Understanding how Azure Arc works
Now that we know what aspects of our Windows and Linux servers we can manage with Azure Arc, let's see how it works under the hood.
Connected Machine agent
Azure Arc communicates with your on-premises machines through an agent called Azure Arc Connected Machine agent. To manage servers with Azure Arc, they must have this agent installed and connected to Azure Arc. At the time of writing, the latest connected machine agent version is 1.0.
Arc agents connect to the Azure service through the outbound TCP port 443
network, so you do not need to have any inbound port open on your firewall to allow Azure Arc management. Your servers must use TLS 1.2, and older versions are not recommended due to security reasons.
The Connected Machine agent is made up of three components, each with its own specific purpose, as we will cover in the following list. You may see additional extensions installed on your servers based on your management scope...