Setup Development Environment with Business Central On-Premise Hosted on Azure

Introduction:

When you are using Business Central On-Premise, we might need to set up the Development Environment for AL Extension through Business Central Administration.

In this blog, I will be sharing how to set up Development Environment connectivity on your local device and Business Central On-Premise hosted on a Server using UserPassword.

Pre-requisites:

• Understanding of Authentication 
• Understanding of Business Central Administration
• VS Code
• AL Language Extension
• Business Central On-Premise

Demonstration:

1. Set up Networking: 
i. Enable Port through Inbound Port Rules in Azure:

By default the Development Port required for Connectivity is disabled. Hence you will need to add the port in the Inbound Port Rules.

ii. Enable Port through Inbound Port Rules in Advanced Firewall Settings:
Add the port in the Inbound Port Rules in Firewall Settings.

Add Inbound Port in Firewall

2. Set up Development Configuration in Business Central Administration:
By default, Business Central Administration does not have Development Setup enabled.

You will need to enable the Development Endpoint and Debugger Endpoint. I have temporarily disabled the SSL Endpoint to check connectivity.

Business Central Administration for Development Endpoint

In order to connect to server the Authentication is to be used as follows-

Windows authentication can be used when your Server and Development PC is on same Azure AD

UserPassword is used when your Administration credential type is set to NavUserPassword and you can use the login credentials to connect to Business Central On-Premise.

3. Set up VS Code:
Once your  Business Central Administration tool is set, it's time to open VS Code and connect through the local server parameters. After you do AL Go> to Select Your Own Server. Refer to the screenshot below.

Launch.json

4. Download Symbols:
After VS Code setup, if you Download Symbols, your connectivity is set up correctly.
Sometimes you might need to clear the credential cache.

Connectivity Setup Successfully

Conclusion:

I hope this blog helps in setting up the connectivity of VS Code and Business Central On-Premise Server.
If there are any issues, feel free to contact me at olisterr@outlook.com.

Cheers!!