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Nanda Kumar Kirubakaran
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Introduction:

With a CISCO ASA we can establish a site-to-site VPN between an on premises network and a Microsoft Azure Virtual Network. In this blog we’ll provide step-by-step procedure to establish site-to-site VPN (with Static Routing VPN Gateway) between Cisco ASA and Microsoft Azure Virtual Network.

Prerequisites

Cisco ASA

Topology

Creating S2S VPN in Azure Virtual Network

Creating virtual network

Creating gateway

Configure Cisco ASA

CISCO ASA 9.1 and above

Verifying ASA configuration

Establishing VPN

Verification

Virtual network side verification

On premises side Verification

Prerequisites:

Before we move on to configure site-to-site VPN, let’s make sure we have the minimum prerequisites to establish site-to-site VPN.

 

ASA Prerequisites:

1) We recommend ASA version 9.1 or above and the version can be verified with CLI “Show Version”.

2) AES Encryption License should be enabled. Make sure AES license is enabled on ASA, which can be verified using “Show version” or “Show version | include Encryption-3DES-AES” CLI on ASA.

 

Topology:

Use the below topology as a reference for site-to-site VPN configuration.

Azure virtual network address space:

192.168.10.0/24

ASA side network:

On-premises network inside network 10.10.10.0/24

 

 

Creating the Azure VPN

In this section, we’ll be creating a virtual network in the Azure portal.

 

Step 1: Create the virtual network:

After login to Azure portal, Click Network -> Click NEW -> CUSTOM CREATE

Step 2: Create new virtual network

Page 1: Virtual network details

In this first page fill in the name of virtual network and the location of your on premises network.

e.g. Name: My_First_Azure_Virtual_NW

       Location: East US 2

Click Next ->

Page 2: DNS Server and VPN Connectivity

At this point the DNS server detail is optional. Select check box “Configure a site-to-site VPN” and click Next ->

Page 3: Site-to-site Connectivity

In this page, fill in the name for on-premises and detail such as the ASA Outside (Public IP address) and Inside Network.

 

In our example:

Name: My_ASA (User defined name for the on-premises network)

VPN Device IP Address: 128.X.X.X (ASA outside interface IP (Public IP address)

Address: 10.10.10.1/24 (Your on-premises local network. Specify starting IP address of your network.)

Click Next ->


 

Page 4: Virtual Network Address Spaces

In this page you have to allocate IP address that will be used for Azure Virtual Network. In our e.g. 192.168.10.0/24 is used

 

Starting IP: 192.168.10.1 (Starting IP address of your Virtual Network)

CIDR: 24   (Subnet Mask for the IP range)

Subnets:

Subnet-1: 192.168.10.1 / 27 (This Network will be used for Virtual Host in Azure Virtual Network)

Gateway: 192.168.10.32 / 29 (This Network will be used for Virtual Azure Gateway)

Once done click complete.

It takes couple of minutes to create Virtual Network. Once created you’ll see created Virtual Network under Network.

Creating Gateway:

Once Virtual Network is created, we should create Gateway. Click on the newly created Virtual Network. e.g. Click “My_First_Azure_Virtual_NW”.

Click “Create GATEWAY” which is available in the bottom of the screen and choose Static Routing and click “YES”. It will take couple of minutes to create the gateway.

Once the gateway is created, the gateway IP address will be displayed in the dashboard.

Configuring Cisco ASA:

In this section we’ll configure site-to-site VPN on ASA 8.4 & 9.x and above.

 

Step 1: Access-list

Step 1a:

Create two object-group one with Azure Virtual Network subnet another object-group for On-Premises network, e.g.

 

object-group network azure-networks

description Azure-Virtual-Network

network-object 192.168.10.0 255.255.255.0

exit

object-group network onprem-networks

description On-premises Network

network-object 10.10.10.0 255.255.255.0

exit

 

Step 1b: Creating the access-list with the above object-group for identifying interesting traffic for the VPN.

access-list azure-vpn-acl extended permit ip object-group onprem-networks object-group azure-networks

Step 2: Creating Identity NAT

With same object-group create identity NAT for this VPN traffic

Nat (inside,outside) 1 source static onprem-networks onprem-networks destination static azure-networks azure-networks

Step 3: Configuring IKEv1 Internet Key Exchange

Creating IKEv1 policy parameters for phase I.

 

crypto ikev1 policy 5

authentication pre-share

encryption aes-256

hash sha

group 2

lifetime 28800 

crypto ikev1 enable outside  (Outside is the interface nameif)

Step 4: Configuring IPSec

Configuring IPSec parameters for Phase II.

In the below e.g. 104.x.x.x IP should be replaced by Gateway IP address, which is available under Network -> Virtual Network -> Click (Newly created Virtual Network) Under dashboard you’ll get “GATEWAY IP ADDRESS”

<Pre-Share-Key> should be replaced by Managed Share Key, which is available on same dashboard, click “Manage Key” available at bottom of the screen, copy “managed shared key” and replace “Pre-shared-key”

crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set azure-ipsec-proposal-set esp-aes-256 esp-sha-hmac

crypto ipsec security-association lifetime seconds 3600

crypto ipsec security-association lifetime kilobytes 102400000 

tunnel-group 104.x.x.x type ipsec-l2l

tunnel-group 104.x.x.x ipsec-attribute

ikev1 pre-shared-key <Pre-Shared-Key>

Step 5: Creating Crypto Map

Configure crypto map using below configuration, if your ASA already has existing crypto map use the same name with different priority number. Using “show run crypto map” CLI you can verify If ASA has existing crypto map, if it existing use same name instead of “azure-crypto-map”

crypto map azure-crypto-map 1 match address azure-vpn-acl

crypto map azure-crypto-map 1 set peer 104.x.x.x

crypto map azure-crypto-map 1 set ikev1 transform-set azure-ipsec-proposal-set

crypto map azure-crypto-map interface outside

Step 6: Adjusting TCPMMS value

To avoid fragmentation set TCPMMS value to 1350, use below CLI 

“sysopt connection tcpmss 1350”

 

Step 7: To preserver / Resume User session during Tunnel drop and recover

"sysopt connection preserve-vpn-flows"  

To avoid user connection drop during IPSec Tunnel drop and re-establish use above CLI.

ASA configuration is now complete!

ASA Configuration Summary

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::ASA Config Beginning:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

object-group network azure-networks

description Azure-Virtual-Network

network-object 192.168.10.0 255.255.255.0

exit

object-group network onprem-networks

description On-premises Network

network-object 10.10.10.0 255.255.255.0

exit

access-list azure-vpn-acl extended permit ip object-group onprem-networks object-group azure-networks

Nat (inside,outside) 1 source static onprem-networks onprem-networks destination static azure-networks azure-networks

crypto ikev1 policy 5

authentication pre-share

encryption aes-256

hash sha

group 2

lifetime 28800 

crypto ikev1 enable outside

crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set azure-ipsec-proposal-set esp-aes-256 esp-sha-hmac

crypto ipsec security-association lifetime seconds 3600

crypto ipsec security-association lifetime kilobytes 102400000 

tunnel-group 104.x.x.x type ipsec-l2l

tunnel-group 104.x.x.x ipsec-attribute

ikev1 pre-shared-key <Pre-Shared-Key>

crypto map azure-crypto-map 1 match address azure-vpn-acl

crypto map azure-crypto-map 1 set peer 104.x.x.x

crypto map azure-crypto-map 1 set ikev1 transform-set azure-ipsec-proposal-set

crypto map azure-crypto-map interface outside

“sysopt connection tcpmss 1350”

sysopt connection preserve-vpn-flows

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::END of ASA Config:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Verifying ASA configuration:

Once above configuration is completed, you can verify it 

Verifying Object-group and Access-list:

Using “show run object-group” and “show run access-list” to verify object-group and Access-list.

My-ASA(config)# show run object-group

object-group network azure-networks

network-object 192.168.10.0 255.255.255.0

object-group network onprem-networks

network-object 10.10.10.0 255.255.255.0

My-ASA(config)# show run access-list

access-list azure-vpn-acl extended permit ip object-group onprem-networks object-group azure-networks

 

Verifying Crypto configuration:

To verify all crypto configuration, use “show run crypto” to verify configured crypto CLI.

 

My-ASA(Config)#Show run crypto

crypto ipsec ikev1 transform-set azure-ipsec-proposal-set esp-aes-256 esp-sha-hmac

crypto ipsec security-association lifetime seconds 3600

crypto ipsec security-association lifetime kilobytes 102400000

crypto map azure-crypto-map 1 match address azure-vpn-acl

crypto map azure-crypto-map 1 set peer 104.X.X.X

crypto map azure-crypto-map 1 set ikev1 transform-set azure-ipsec-proposal-set

 

crypto map azure-crypto-map interface outside 

crypto ikev1 enable outside

crypto ikev1 policy 1

authentication pre-share

encryption aes-256

hash sha

group 2

lifetime 28800

Verify Tunnel group:

To verify tunnel group configuration, use CLI “Show run tunnel-group” 

My-ASA(config)# show run tunnel-group

tunnel-group 104.210.13.15 type ipsec-l2l

tunnel-group 104.210.13.15 ipsec-attributes

ikev1 pre-shared-key *****

My-ASA(config)#

Establishing VPN:

Once the virtual network is created on Azure portal and the ASA is configured, its time to establish the VPN. You can establish/start VPN by clicking “Connect” under the Virtual Network Dashboard.

Verification:

Verification on Azure Portal:

Once the VPN is established, Virtual Network Dashboard would appear as below.

Verification on Cisco ASA:

On ASA you can verify use CLI “Show Crypto isakmp”

The output should show “MM_ACTIVE”  

IKE Peer: 104.X.X.X

   Type   : L2L             Role   : responder

   Rekey   : no             State   : MM_ACTIVE

 

Also additionally you can verify using “Debug ICMP trace”. Once you enable this Debug, we can see ICMP echo request packet coming from Azure Virtual Network

“ ICMP echo request from outside:192.168.10.0 to inside:10.10.10.0 ID=1 seq=427 len=4 “ 

To Turn off Debug CLI “undebug all

Testing with Traffic:

In order to test VPN with traffic, create a Virtual Host in Azure network using the created Virtual Network address space. Virtual Host will get an on IP from Subnet-1 192.168.10.4 – 30 range. 

After turning off the firewall on the Virtual Host, you should be able to ping or RDP to the virtual host from host in on-premises network.

 

14 Comments
doroteo77
Level 1
Level 1

Great post!  Microsoft has a new deployment model called ARM.  I think it would be helpful to also show how to do this using that portal / tools as this portal will eventually be deprecated.

Michael Denny
Level 1
Level 1

Is it possible to have existing VPN's on the ASA then add the Azure VPN connection as a 3rd or 4th VPN connection?

Thanks nandakum, I'll try that.

Nanda Kumar Kirubakaran
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

You can, in the step 5, make sure you use your existing crypto map name and use unused sequence number.  

Michael Denny
Level 1
Level 1

Agreed

Ok, I was wrong - instructions work via this link (in your account of course)

https://manage.windowsazure.com

Nanda Kumar Kirubakaran
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Update one with latest Azure Deployment model.

https://supportforums.cisco.com/blog/12926156/site-site-vpn-between-cisco-asa-and-microsoft-azure-virtual-network-arm

Nanda Kumar Kirubakaran
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Check out new blog with MS Azure latest deployment model

https://supportforums.cisco.com/blog/12926156/site-site-vpn-between-cisco-asa-and-microsoft-azure-virtual-network-arm

Vahid Ali
Level 1
Level 1

Nice Article.

morgan.foust
Level 1
Level 1

If you want the tunnel to open when there's incoming traffic from the Azure side, you'll need to make the access-list in step 1b symmetrical:

access-list azure-vpn-acl extended permit ip object-group onprem-networks object-group azure-networks

access-list azure-vpn-acl extended permit ip object-group azure-networks object-group onprem-networks

If you don't add the second line, on-premises traffic can open the tunnel, but not traffic from Azure. show crypto isakmp will show the tunnel stuck in "MM_WAIT_MSG3" status and debug crypto isakmp will show "no matching crypto map entry" errors.

(BTW, I don't recommend running unfiltered debug commands on production environments. Use the conditionals described here to filter out unnecessary debug output: https://supportforums.cisco.com/blog/150056/ipsec-important-debugging-and-logging)

The tunnel VPN  is in flapping status .

you can see the attachment file for command " debug crypto ikev1 127" and "debuge crypto ipsec 127"

can you help me to solve the problem as soon as possible ?

Thanks

Nanda Kumar K ,

please, could you help me to solve the problem ?

Hi! Very detailed post thank you.

And what's about if my Radius/Syslog/CRL server is on outside interface? For ASA-ASA L2L I need to add additional line to crypto map (azure-vpn-acl) but not with Azure... Any ideas ?

mateens
Level 1
Level 1

Is VPN a must to use azure ?

Omid Rajaee
Level 1
Level 1

I think 9.1 is not working because I get this error: 

 

 

Phase: 5

Type: VPN

Subtype: ipsec-tunnel-flow

Result: DROP

Config:

Additional Information:

Forward Flow based lookup yields rule:

in  id=0xae2cbd68, priority=70, domain=ipsec-tunnel-flow, deny=false

        hits=13, user_data=0x0, cs_id=0xadf3d260, reverse, flags=0x0, protocol=0

        src ip/id=10.10.8.0, mask=255.255.252.0, port=0, tag=0

        dst ip/id=10.20.0.0, mask=255.255.0.0, port=0, tag=0, dscp=0x0

        input_ifc=Cust-OutSell, output_ifc=any

carlos.perez1
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Experts!
I have some problems when I'm doing a VPN to Azure, I see that Phase 1 is up but Phase 2 does not raise.

Someone has a similar problem or has already made connections to Azure from an ASA.

I am currently running an ASA 5525X with a version 9.6. (3) 1

I want to know if you have been successful making a VPN with Azure with that version of code 9.6.

I appreciate your comments,

 

Regards

Carlos P.

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