As soon as we select “Enabled”, you will be prompted to provide Username, Password, and expiry date for this login.



You also need to choose a certificate (for this example, we selected a self-signed certificate.). Please have a look at “Azure – Create Self Signed Certificate using Visual Studio” for more details on how to create a Self-Signed certificate.

Once you provide all the required field, click on “Save” button. After a few seconds, the Remote Desktop Settings will be saved.

Click on any of the instances shown above. For this example, I clicked on “FrontEnd.Web_IN_0” VM to navigate to the Instance blade as shown below.



Now, click on the “Connect” button to download the RDP file and provide the credentials, as shown below.



Clicking on the “OK” button will let you log into the VM of the selected Role.



That’s it. You have learned how to enable Remote Desktop for your Virtual machine. Hope you enjoyed reading the article. Your feedback is appreciated.