Azure Cloud Shell

Azure Cloud Shell have been available through the Azure Portal for some time now. Just recently Microsoft released cloud shell as a “stand-alone” web page, shell.azure.com both Bash and Powershell (preview) are available.

That means you can access a Powershell (or bash) console from any browser at any time and from what I can see, both Azure RM and Azure AD modules are available. To get started, visit shell.azure.com and sign in.

First time setup

When you sign in using Cloud Shell for the first time you will have to create a storage account. I am not certain, but I assume the storage account is used for Powershell modules etc.

Select your subscription and continue.

First initialization can take some time, but when storage is created and Azure have done a few compute transactions, things should look something like this. In the below image I have started a Powershell session. From here on you can start exploring. Try to run help, Get-CloudDrive etc to get a little more information.

 

Cloud Drive

Cloud drive is the storage account for Azure Cloud Shell. I was a little interested in how it works and what possibilities it have. After a little investigation it turns out Cloud Drive is mounted in to cloud shell by default, mapped to letter Y: (see picture). Not sure how supported this is, but you can easially create folders, script etc inside your Cloud Drive which will be available on any device you use

 

Cmdlet examples

Azure Cloud Shell comes with all built-in Powershell modules and the whole AzureRM module loaded by default. And let’s not forget you also have text editors, source control and Pester available. To see a complete list of whats included in Cloud Shell, visit https://docs.microsoft.com/nb-no/azure/cloud-shell/features-powershell#tools

Apart from AzureRM (run Get-AzureRMCommand) you have Azure AD (AAD) available. For example Get-AzureAdUser.

I really like this new world, hopefully even better with Azure Cloud Shell.

Have fun!

Other resources

• Azure Powershell Overview
• Azure Resource Manager Overview

PS: If you run $PSVersiontable you will see that Azure Cloud Shell actually runs on the native powershell (Deskop), version 5.1 and not version 6 which is Powershell Core…