Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A PowerShell script runs on an Azure VM every night and uses Azure CLI commands to create tags and VM resources in another subscription. The script cannot store a password or client secret. What should it use to authenticate to Azure?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
az login with a username and password.
A username and password requires credential storage and is not appropriate for secretless automation.
B
Best answer
az login --identity.
The Azure CLI can sign in with the VM's managed identity by using az login --identity. That allows the script to authenticate without storing a password or client secret. After sign-in, the identity can be granted access to the target subscription or resource group, which makes the solution both secure and automation-friendly for nightly jobs.
C
Distractor review
Connect-AzAccount with device code authentication.
Device code authentication is interactive and not suitable for unattended nightly automation on a VM.
D
Distractor review
An app registration secret stored in a PowerShell variable.
A secret in a variable is still a secret on the machine and violates the stated security requirement.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A route table contains these entries: 10.0.0.0/8 with next hop Virtual appliance, and 10.1.1.0/24 with next hop Virtual network gateway. Which next hop will Azure use for traffic to 10.1.1.5?
Question 2
You are deploying a stateless web application on Azure virtual machines. The solution must automatically add and remove instances based on CPU demand and allow all instances to be managed as one logical group. Which Azure compute feature should you deploy?
Question 3
You are deploying a Windows Server VM for an internal app. The VM must support Secure Boot and vTPM later, its OS disk must survive host moves, and the team wants the lowest-cost managed disk tier that still behaves like a normal writable OS disk. Which two choices should you make? Select two.
Question 4
You need to deploy several identical virtual machines and ensure that the failure of a single Azure host does not affect all of them. Which feature should you use?
Question 5
You need to connect VNet-Hub and VNet-Spoke so that resources in both virtual networks can communicate privately over the Microsoft backbone. Both virtual networks are in the same region. What should you configure?
Question 6
You need to create a storage account that provides the lowest-cost redundant storage for non-critical data and only needs protection against local disk or server failure within a single datacenter. Which redundancy option should you choose?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-104 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: az login --identity. — The correct approach is az login --identity because it uses the Azure VM's managed identity instead of a stored credential. This is the standard pattern for unattended scripts running inside Azure. Once authenticated, the script can operate against the appropriate subscription as long as the managed identity has the necessary RBAC permissions. It is a secure and low-maintenance way to automate Azure CLI tasks. Why others are wrong: Using a username/password or an app secret means credentials must be stored somewhere, which the question explicitly forbids. Device-code authentication requires a person to complete the sign-in flow and is unsuitable for scheduled automation. The core idea is to let the VM authenticate as itself using managed identity.
What should I do if I get this AZ-104 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
Discussion
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