How to allow outbound traffic on internal load balancer

Question

I have several machines in a backend pool associated with an internal load balancer. However, they currently do not have outbound access. The documentation seems to indicate that I should be able to create a public load balancer and attach the same backend pool with it so that I can have outbound access from those machines. However, when I create a public load balancer, I don't have the option of associating it with an existing pool, and when I try to create a new backend pool for the public LB I can't associate those machines with it. Neither machine has a public IP address. From the dashboard it shows:

where all the interesting info is cut off. What am I missing?

Answer 1

Even VM's in the backend pool of an ILB should have a default outbound IP. If you don't have outbound access have you checked the security group rules to make sure outbound traffic is allowed?

Answer 2

I'm afraid you can't do this on the same LB for both inbound & outbound traffic.

1. If you happen to use the Basic SKU, VMs behind the LB have internet access as outbound connections are NAT'ed by Azure. But, all VMs have to be in the same AZ. This wasn't a great idea & we declined it
2. If you use a Standard SKU, outbound connections to the internet are not possible. We learned this after many failed & painful attempts. More details here
3. As discussed in the above link, attaching a public IP to each VM nic isn't a good idea either
4. What worked for us is to create another LoadBalancer specifically for outbound connections, attach public IP to that LB & configure outbound rules. More details here