For those of you interested, Azure Cloud Shell is based on Xterm.js, which is open source. So you can check all the technical details on the GitHub repository<\/a>.<\/p>\n When opening Cloud Shell for the first time, you need to confirm creation of a Storage Account. That will be used to persist any files in your Cloud Shell.<\/p>\n A new resource group will be created for that storage account, so everything is in its place. Please note that you\u2019ll need to have the right privileges to be allowed to create a storage account.<\/p>\n Azure Cloud Shell is a frontend to a fully fledged Bash. You don\u2019t get root access, but besides that you can do anything that can be done in a Bash session. Plus \u2014 as said earlier \u2014 all the files are persisted. So it\u2019s really as good as any Putty or any other ways of \u201cbashing.\u201d<\/p>\n When you look at the screenshot, you\u2019ll notice a directory called Select the resource group I showed earlier. There, you\u2019ll find a Storage Account, which does not come with a particularly meaningful name. But because this is a resource group dedicated to Cloud Shell, you shouldn\u2019t have much of a chance to make a wrong guess.<\/p>\n Inside the Storage Account, select Files.<\/p>\n Inside the File service, select the one that resembles your cloud drive.<\/p>\n The file share you see on Azure Portal now exactly resembles the home location of your Cloud Shell instance. Do a Now that we have this working, I\u2019d like to finally jump into working with Azure CLI. If you prefer to have your own local instance running instead of a browser-based interface, scroll to the bottom of this post. Don\u2019t forget to come back here, once you\u2019re set.<\/p>\n Quite frankly, there\u2019s not too much to be said about how to work with Azure CLI. As with any good command-line tool, the built-in help is great. So to start, just type To work with VMs, you type `az vm\u00b4, followed by the actual command.<\/p>\n Azure CLI is very hierarchical. For every layer, just add Let\u2019s walk through a few of my favorite aspects of working in Azure CLI.<\/p>\n CLIs have come a long way, so Azure CLI is by far not the first of its kind. Especially platforms-as-a-service, like Kubernetes, which also heavily builds on CLIs for operations. Because Kubernetes is part of the Azure Container Services offering, it only makes sense for Azure CLI to integrate as seamlessly as possible. To install kubectl \u2014 Kubernetes\u2019 CLI \u2014 just issue the following command:<\/p>\n That installs kubectl to your path, allowing you to directly start working with your Kubernetes installation.<\/p>\n A service principal is a special kind of Azure account. It\u2019s designed to allow apps and services to get access to your Azure resources. For example, kubectl requires a service principal to be able to manage Azure resources inside a Kubernetes cluster.<\/p>\n Let me tell you, creating a service principal can be really hard when you try to do it manually from Azure Portal. Let\u2019s just say I\u2019ve spent hours and hours trying to get this done.<\/p>\n By using Azure CLI, it becomes a one-liner:<\/p>\n The output will be a JSON document like this:<\/p>\n Usually, you\u2019ll need to use the appId and tenant parameter values for authenticating your apps and services.<\/p>\n A VM extension allows you to add functionality to your VMs on the fly. You can make this part of your ARM-templates at deployment time, or you can also add an extension at runtime of the VM.<\/p>\n Extensions become especially powerful when you\u2019re not only working with single VMs, but with VM Scale Sets. While you can add extensions to scale sets, Azure Portal doesn\u2019t (yet) come with the according option in the UI. So for now, you\u2019ll have to use Azure CLI, PowerShell cmdlets, or the plain Azure Management REST API. Coincidence has it that this post is about Azure CLI, so guess what? I\u2019ll cover that part next real quick.<\/p>\n To get a list of available extensions, I suggest you visit Azure Portal. Select an existing VM, scroll down to Extensions<\/em>, and browse the catalog. To find out the necessary parameters for applying the extensions to your VM scale sets (or single VMs), execute:<\/p>\n We\u2019ll need the Once you\u2019ve identified the extension you want to add, issue the following command:<\/p>\n For getting information about an extension\u2019s parameter names and values, please check the publisher\u2019s documentation.<\/p>\n In my job, I often have to grant access to various resources to single persons. And every so often, it\u2019s just repetituous, because I did the same thing for the same resource but for another person just the day before. For that purpose, I created small shell scripts that only require adding the username.<\/p>\n I also use this for batch creation of users or resources, eg<\/em>, for training purposes.<\/p>\n !Sign up for a free Codeship Account<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t want to use Azure CLI from inside Azure Portal, you can also run it on your local machine, of course. According to your environment, the procedure is different. While I could replicate the necessary steps here, it\u2019s probably best to directly link to the official documentation (mainly because it saves me from keeping that part of this post up-to-date): How to install Azure CLI<\/a>.<\/p>\n After you\u2019re done, log in to your Azure subscription by issuing the following command:<\/p>\n Azure CLI comes back to you, asking to open the specified URL in your browser and pasting the code shown. After that, your Azure CLI is connected to your Azure subscription. Pretty neat.<\/p>\n To see what you can do with Azure, let\u2019s head back to where we came from.<\/p>\n The real fabric underneath all Azure resources is ARM, the Azure Resource Manager; not to be confused with the ARM CPU-architecture. As the name says, it\u2019s the component that orchestrates and controls all Azure Resources.<\/p>\n There are several ways to interact with ARM, and Azure CLI is only one of them. The other options are PowerShell cmdlets, Azure CLI 1.0 (the Python-based predecessor of what we\u2019re talking about here), Azure Management REST API, and Azure Portal itself. Right, Azure Portal itself doesn\u2019t take any shortcuts or secret doors \u2014 it\u2019s just another consumer of the Azure API.<\/p>\n As you\u2019ve seen here, Azure CLI is just one of the many options for interacting with all of your Azure resources. In my opinion, it\u2019s the most versatile, because its Node.js-based nature allows you to operate Azure exactly the same way on any platform (even inside your browser).<\/p>\n Interestingly, Azure Portal itself doesn\u2019t even offer as many options as Azure CLI does. So I can only repeat myself: It\u2019s probably the best way to work with your Azure resources.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.webcodegeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/icons.jpg\"){kind=icon}
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.webcodegeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/cloud-shell-storage.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.webcodegeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/cloudshell.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nclouddrive<\/code>. This directory is also accessible from Azure Portal, so you can upload any files to your Cloud Shell.<\/p>\nHow to Upload Files to Azure Cloud Shell<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.webcodegeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/storageaccount.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.webcodegeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/fileservice.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nls -la<\/code> to see that hidden .cloudconsole<\/em> folder listed in your Bash.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.webcodegeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/cloudconsole.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWorking with Azure CLI<\/h2>\n
az<\/code>. That gives you a pretty complete overview on all the resource types you can work with.<\/p>\n-h<\/code>, and you\u2019ll get a comprehensive description of all available commands.<\/p>\nMy favorite bits of Azure CLI<\/h3>\n
Azure CLI and Kubernetes<\/h2>\n
sudo az acs kubernetes install-cli<\/pre>\n
Creating a service principal<\/h2>\n
az ad sp create-for-rbac --name SP_NAME --password <password><\/pre>\n
{\r\n \"appId\": \"a1b2c3d4-ad2a-4b31-ab64-7d5b714b7d8d\",\r\n \"displayName\": \"<your-app-name>\",\r\n\r\n \"tenant\": \"XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX\"\r\n}<\/pre>\nAdding extensions to VM scale-sets<\/h3>\n
az vmss extension image list<\/pre>\n
publisher<\/code> and name<\/code> properties.<\/p>\naz vmss extension set -n oneAgentWindows --publisher dynatrace.ruxit -g <your-resgroup-name> --vmss-name <scaleset-name> --settings <settings in json-format>\r\n```\r\n\r\nSettings need to be in JSON-format, make sure you get the escaping done right. Example:\r\n```\r\n--settings \"{\\\"key\\\":\\\"value\\\", \\\"key2\\\": \\\"value2\\\"}\"<\/pre>\nLots of light-weight scripting<\/h2>\n
Azure CLI Installation and Setup<\/h2>\n
az login<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.webcodegeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/azlogin.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat\u2019s Behind Azure CLI?<\/h2>\n
Summary<\/h2>\n