Quickstart: Create an Azure Front Door using Azure PowerShell

In this quickstart, you learn how to create an Azure Front Door profile using Azure PowerShell. You use two Web Apps as your origin and verify connectivity through the Azure Front Door endpoint hostname.

Prerequisites

• An Azure account with an active subscription. Create an account for free.
• Azure PowerShell installed locally or Azure Cloud Shell.

Azure Cloud Shell

Azure hosts Azure Cloud Shell, an interactive shell environment that you can use through your browser. You can use either Bash or PowerShell with Cloud Shell to work with Azure services. You can use the Cloud Shell preinstalled commands to run the code in this article, without having to install anything on your local environment.

To start Azure Cloud Shell:

Option	Example/Link
Select Try It in the upper-right corner of a code or command block. Selecting Try It doesn't automatically copy the code or command to Cloud Shell.
Go to https://shell.azure.com, or select the Launch Cloud Shell button to open Cloud Shell in your browser.
Select the Cloud Shell button on the menu bar at the upper right in the Azure portal.

To use Azure Cloud Shell:

1. Start Cloud Shell.

2. Select the Copy button on a code block (or command block) to copy the code or command.

3. Paste the code or command into the Cloud Shell session by selecting Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows and Linux, or by selecting Cmd+Shift+V on macOS.

4. Select Enter to run the code or command.

Create a resource group

Create a resource group with New-AzResourceGroup:

New-AzResourceGroup -Name myRGFD -Location centralus

Create two web app instances

Create two web app instances in different Azure regions using New-AzWebApp:

# Create first web app in Central US region.
$webapp1 = New-AzWebApp `
    -Name "WebAppContoso-01" `
    -Location centralus `
    -ResourceGroupName myRGFD `
    -AppServicePlan myAppServicePlanCentralUS

# Create second web app in East US region.
$webapp2 = New-AzWebApp `
    -Name "WebAppContoso-02" `
    -Location EastUS `
    -ResourceGroupName myRGFD `
    -AppServicePlan myAppServicePlanEastUS

Create an Azure Front Door

Create an Azure Front Door profile

Run New-AzFrontDoorCdnProfile to create an Azure Front Door profile:

$fdprofile = New-AzFrontDoorCdnProfile `
    -ResourceGroupName myRGFD `
    -Name contosoAFD `
    -SkuName Premium_AzureFrontDoor `
    -Location Global

Add an endpoint

Run New-AzFrontDoorCdnEndpoint to create an endpoint in your profile:

$FDendpoint = New-AzFrontDoorCdnEndpoint `
    -EndpointName contosofrontend `
    -ProfileName contosoAFD `
    -ResourceGroupName myRGFD `
    -Location Global

Create an origin group

Create health probe and load balancing settings, then create an origin group using New-AzFrontDoorCdnOriginGroup:

# Create health probe settings
$HealthProbeSetting = New-AzFrontDoorCdnOriginGroupHealthProbeSettingObject `
    -ProbeIntervalInSecond 60 `
    -ProbePath "/" `
    -ProbeRequestType GET `
    -ProbeProtocol Http

# Create load balancing settings
$LoadBalancingSetting = New-AzFrontDoorCdnOriginGroupLoadBalancingSettingObject `
    -AdditionalLatencyInMillisecond 50 `
    -SampleSize 4 `
    -SuccessfulSamplesRequired 3

# Create origin group
$originpool = New-AzFrontDoorCdnOriginGroup `
    -OriginGroupName og `
    -ProfileName contosoAFD `
    -ResourceGroupName myRGFD `
    -HealthProbeSetting $HealthProbeSetting `
    -LoadBalancingSetting $LoadBalancingSetting

Add origins to the group

Add your Web App origins to the origin group using New-AzFrontDoorCdnOrigin:

# Add first web app origin to origin group.
$origin1 = New-AzFrontDoorCdnOrigin `
    -OriginGroupName og `
    -OriginName contoso1 `
    -ProfileName contosoAFD `
    -ResourceGroupName myRGFD `
    -HostName webappcontoso-01.azurewebsites.net `
    -OriginHostHeader webappcontoso-01.azurewebsites.net `
    -HttpPort 80 `
    -HttpsPort 443 `
    -Priority 1 `
    -Weight 1000

# Add second web app origin to origin group.
$origin2 = New-AzFrontDoorCdnOrigin `
    -OriginGroupName og `
    -OriginName contoso2 `
    -ProfileName contosoAFD `
    -ResourceGroupName myRGFD `
    -HostName webappcontoso-02.azurewebsites.net `
    -OriginHostHeader webappcontoso-02.azurewebsites.net `
    -HttpPort 80 `
    -HttpsPort 443 `
    -Priority 1 `
    -Weight 1000

Add a route

Map your endpoint to the origin group using New-AzFrontDoorCdnRoute:

$Route = New-AzFrontDoorCdnRoute `
    -EndpointName contosofrontend `
    -Name defaultroute `
    -ProfileName contosoAFD `
    -ResourceGroupName myRGFD `
    -ForwardingProtocol MatchRequest `
    -HttpsRedirect Enabled `
    -LinkToDefaultDomain Enabled `
    -OriginGroupId $originpool.Id `
    -SupportedProtocol Http,Https

Test the Azure Front Door

After you create the Azure Front Door profile, it takes a few minutes for the configuration to be deployed globally. Once completed, access the frontend host you created.

Run Get-AzFrontDoorCdnEndpoint to get the hostname of the Azure Front Door endpoint:

$fd = Get-AzFrontDoorCdnEndpoint `
    -EndpointName contosofrontend `
    -ProfileName contosoafd `
    -ResourceGroupName myRGFD

$fd.hostname

In a browser, go to the endpoint hostname: contosofrontend-<hash>.z01.azurefd.net. Your request is routed to the web app with the lowest latency in the origin group.

To test instant global failover:

1. Open a browser and go to the endpoint hostname: contosofrontend-<hash>.z01.azurefd.net.

2. Stop one of the Web Apps by running Stop-AzWebApp:

   Stop-AzWebApp -ResourceGroupName myRGFD -Name "WebAppContoso-01"
   

3. Refresh your browser. You should see the same information page.

4. Stop the other web app:

   Stop-AzWebApp -ResourceGroupName myRGFD -Name "WebAppContoso-02"
   

5. Refresh your browser. This time, you should see an error message.

   

6. Restart one of the Web Apps by running Start-AzWebApp. Refresh your browser and the page go back to normal:

   Start-AzWebApp -ResourceGroupName myRGFD -Name "WebAppContoso-01"
   

Clean up resources

When you no longer need the resources created with the Azure Front Door, delete the resource group. This action deletes the Azure Front Door and all its related resources. Run Remove-AzResourceGroup:

Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name myRGFD

Next steps

To learn how to add a custom domain to your Azure Front Door, continue to the Azure Front Door tutorials.