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Windows activation fails in forced tunneling scenario

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  • 3 minutes to read

This article describes how to resolve the KMS activation problem that you might experience when you enable forced tunneling in site-to-site VPN connection or ExpressRoute scenarios.

Symptom

You enable forced tunneling on Azure virtual network subnets to direct all Internet-bound traffic back to your on-premises network. In this scenario, the Azure virtual machines (VMs) that run Windows fail to activate Windows.

Cause

The Azure Windows VMs need to connect to the Azure KMS server for Windows activation. The activation requires that the activation request come from an Azure public IP address. In the forced tunneling scenario, the activation fails because the activation request comes from your on-premises network instead of from an Azure public IP address.

Solution

To resolve this problem, use the Azure custom route to route activation traffic to the Azure KMS server.

The IP address of the KMS server for the Azure Global cloud is 23.102.135.246. Its DNS name is kms.core.windows.net. If you use other Azure platforms such as Azure Germany, you must use the IP address of the corresponding KMS server. For more information, see the following table:

Platform KMS DNS KMS IP
Azure Global kms.core.windows.net 23.102.135.246
Azure Germany kms.core.cloudapi.de 51.4.143.248
Azure US Government kms.core.usgovcloudapi.net 23.97.0.13
Azure China 21Vianet kms.core.chinacloudapi.cn 42.159.7.249

To add the custom route, follow these steps:

For Resource Manager VMs

Note

Activation uses public IP addresses and will be affected by a Standard SKU Load Balancer configuration. Carefully review Outbound connections in Azure to learn about the requirements.

  1. Open Azure PowerShell, and then sign in to your Azure subscription.

  2. Run the following commands:

    # First, get the virtual network that hosts the VMs that have activation problems. In this case, we get virtual network ArmVNet-DM in Resource Group ArmVNet-DM:

$vnet = Get-AzVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName "ArmVNet-DM" -Name "ArmVNet-DM"

# Next, create a route table and specify that traffic bound to the KMS IP (23.102.135.246) will go directly out:

$RouteTable = New-AzRouteTable -Name "ArmVNet-DM-KmsDirectRoute" -ResourceGroupName "ArmVNet-DM" -Location "centralus"

Add-AzRouteConfig -Name "DirectRouteToKMS" -AddressPrefix 23.102.135.246/32 -NextHopType Internet -RouteTable $RouteTable

Set-AzRouteTable -RouteTable $RouteTable

# Next, attach the route table to the subnet that hosts the VMs

Set-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name "Subnet01" -VirtualNetwork $vnet -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/24" -RouteTable $RouteTable

Set-AzVirtualNetwork -VirtualNetwork $vnet

  3. Go to the VM that has activation problems. Use PsPing to test if it can reach the KMS server:

    psping kms.core.windows.net:1688

  4. Try to activate Windows, and see if the problem is resolved.

For Classic VMs

Important

Classic VMs will be retired on March 1, 2023.

If you use IaaS resources from ASM, please complete your migration by March 1, 2023. We encourage you to make the switch sooner to take advantage of the many feature enhancements in Azure Resource Manager.

For more information, see Migrate your IaaS resources to Azure Resource Manager by March 1, 2023.

  1. Open Azure PowerShell, and then sign in to your Azure subscription.

  2. Run the following commands:

    # First, create a new route table:
New-AzureRouteTable -Name "VNet-DM-KmsRouteGroup" -Label "Route table for KMS" -Location "Central US"

# Next, get the route table that was created:
$rt = Get-AzureRouteTable -Name "VNet-DM-KmsRouteTable"

# Next, create a route:
Set-AzureRoute -RouteTable $rt -RouteName "AzureKMS" -AddressPrefix "23.102.135.246/32" -NextHopType Internet

# Apply the KMS route table to the subnet that hosts the problem VMs (in this case, we apply it to the subnet that's named Subnet-1):
Set-AzureSubnetRouteTable -VirtualNetworkName "VNet-DM" -SubnetName "Subnet-1" 
-RouteTableName "VNet-DM-KmsRouteTable"

  3. Go to the VM that has activation problems. Use PsPing to test if it can reach the KMS server:

    psping kms.core.windows.net:1688

  4. Try to activate Windows, and see if the problem is resolved.

Next steps

Contact us for help

If you have questions or need help, create a support request, or ask Azure community support.