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Microsoft Azure

This tutorial provides information on how to connect Cloudflare Magic WAN to your Azure Virtual Network, using the Azure Virtual Network Gateway.

​​ Prerequisites

You will need to have an existing Resource group, Virtual Network, and Virtual Machine created in your Azure account. Refer to Microsoft’s documentation to learn more on how to create these.

​​ Configure Azure

​​ 1. Create a Gateway subnet

You should already have a Virtual Network (VNET) created with a subnet assigned to it. The next step is to create a gateway subnet that Azure will use for addressing services related to Azure’s Virtual Network Gateway.

  1. Go to your Virtual Network > Subnets.
  2. Select the option to add a Gateway subnet.
  3. Configure the subnet address range. The gateway subnet must be contained by the address space of the virtual network, and have a subnet mask of /27 or greater.
  4. Make sure all other settings are set to None.

​​ 2. Create a Virtual Network Gateway

The Virtual Network Gateway is used to form the tunnel to the devices on your premises.

  1. Create a Virtual Network Gateway.
  2. Create a new public IP address or use an existing IP. Take note of the public IP address assigned to the Virtual Network Gateway as this will be the Customer endpoint for Magic WAN’s IPsec tunnels configuration.
  3. Select the resource group and VNET you have already created.
  4. In Configuration, disable Active-active mode and Gateway Private IPs.
  5. Select Create.

​​ 3. Create a Local Network Gateway

The Local Network Gateway typically refers to your on-premises location. In this case, the Local Network Gateway represents the Cloudflare side of the connection.

We recommend creating two Local Network Gateways - one for each of the two Cloudflare Anycast IPs associated with your Magic WAN account.

  1. Create a new local network gateway.
  2. In Anycast, select IP address and enter the Cloudflare Anycast address.
  3. In Address space, specify the address range of any subnets you wish to access remotely via the Magic WAN connection. For example, if you want to reach a network with an IP range of 192.168.1.0/24, and this network is connected to your Magic WAN tenant, you would add 192.168.1.0/24 to the local network gateway address space.
  4. Go to the Advanced tab > BGP settings, and make sure you select No.

Repeat this process to create a Local Network Gateway to represent the redundant Cloudflare Anycast IP address.

​​ 4. Configure Local Network Gateway for Magic IPsec tunnel health checks

Magic WAN uses Tunnel Health Checks to ensure the tunnel is available.

Tunnel health checks make use of ICMP probes sent from the Cloudflare side of the Magic IPsec tunnel to the remote endpoint (Azure).

There is an important distinction between how to configure Cloudflare and Azure to support the health checks:

  • Magic IPsec Tunnel configuration settings requires specifying a discrete IP address (/31 netmask recommended)
  • Azure Local Network Gateway settings require specifying a subnet (in CIDR notation)

Cloudflare recommends customers select a unique /31 subnet ( RFC 1918 - Address Allocation for Private Internets) for each IPsec tunnel which is treated as a Point-to-Point Link and provides the ideal addressing scheme to satisfy both requirements.

Example:

10.252.3.54/31 - Define as the subnet (in CIDR notation) in Azure Local Network Gateway in the Azure Portal.
10.252.3.55/31 - Define as the discrete IP Address assigned to the Interface Address (VTI - Virtual Tunnel Interface) of the Magic IPsec Tunnel in the Cloudflare Dashboard (see Configure Magic WAN below).

To configure the Address Space for the Local Network Gateway to support Tunnel Health Checks:

  1. Edit the Local Network Gateway configured in the previous section.
  2. Select Connections.
  3. Add the/31 subnet in CIDR notation (for example, 10.252.3.54/31) under Address Space(s).
  4. Select Save.

Repeat this process to define the Address Space on the Local Network Gateway corresponding to the redundant Cloudflare Anycast IP address.

​​ 5. Create an IPsec VPN Connection

Choose the following settings when creating your VPN Connection:

  1. Virtual network gateway: Select the Virtual Network Gateway you have created in step 2.
  2. Local network gateway: Select the Local Network Gateway created in step 3.
  3. Use Azure Private IP Address: Disabled
  4. BGP: Disabled
  5. IPsec / IKE policy: Custom
    1. IKE Phase 1
      1. Encryption: GCMAES256 or AES256
      2. Integrity/PRF: SHA256
      3. DH Group: DHGroup14
    2. IKE Phase 2(IPsec)
      1. IPsec Encryption: GCMAES256 or AES256
      2. IPsec Integrity: SHA256
      3. PFS Group: PFS2048
    3. IPsec SA lifetime in KiloBytes: 0
    4. IPsec SA lifetime in seconds: 27000
    5. Use policy based traffic selector: Disable
    6. DPD timeout in seconds: 45
    7. Connection mode: Default
    8. Use custom traffic selectors: Disabled
  6. After the connection is created, select Settings > Authentication, and input your PSK (this will need to match the PSK used by the Magic WAN configuration).

Repeat this process to define the settings for the Connection to the Local Network Gateway that corresponds to the redundant Cloudflare Anycast IP address.

​​ 5. Define remote Magic WAN Sites

Use the Address Space settings within the Local Network Gateway objects to define the remote subnets within your Magic WAN environment.

  1. Navigate to Local network gateways and select the desired object.
  2. Navigate to Configuration then Address Space(s) and specify the remote subnets (in CIDR notation) corresponding to the remote subnets within your Magic WAN environment. For example, 192.168.1.0/24.
  3. Do not remove the subnet configured to support the Tunnel Health Checks.
  4. Select Save

Repeat this process to define the settings for the Connection to the Local Network Gateway that corresponds to the redundant Cloudflare Anycast IP address.

​​ 6. Route all Internet traffic through Magic WAN and Cloudflare Gateway

Cloudflare Zero Trust customers can route Internet-bound traffic through Magic WAN to the Internet through Cloudflare Gateway.

Microsoft does not permit specifying a default route (0.0.0.0/0) under Address Space in the Local Network Gateway. However, it is possible to work around this limitation through the use of route summarization.

  1. Go to Local network gateways and select the desired object.
  2. Go to Configuration > Address Space(s) and specify the following two subnets: 0.0.0.0/1 & 128.0.0.0/1.
  3. Do not remove the subnet configured to support the Tunnel Health Checks.
  4. Select Save

Repeat this process to define the settings for the Connection to the Local Network Gateway that corresponds to the redundant Cloudflare Anycast IP address.

​​ Install Cloudflare Zero Trust CA Certificate

If you opt to route all Internet bound traffic through Magic WAN and want to take advantage of HTTPS TLS decryption, it will be necessary to install and trust the Cloudflare Zero Trust root CA certificate on your user’s devices. You can either install the certificate provided by Cloudflare (default option), or generate your own custom certificate and upload it to Cloudflare.

More details on how to install the root CA certificate can be found in User-side certificates in the Cloudflare Zero Trust documentation.

Once the root CA certificate is installed, open a web browser or use curl to validate Internet connectivity:

$ curl https://ipinfo.io



{
  "ip": "104.xxx.xxx.225",
  "city": "Reston",
  "region": "Virginia",
  "country": "US",
  "loc": "xx.xxxx,-xx.xxxx",
  "org": "AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.",
  "postal": "20190",
  "timezone": "America/New_York",
  "readme": "https://ipinfo.io/missingauth"
}

​​ Configure Magic WAN

  1. Create an IPsec tunnel in the Cloudflare dashboard.
  2. For each tunnel, make sure that you have the following settings:
    1. Interface address: As the Azure Local Network Gateway will only permit specifying the lower IP address in a /31 subnet, add the upper IP address within the /31 subnet selected in step 4 of the Configure Azure section. Refer to Tunnel endpoints for more details.
    2. Customer endpoint: The Public IP associated with your Azure Virtual Network Gateway. For example, 40.xxx.xxx.xxx.
    3. Cloudflare endpoint: Use the Cloudflare Anycast address you have received from your account team. This will also be the IP address corresponding to the Local Network Gateway in Azure. For example, 162.xxx.xxx.xxx.
    4. Health check rate: Leave the default option (Medium) selected.
    5. Health check type: Leave the default option (Reply) selected.
    6. Health check direction: Leave default option.
    7. Add pre-shared key later: Select this option to create a PSK that will be used later in Azure.
    8. Replay protection: Enable.
  3. Create static routes for your Azure Virtual Network subnets, specifying the newly created tunnel as the next hop.

​​ Validate connectivity and disable Azure Virtual Network Gateway anti-replay protection

Once you have determined that connectivity has been established, Cloudflare recommends you disable anti-replay protection for the Azure Virtual Network Gateway site-to-site VPN connection. This can be accomplished through Microsoft Azure API.

  1. Determine the API token via PowerShell:
PS C:\home\user_name> Get-AzAccessToken


Token: eyJ0e<REDACTED>AH-PdSPg
ExpiresOn : 04/08/2024 23:32:47 +00:00
Type      : Bearer
TenantId  : xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
UserId    : user@domain.com
  1. Issue the API call to display the details of the site-to-site VPN Connection associated with the Azure Virtual Network Gateway (GET request):
curl --location 'https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}?api-version=2022-05-01' \

--header 'Authorization: Bearer eyJ0e<REDACTED>AH-PdSPg'
  1. Copy/paste the entire response into a text editor:
{
    "name": "{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}",
    "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}",
    "etag": "W/\"xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx\"",
    "type": "Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways",
    "location": "eastus"
    },
    "properties": {
        "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
        "resourceGuid": "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx",
        "packetCaptureDiagnosticState": "None",
        "enablePrivateIpAddress": false,
        "isMigrateToCSES": false,
        "ipConfigurations": [
            {
                "name": "default",
                "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}/ipConfigurations/default",
                "etag": "W/\"xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx\"",
                "type": "Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/ipConfigurations",
                "properties": {
                    "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
                    "privateIPAllocationMethod": "Dynamic",
                    "publicIPAddress": {
                        "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/{{virtualNetworkGatewayPublicIpAddress}}"
                    },
                    "subnet": {
                        "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}/subnets/GatewaySubnet"
                    }
                }
            }
        ],
        "natRules": [],
        "virtualNetworkGatewayPolicyGroups": [],
        "enableBgpRouteTranslationForNat": false,
        "disableIPSecReplayProtection": false,
        "sku": {
            "name": "VpnGw2AZ",
            "tier": "VpnGw2AZ",
            "capacity": 2
        },
        "gatewayType": "Vpn",
        "vpnType": "RouteBased",
        "enableBgp": false,
        "activeActive": false,
        "bgpSettings": {
            "asn": 65515,
            "bgpPeeringAddress": "172.25.40.30",
            "peerWeight": 0,
            "bgpPeeringAddresses": [
                {
                    "ipconfigurationId": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}/ipConfigurations/default",
                    "defaultBgpIpAddresses": [
                        "172.25.40.30"
                    ],
                    "customBgpIpAddresses": [],
                    "tunnelIpAddresses": [
                        "{{CF ANYCAST IP}}"
                    ]
                }
            ]
        },
        "gatewayDefaultSite": {
            "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/localNetworkGateways/{{localNetworkGatewayName}}"
        },
        "vpnGatewayGeneration": "Generation2",
        "allowRemoteVnetTraffic": false,
        "allowVirtualWanTraffic": false
    }

}
  1. Locate the line that controls disabling IPsec anti-replay protection, and change it from false to true:
"disableIPSecReplayProtection": true
  1. Upload the entire response in a subsequent API call (PUT request):
curl --location --request PUT \

'https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}?api-version=2022-05-01' \

--header "Authorization: Bearer eyJ0e<REDACTED>AH-PdSPg" \

--header "Content-Type: application/json" \

--data '{
    "name": "{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}",
    "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}",
    "etag": "W/\"xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx\"",
    "type": "Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways",
    "location": "eastus"
    },
    "properties": {
        "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
        "resourceGuid": "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx",
        "packetCaptureDiagnosticState": "None",
        "enablePrivateIpAddress": false,
        "isMigrateToCSES": false,
        "ipConfigurations": [
            {
                "name": "default",
                "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}/ipConfigurations/default",
                "etag": "W/\"xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx\"",
                "type": "Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/ipConfigurations",
                "properties": {
                    "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
                    "privateIPAllocationMethod": "Dynamic",
                    "publicIPAddress": {
                        "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/{{virtualNetworkGatewayPublicIpAddress}}"
                    },
                    "subnet": {
                        "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}/subnets/GatewaySubnet"
                    }
                }
            }
        ],
        "natRules": [],
        "virtualNetworkGatewayPolicyGroups": [],
        "enableBgpRouteTranslationForNat": false,
        "disableIPSecReplayProtection": true,
        "sku": {
            "name": "VpnGw2AZ",
            "tier": "VpnGw2AZ",
            "capacity": 2
        },
        "gatewayType": "Vpn",
        "vpnType": "RouteBased",
        "enableBgp": false,
        "activeActive": false,
        "bgpSettings": {
            "asn": 65515,
            "bgpPeeringAddress": "172.25.40.30",
            "peerWeight": 0,
            "bgpPeeringAddresses": [
                {
                    "ipconfigurationId": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways/{{virtualNetworkGatewayName}}/ipConfigurations/default",
                    "defaultBgpIpAddresses": [
                        "172.25.40.30"
                    ],
                    "customBgpIpAddresses": [],
                    "tunnelIpAddresses": [
                        "{{CF ANYCAST IP}}"
                    ]
                }
            ]
        },
        "gatewayDefaultSite": {
            "id": "/subscriptions/{{subscriptionId}}/resourceGroups/{{resourceGroupName}}/providers/Microsoft.Network/localNetworkGateways/{{localNetworkGatewayName}}"
        },
        "vpnGatewayGeneration": "Generation2",
        "allowRemoteVnetTraffic": false,
        "allowVirtualWanTraffic": false
    }
}'
  1. Leave the replay protection setting checked in the Cloudflare dashboard, and wait several minutes before validating connectivity again.

​​ Tunnel health checks and Azure

We have identified cases where the IPsec Tunnels configured on the Azure Virtual Network Gateway need to be restarted one time before the tunnel health checks start passing.

​​ Restart Azure tunnels

  1. Open the Virtual Network Gateway.
  2. Go to Settings > Connections.
  3. Open the properties of the tunnel.
  4. Go to Help > Reset.
  5. Select Reset.

It may take several minutes for the tunnels to reset from the Azure side. Monitor the tunnel health checks section in the Cloudflare dashboard to determine the status.