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--- title: Retrieve load balancer and virtual machine IP information by using Azure Instance Metadata Service titleSuffix: Azure Load Balancer description: Get started learning about using Azure Instance Metadata Service to retrieve load balancer information. services: load-balancer author: mbender-ms ms.service: azure-load-balancer ms.topic: concept-article ms.date: 07/17/2026 ms.author: mbender # Customer intent: "As a cloud infrastructure engineer, I want to retrieve load balancer and virtual machine IP information using the Instance Metadata Service, so that I can efficiently manage and troubleshoot my virtual machine instances behind the load balancer." --- # Retrieve load balancer information by using Azure Instance Metadata Service IMDS (Azure Instance Metadata Service) provides information about currently running virtual machine instances. The service is a REST API that's available at a well-known, nonroutable IP address (169.254.169.254). When you place virtual machine or virtual machine set instances behind an Azure Standard Load Balancer, you can use IMDS to retrieve metadata related to the load balancer and the instances. IMDS returns load balancer metadata for the VM instance, including its public or private IP address and its inbound and outbound rule configurations. For the detailed field-level schema, see the [schema breakdown](howto-load-balancer-imds.md#schema-breakdown). ## Access the load balancer metadata using IMDS For more information on how to access the load balancer metadata, see [Use Azure Instance Metadata Service to access load balancer information](howto-load-balancer-imds.md). ## Troubleshoot common error codes For more information on support and troubleshooting resources, see [Support and troubleshooting for Azure Load Balancer](load-balancer-support-help.md). ## Support If you're unable to retrieve a metadata response after multiple attempts, create a support issue in the Azure portal. ## Next steps Learn more about [Azure Instance Metadata Service](/azure/virtual-machines/windows/instance-metadata-service) [Deploy a standard load balancer](quickstart-load-balancer-standard-public-portal.md)