We've selected our favorite tips and tricks created by Michael Crump as well as planned fresh technical content on Azure all April! Miss a day (or more)? Catch up with the series.
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Azure Cloud Shell includes two command line languages for you to use: PowerShell and Bash. Traditionally, Bash has been the preferred method within Cloud Shell due to the rich set of tools in Azure CLI. With the update of the Azure PowerShell tools, there is feature parity between the two options so let's take a look at PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell.
Accessing PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell
To access PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell, you have a few options.
You can type
pwshin the shell, and you'll be authenticated into an instance of Cloud Shell with PowerShell without leaving the current Cloud Shell session.
Another option is to re-launch the Cloud Shell window by choosing PowerShell from the dropdown menu
and choosing 'Confirm' to restart. This will reconnect your session to the current container using PowerShell.
Once you are authenticated, you'll be able to explore the resources available in Azure using PowerShell.
To verify the version of PowerShell you are running, type $PSVersionTable.
PS Azure:\> $PSVersionTable
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 6.2.0
PSEdition Core
GitCommitId 6.2.0
OS Linux 4.15.0-1041-azure #45-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 15 14:41:00 UTC 2019
Platform Unix
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.3
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion 3.0
Notice that the OS for the Cloud Shell instance is Linux. That is because cloud shell uses PowerShell Core inside of a Linux container. Many of the same tools you would use in PowerShell Core on your machine are available as you can see with all of the installed modules.
PS Azure:\> Get-Module
ModuleType Version Name ExportedCommands---------- ------- ---- ----------------Script 1.5.1 Az.Accounts {Add-AzEnvironment, Clear-AzContext, Clear-AzDefault, Connect-AzAccount…}Script 1.8.0 Az.Compute {Add-AzContainerServiceAgentPoolProfile, Add-AzImageDataDisk, Add-AzVhd, Add-AzVMAdditi…
Script 1.7.0 Az.Network {Add-AzApplicationGatewayAuthenticationCertificate, Add-AzApplicationGatewayBackendAddr…
Script 1.3.1 Az.Resources {Add-AzADGroupMember, Export-AzResourceGroup, Get-AzADAppCredential, Get-AzADApplicatio…
Script 1.2.0 Az.Storage {Add-AzRmStorageContainerLegalHold, Add-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyAction, Add-AzS…
Script 0.0.0.9 AzureAD.Standard.Preview {Add-AzureADAdministrativeUnitMember, Add-AzureADApplicationOwner, Add-AzureADApplicati…
Script 0.9.3 AzurePSDrive
Manifest 6.1.0.0 Microsoft.PowerShell.Management {Add-Content, Clear-Content, Clear-Item, Clear-ItemProperty…}
Manifest 6.1.0.0 Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility {Add-Member, Add-Type, Clear-Variable, Compare-Object…}
Script 0.9.3 PSCloudShellUtility {Disable-AzVMPSRemoting, Dismount-CloudDrive, Enable-AzVMPSRemoting, Enter-AzVM…}
Script 2.0.0 PSReadLine {Get-PSReadLineKeyHandler, Get-PSReadLineOption, Remove-PSReadLineKeyHandler, Set-PSRea…
Binary 0.8.1 SHiPS
Also, you have built-in tools like the Azure PowerShell module for managing your resources in Azure.
To view all the Azure PowerShell commands, type Get-Command -Module AZ* | more
PS Azure:\> Get-Command -Module AZ* | more
CommandType Name Version Source
----------- ---- ------- ------
Alias Add-AdlAnalyticsDataSource 1.0.0 Az.DataLakeAnalytics
Alias Add-AdlAnalyticsFirewallRule 1.0.0 Az.DataLakeAnalytics
Alias Add-AdlStoreFirewallRule 1.2.0 Az.DataLakeStore
What's great about this is that you don't have to worry about updating these tools; It's all done for you.
Exploring Azure Drive
When you log into Cloud Shell, you'll have access to Azure Drive. Azure Drive gives you file system-like access to all your tenant resources. It does this by building a PowerShell Drive, based on SHiPS (Simple Hierarchy in PowerShell). So you can do a directory listing and see all of your subscriptions like this:
Azure:/
PS Azure:\> dir
Directory: Azure:
Mode SubscriptionName SubscriptionId TenantId State
---- ---------------- -------------- -------- -----
+ ca-mibender-demo-test xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx Enabled
Then drill down into the directories to view resources deployed in Azure like Virtual Machines by using cd
Azure:/
PS Azure:\> cd ./ca-mibender-demo-test/VirtualMachines/
Azure:/ca-mibender-demo-test/VirtualMachines
PS Azure:\> dir
Directory: Azure:/ca-mibender-demo-test/VirtualMachinesName ResourceGroupName Location VmSize OsType NIC ProvisioningState PowerState
---- ----------------- -------- ------ ------ --- ----------------- ----------
myVM CLOUDSHELL-DEMO-MICHAEL westeurope Standard_A1 Linux myVM-nic Succeeded running
vm-linux-01 AZURE-CLOUDSHELL-DEMO westus2 Standard_DS1_v2 Linux vm-linux-01336 Succeeded deallocated
vm-linux-02 AZURE-CLOUDSHELL-DEMO westus2 Standard_DS1_v2 Linux vm-linux-02181 Succeeded running
vm-win-01 AZURE-CLOUDSHELL-DEMO westus2 Standard_DS1_v2 Windows vm-win-01543 Succeeded running
vm-win-02 AZURE-CLOUDSHELL-DEMO westus2 Standard_DS1_v2 Windows vm-win-02953 Succeeded running
Now if you want to see the properties of a VM, let's say vm-linux-01, you can use the Get-AzVm command for that
PS Azure:\> get-AzVm -Name vm-linux-01
ResourceGroupName Name Location VmSize OsType NIC ProvisioningState Zone
----------------- ---- -------- ------ ------ --- ----------------- ----
AZURE-CLOUDSHELL-DEMO vm-linux-01 westus2 Standard_DS1_v2 Linux vm-linux-01336 Succeeded
Accessing Azure Cloud Drive
Another feature of Cloud Shell is CloudDrive. CloudDrive is a 5GB Azure File Share that provides persistent storage to your Cloud Shell instance. This allows you to store scripts, install tooling, and other file-management tasks, and have all of this available every time you access Cloud Shell.
To get to your Cloud Drive, type in cd $Home to access the home drive where Cloud Drive resides. Then type cd ./CloudDrive to enter your persistent CloudDrive storage.
PS Azure:\> cd $home
PS /home/michael> dir
Directory: /home/michael
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----l 4/25/19 1:24 PM clouddrive
PS /home/michael> cd ./clouddrive/
PS /home/michael/clouddrive> dir
Directory: /home/michael/clouddrive
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----- 4/15/19 2:13 PM DemoDirectory
d----- 4/11/19 9:50 PM scripts
PS /home/michael/clouddrive>
And if you are still not sold on using PowerShell, you can still run your Bash, and Azure CLI commands in the PowerShell console. It supports both!
PS Azure:\> az group create --name myResourceGroup --location eastus
{
"id": "/subscriptions/XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup",
"location": "eastus",
"managedBy": null,
"name": "myResourceGroup",
"properties": {
"provisioningState": "Succeeded"
},
"tags": null,
"type": null
}
That will get you started using PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell!
Want more PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell? Check out our quickstarts and tutorials!
We'll be posting articles every day in April, so stay tuned or jump ahead and check out more tips and tricks now.
Top comments (1)
Great introduction, thank