Configuring the eG Agent to Monitor Microsoft Azure Active Directory Using Microsoft Graph API

As already discussed, to achieve the above, you need to perform the following broad steps:

  1. Register an Application with an Azure AD Tenant;

  2. Determine the Tenant ID, the Application (Client) ID and Secret Key value associated with the registered Application;

  3. Assign API permissions to the registered Application;

The sub-sections below discuss each of these steps in detail.

If an Azure Subscription is already monitored in your environment, then you can use the same Application you created for Azure Subscription monitoring to monitor Azure AD as well. In this case therefore, you would only need to perform step 3 above. Refer to Assigning API Permissions to the Registered Application topic to complete step 3.

On the other hand, if such an Application does not pre-exist, then proceed to create one. For that, you need to follow steps 1 - 3 above. In this case, follow the procedures outlined in all the sub-sections, so that the Azure AD is monitoring-ready.

Registering an Application with Azure Active Directory (AD)

An Azure AD Application is a digital identity and some associated configuration, which informs Azure AD about how to treat software which uses that digital identity.

The eG agent can pull performance metrics related to an Azure tenant, its services, and its resources, only if it communicates with an Azure AD tenant as an 'Application' with 'monitoring rights'.

If such an Application pre-exists with the target tenant, then you can configure the eG agent with the access credentials of that application. However, if no such application pre-exists, then first register a new Application with Azure AD and obtain the access tokens that Azure AD issues for that application.

To achieve this, do the following:

  1. Login to Microsoft Azure portal using https://portal.azure.com with valid credentials.

  2. Click on the Azure Active Directory indicated by Figure 1.

    Figure 1 : Selecting the Azure Active Directory option

  3. When Figure 2 appears, click on the App Registrations option in its left pane.

    Figure 2 : Clicking on the App Registrations option

  4. Figure 3 will then appear.

    Figure 3 : Registering new application

  5. To register a new application, click the New registration option indicated by Figure 3. The Register an application page will then appear as shown by Figure 4.

    Figure 4 : Specifying the details of the new application

  6. In Figure 4, specify the following:

    • The name of the application in the Name text box,

    • Select the type of the account from the Supported account types section.

      Supported account types Description

      Accounts in this organizational directory only

      Select this option if you want all user and guest accounts in your directory to use the application or API.

      Use this option if your target audience is internal to your organization.

      Accounts in any organizational directory

      Select this option if you want all users with a work or school account from Microsoft to use this application or API. This includes schools and businesses that use Office 365.

      Use this option if your target audience is business or educational customers and to enable multitenancy.

      Accounts in any organizational directory and personal Microsoft accounts

      Select this option if you want all users with a work or school, or personal Microsoft account to use your application or API. It includes schools and businesses that use Office 365 as well as personal accounts that are used to sign in to services like Xbox and Skype.

      Use this option to target the widest set of Microsoft identities and to enable multitenancy.

      Personal Microsoft Accounts only

      Select this option if you want the application or API to be used by only those users with personal accounts that are used to sign in to services like Xbox and Skype.
    • Then, enter the redirect URl (or reply URL) for your application in the Redirect URl text box. Typically, you need to provide the base URL of your app. For example, http://localhost:31544 might be the URL for a web app running on your local machine. Users would use this URL to sign in to a web client application. For public client applications, provide the URL used by Azure AD to return token responses. Enter a value specific to your application, such as https://DocApp.com//auth.

  7. Clicking the Register button in Figure 4 will create the Application. Then, Figure 5 will appear displaying the Essentials related to the new Application.

    Figure 5 : The successfully created application

  8. From the Essentials, you can obtain the Application ID and Directory ID (see Figure 5). Copy the Application ID and the Directory ID and paste them against the Client ID and TENANT ID text boxes while configuring eG tests for the target Azure component.

Obtaining the Client Secret

For the eG agent to obtain metrics from the target Microsoft Azure component, it is necessary to provide the client secret associated with the registered Application. For this, click on the Certificates & secrets option in the left pane of Figure 5. This will invoke Figure 6.

Figure 6 : Creating New Client Secret

Clicking on the New client secret button in the right panel of Figure 6 will invoke Figure 7. Specify the description of the client secret in the Description text box and choose an expiry period from the Expires section as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7 : Adding the client secret

Clicking the Add button in Figure 7 will display a client secret value in the Value column of Figure 8.

Figure 8 : Generating the client secret value for the application

Note that the Value will disappear once you leave this page, so make sure that you copy the new client secret value in the clipboard by clicking the icon. Otherwise, you may need to generate a new client secret value. The client secret value has to be specified against the Client password field in the test configuration page.

Assigning API Permissions to the Registered Application

As already mentioned, the eG agent connects to Azure AD as a registered Application, makes Java API calls, and collects metrics from it. Most commonly, the eG agent uses the Microsoft Graph API for metrics collection. To enable this API to pull metrics, you need to grant different 'read' permissions to that API. For granting these permissions to the Microsoft Graph API for the registered Application, do the following:

  1. In Figure 8 above, click on the API Permissions option in the left pane. Figure 9 will then appear.

    Figure 9 : The API Permissions interface

  2. As you can see, the registered Application has by default being assigned a Delegated permission; this is the User:Read permission for Microsoft Graph API. Since this permission is not required for monitoring purposes, let us proceed to remove it. For that, first, right-click on the permission listed in the right pane of Figure 9, and select the Remove permission option from the menu that pops out (see Figure 10).

    Figure 10 : Removing the default permission

  3. A message box will then appear requesting you to confirm the deletion of the default permission. Click on the Yes, remove button in Figure 11 to delete the chosen permission.

    Figure 11 : Confirming the deletion of the default permission

  4. Next, proceed to assign permissions that the Application needs for pulling metrics from Azure. For this, first click on the Add a permission button in the right pane of Figure 10. Figure 12 will then appear. Click on the Microsoft Graph option in Figure 12 to set permissions for the Microsoft Graph API.

    Figure 12 : Selecting Microsoft Graph

  5. Figure 13 will then appear, where you will have to choose the type of permissions you want to add to the API. Click on the Application permissions option in Figure 13.

    Figure 13 : Choosing to assign Application permissions

  6. Using Figure 14 that then appears, select the permission that you want to grant to the API. For this, type the text 'user' in the Search text box under Select permissions. Permission groups with names containing the typed text will then be listed hereunder. Keep scrolling down the list of permission groups until the User group becomes visible.

    Figure 14 : Searching for the permission groups with names containing the text 'user'

  7. Once you find the User group, expand it by clicking on the 'arrow' prefixing it. The individual User permissions will be listed therein. Select the User.Read.All permission by clicking on the check box corresponding to it (see Figure 15). Then, click on the Add permission button in Figure 15 to assign that permission to the API.

    Figure 15 : Assigning the User.Read.All permission to the API

  8. Figure 16 will then appear displaying the permission that you just assigned.

    Figure 16 : A page displaying the User.Read.All permission assigned to the Microsoft Graph API

  9. Next, click on the Grant admin consent for Default Directory button in Figure 16. Figure 17 will appear. Click on the Yes button in Figure 17 to grant consent for the User.Read.All permission for all accounts in Default Directory.

    Figure 17 : Granting consent for the User.Read.All permission for all accounts in Default Directory

  10. The User.Read.All permission listing will then change as depicted by Figure 18.

    Figure 18 : The User.Read.All permission listing after granting admin consent

  11. Next, using step 4 - 10 above, add the following permissions as well to the Microsoft Graph API for the registered Application:

    • Group.Read.All

    • Directory.Read.All

    • AuditLog.Read.All

    • Device.Read.All

    • Application.Read.All

    • Policy.Read.ConditionalAccess

    Refer to Figure 19, Figure 20, Figure 21, Figure 22, Figure 23, and Figure 24 to more clearly understand how to assign each of the above permissions.

    Figure 19 : Assigning the Group.Read.All permission

    Figure 20 : Assigning the Directory.Read.All permission

    Figure 21 : Assigning the AuditLog.Read.All permission

    Figure 22 : Assigning the Device.Read.All permission

    Figure 23 : Assigning the Application.Read.All permission

    Figure 24 : Assigning the Policy.Read.ConditionalAccess permission

    Also, note that after adding each permission, you have to click on the Grant admin consent for Default Directory button (like the one you see in Figure 16) to grant consent for that permission for all accounts in the Default Directory.

  1. Once all the permissions are assigned and the admin consent is granted for each permission, Figure 25 will appear.

    Figure 25 : A page displaying all the 'read' permissions assigned to the Microsoft Graph API for the registered Application

  2. In Figure 25 above, click on the API Permissions option in the left panel. Figure 26 will then appear. Now, using Figure 26, proceed to assign permissions that the application needs for pulling metrics from Azure. For this, first click on the Add a permission button in the right panel of Figure 26.

    Figure 26 : Clicking on Add a permission button to add more API permissions to the application

  3. Figure 27 will then appear. Click on the APIs my organization uses tab and type Log Analytics API in the Search text box. The API you are searching for will then be displayed in the result set (see Figure 27). Click on the Log Analytics API that is listed inFigure 27.

    Figure 27 : Searching for Log  Analytics API

  4. Figure 28 will then appear. Click on Application permissions in Figure 28. Then, browse the Select permissions list in Figure 28 until you locate the Data permission. Click on the arrow pre-fixing the Data permission, so that you can view the sub-permissions within. From the list of Data permissions, select the Data.Read permission by clicking on the check box corresponding to it (see Figure 28). Then, click on the Add permissions button in Figure 28 to assign that permission to the API.

    Figure 28 : Assigning the Data.Read permission to the Log Reader Analytics API

  5. Also, note that after adding each permission, you have to click on the Grant admin consent for Default Directory button (like the one you see in Figure 16) to grant consent for that permission for all accounts in the Default Directory.