Connect to a Windows VM using Azure Bastion

Azure Bastion provides secure and seamless RDP connectivity to your virtual machines directly in the Azure portal, without exposing a public IP address.

Prerequisite: The target VM must have the Windows Remote Desktop service enabled and be attached to a virtual network that has an Azure Bastion host deployed.

1. Verify Bastion Host Deployment

Make sure a Bastion host exists in the same Virtual Network (VNet) as the target VM.

az network bastion show \
    --name MyBastion \
    --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
    --query "provisioningState"

2. Open the Azure Portal

  1. Navigate to https://portal.azure.com.
  2. Select Virtual machines from the left menu.
  3. Choose the Windows VM you want to connect to.

3. Initiate the RDP Session

  1. On the VM overview page, click Connect → Bastion.
  2. If prompted, select the Bastion host you deployed.
  3. Enter the VM’s local administrator credentials and click Connect.

The RDP session opens in a new browser tab using an HTML5 client.

4. Optional: Use Azure CLI for Bastion RDP

You can also start an RDP session from the command line.

az network bastion rdp \
    --name MyBastion \
    --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
    --target-resource-id $(az vm show -g MyResourceGroup -n MyWindowsVM --query id -o tsv) \
    --auth-type password \
    --username azureuser \
    --password MyPassword

5. Verify Connectivity

Once connected, you should see the Windows desktop of the VM. Perform any administrative tasks as needed.

Troubleshooting