Service Bus configuration and TCP Port opening

Question

Hi All,

I have one doubt. Azure service bus is used for accesing on-premise applications those are behind firewall and we don't want to open firewall for those applications so that it becomes available to outside world.

That means to avoid security threat we put applications behind firewall and to access such firewall protected applications in azure hosted application we use service bus.

However, I have found that, for using service bus sample application of 1.5 - Mesaging with topics; we need to open firewall port  or VLAN Port 9354. So this is contradictory to the main motive of service bus. We need to open firewall ports to access service bus.

Any explainations? I may be wrong in my understanding.

Regards,

Kunal

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Answer 1

I don't know which sample you're talking about. But I've run most AppFabric 1.5 SDK samples, including samples talking about queues and message buffers. I never see this error. I haven't opened port 9354. You only need to open standard TCP ports such as 808 to use Service Bus. And if you want to use http, you only need to open port 80.

Check if you have other connection issues that are not solved by Service Bus, such as proxy server.

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Sining Oh Blue Star

Answer 2

SALX,

My question is, if service bus is used for accessing applications sitting behind firewall then why we need to open ports in firewall irrespective of TCP or HTTP? Is it not the violation of service bus feature?

Regards,

Kunal

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Answer 3

You still need to connect to the internet. The way Service Bus works is your server acts as an internet client. So in the minimum, you should be able to make HTTP/TCP requests to the Service Bus service which is an internet service. If you use HTTP, it means your firewall should at least allow outbound connections on port 80 (similar to what you do to allow the machine to browse web sites). If the machine is completely isolated from internet, even Service Bus cannot help.

But you shouldn't need to open port 9354.

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Sining Oh Blue Star

Answer 4

I found next (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee706729) :

To use the Service Bus relay, ensure that your firewall allows outgoing TCP communication on TCP ports 9350 to 9354. For Service Bus brokered messaging, use port 9354.

which seems to contradicts Service Bus features listed on http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh690929.aspx

- Securely exposes to external callers Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)-based Web services that are running behind firewalls and NAT routers -- without requiring you to open any inbound ports or otherwise change firewall and router configurations.

Can anyone clarify?

VB