How to Enable Accelerated Networking for Existing Linux VM

At the time this article was written, Azure guidance limited accelerated networking to newly created NICs. Refer to Create a Linux virtual machine with Accelerated Networking for current requirements and instructions for supported existing VMs.

Accelerated networking can only be enabled for a new NIC. It cannot be enabled for an existing NIC.

The following is the historical image-based workaround for an existing Linux VM. Do not use it as the first option today: check whether accelerated networking can be enabled on the existing NIC after deallocating the VM.

Warning: Deprovisioning removes machine-specific configuration and, with +user, the provisioned user account. Generalizing a VM prevents restarting the original VM. Back up the workload and use a disposable copy if following this procedure.

1. Log in to this VM and run:

sudo waagent -deprovision+user

2. After that, from Azure CLI command prompt, run

az vm deallocate --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM

az vm generalize --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM

az image create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myImage --source myVM

3. Now we can use the image to create a new VM with accelerated networking:

az network vnet create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVnet --address-prefix 192.168.0.0/16 --subnet-name mySubnet --subnet-prefix 192.168.1.0/24

az network nsg create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myNetworkSecurityGroup

az network nsg rule create --resource-group myResourceGroup --nsg-name myNetworkSecurityGroup --name Allow-SSH-Internet --access Allow --protocol Tcp --direction Inbound --priority 100 --source-address-prefix Internet --source-port-range "" --destination-address-prefix "" --destination-port-range 22

az network public-ip create --name myPublicIp --resource-group myResourceGroup

az network nic create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myNic --vnet-name myVnet --subnet mySubnet --accelerated-networking true --public-ip-address myPublicIp --network-security-group myNetworkSecurityGroup

az vm create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myNewVM --image myImage --size Standard_DS4_v2 --admin-username azureuser --generate-ssh-keys --nics myNic