Kia Zhi Tang (Ryen Tang)

Kia Zhi Tang (Ryen Tang)

Technology Evangelist, Infrastructure as Code Developer, Automation Guru

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Troubleshooting Azure Virtual Desktop session host networking

2 minute read

Background

I have been spending weeks experimenting Azure Virtual Desktop with a custom image that incorporate with a VPN solution on the Windows 10 session host. After deployment, I experience remote desktop protocol (RDP) networking issue since the Windows 10 session host will establish a virtual private network (VPN) tunnel to special resources hosted some where else. My session host also didn’t manage to report to the host pool and I will need to troubleshooting the Windows 10 session host networking.

I came across to this documentation about Error: Azure Virtual Desktop agent isn’t reporting a heartbeat when running Get-AzWvdSessionHost and I begun to wonder how should I try this out on the session host when I cannot even establish a remote desktop connection into the host to manually download SysInternal suite and execute the psping command.

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Problem

How to validate if Azure Virtual Desktop agent is able to report heartbeat when I cannot establish remote desktop connection into the host?

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Solution

My solution ended up becoming a multiple weeks journey into developing an Az.DesktopVirtualization.Utility PowerShell module to complement the operation needs for troubleshooting with command line and use the Run Command capability from Azure Portal.

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Installing the module

In this example, the statement below will install the Az.DesktopVirtualization.Utility PowerShell module and its dependencies PowerShell module.

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Install-Module `
  -Name "Az.DesktopVirtualization" `
    , "Az.DesktopVirtualization.Utility" `
  -Force

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Importing the module

In this example, the statement below will import the installed Az.DesktopVirtualization.Utility PowerShell module for use.

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Import-Module `
  -Name "Az.DesktopVirtualization.Utility" `
  -Force

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Run the cmdlet

In this example, the statement below will perform a TCP network connectivity test to rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com.

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Test-AzWvdRDBrokerLatency `
  -Uri rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com `
  -Port 443 `
  -NumberOfPing 4 `
  -Verbose

With the -Verbose parameter, it will displays the output similar to psping and returns a PSObject on completion.

VERBOSE: TCP connect to 23.100.108.163 (rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com):443:
VERBOSE: 5 iterations (warmup 1) ping test:
VERBOSE: Connecting to (rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com) 23.100.108.163:443 (warmup): from 172.19.255.4:55325: 78.1412ms
VERBOSE: Connecting to (rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com) 23.100.108.163:443: from 172.19.255.4:55327: 78.1908ms
VERBOSE: Connecting to (rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com) 23.100.108.163:443: from 172.19.255.4:55328: 78.1164ms
VERBOSE: Connecting to (rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com) 23.100.108.163:443: from 172.19.255.4:55329: 78.1043ms
VERBOSE: Connecting to (rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com) 23.100.108.163:443: from 172.19.255.4:55330: 78.1184ms
VERBOSE: TCP connect statistics for (rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com) 23.100.108.163:443:
VERBOSE: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0.00%% loss),
VERBOSE: Minimum = 78.1043ms, Maximum = 78.1908ms, Average = 78.132475ms, Sum = 312.5299ms


DestinationUri         : rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com
DestinationDnsHostName : rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com
DestinationIPAddress   : 23.100.108.163
DestinationPort        : 443
Entries                : {@{Index=0; DestinationUri=rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com;
                         DestinationDnsHostName=rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com;
                         DestinationIPAddress=23.100.108.163; DestinationPort=443; SourceIPAddress=172.19.255.4;
                         SourcePort=55327; Status=Reachable; Latency(ms)=78.1908}, @{Index=1;
                         DestinationUri=rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com;
                         DestinationDnsHostName=rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com;
                         DestinationIPAddress=23.100.108.163; DestinationPort=443; SourceIPAddress=172.19.255.4;
                         SourcePort=55328; Status=Reachable; Latency(ms)=78.1164}, @{Index=2;
                         DestinationUri=rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com;
                         DestinationDnsHostName=rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com;
                         DestinationIPAddress=23.100.108.163; DestinationPort=443; SourceIPAddress=172.19.255.4;
                         SourcePort=55329; Status=Reachable; Latency(ms)=78.1043}, @{Index=3;
                         DestinationUri=rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com;
                         DestinationDnsHostName=rdbroker.wvdselfhost.microsoft.com;
                         DestinationIPAddress=23.100.108.163; DestinationPort=443; SourceIPAddress=172.19.255.4;
                         SourcePort=55330; Status=Reachable; Latency(ms)=78.1184}}
Sent                   : 4
Received               : 4
Lost                   : 0
LossPercentage%        : 0.00%
MinimumLatency(ms)     : 78.1043
MaximumLatency(ms)     : 78.1908
AverageLatency(ms)     : 78.132475
SumLatency(ms)         : 312.5299

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Conclusion

With this Test-AzWvdRDBrokerLatency cmdlet from the Az.DesktopVirtualization.Utility PowerShell module, it can be an alternative tool that is similar to executing psping command documented in Error: Azure Virtual Desktop agent isn’t reporting a heartbeat when running Get-AzWvdSessionHost documentation without the need to manually download and extract psping from the SysInternal suite for execution.

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What other benefits does this provide? It allows an operations team to execute this command remotely to assess the latency while the current user is working on his/her Personal Desktop session host and this cmdlet can also be used with Invoke-AzVMRunCommand or az vm run-command invoke commands.

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References

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