DEV Community: Michael Bender

Using PowerShell with Azure Cloud Shell

Michael Bender — Sat, 27 Apr 2019 02:17:46 +0000

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.

Don't have Azure? Grab a free subscription.

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 pwsh in 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.

Connecting to Windows and Linux VMs in Azure

Michael Bender — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 04:23:00 +0000

We've selected our favorite tips and tricks created by Michael Crump and are delivering fresh technical content on Azure all April! Miss a day (or more)? Catch up with the series.

Don't have Azure? Grab a free subscription.

When you deploy virtual machines to Azure, there is a good chance you'll need to connect to them. This can be done via the portal as well as from the command line in Azure Cloud Shell.

Connecting to a Windows VM in the portal

Accessing a Windows VM through the portal is straightforward. You browse to the appropriate VM, and choose Connect. This will download an RDP client configuration file for your VM. When launched, you will be connected into your VM.

Connect to a Windows VM Using PowerShell

But let's say you want to connect using PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell? No problem. Simply Open PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell and follow the process below:

- 1 - Enable Azure PSRemoting on the VM.

This will open the necessary ports in the Network Security Group, and ensure that WinRM is running on the VM. This command works on Linux VMs as well using SSH.




PS Azure:\> Enable-AzVMPSRemoting -Name 'vm-win-01' -ResourceGroupName 'azure-cloudshell-demo' -Protocol https -OsType Windows

- 2 - Connect to VM using `Enter-AzVm`

With Enter-AzVm cmdlet, an interactive session with a single Azure VM is started. During the session, the commands that you type are run on the Azure VM, just as if you were typing directly on the Azure VM’s PowerShell console. This is perfect for those real-time ad-hoc scenarios.




PS Azure:\> Enter-AzVM -name 'vm-win-01' -ResourceGroupName 'azure-cloudshell-demo' -Credential (get-credential)

- 3 - Execute a code block on the remote machine with `Invoke-Command`

This cmdlet allows you to run commands and script blocks against a remote system. Sometimes called 'Fan Out Remoting,' it allows you to perform 1: Many remoting, allowing you can perform the task, say get the Windows services running on a remote system, on 1 or more systems. This tooling is best used in a situation where you don't need to be providing continuous input such as when you are running commands in the shell.




PS Azure:\> Invoke-AzVMCommand -Name 'vm-win-01' -ResourceGroupName 'azure-cloudshell-demo' -ScriptBlock {get-service win*} -Credential (get-credential)

- 4 - Disabling Azure PSRemoting

One important note is that this method relies on your VMs having Public IP addresses and ports open to your VMs; it does not work for private IPs. This means SSH and WinRM are open ports. To resolve that, just close them down when you are done with Disable-AzVMPSRemoting.




PS Azure:\> Disable-AzVMPSRemoting -Name vm-win-02 -ResourceGroupName azure-cloudshell-demo

When executed, the cmdlet will

Remove the ports from the Network Security Group
For Windows VMs, Remove PowerShell Remoting from Windows VMs and reset UAC
For Linux VMS, Restore to original SSH Daemon Config & restart sshd service to pick the config

And that is all you need for connecting with Azure VMs using Powershell in Azure Cloud Shell.

Connecting to a Linux VM

For Linux VMs, the choice is pretty simple: use the CLI. To do this, you browse to the appropriate VM and choose Connect. From the menu, copy the Login using VM Local Account string into Azure Cloud Shell, either Bash or PowerShell will work, to connect to the VM.




Azure:/
PS Azure:\> ssh michael@vm-linux-02.westus2.cloudapp.azure.com
Warning: Permanently added the ECDSA host key for IP address '13.66.200.165' to the list of known hosts.
Enter passphrase for key '/home/michael/.ssh/id_rsa':
Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.18.0-1014-azure x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

  System information as of Thu Apr 11 10:46:28 UTC 2019

  System load:  0.24              Processes:           121
  Usage of /:   9.1% of 28.90GB   Users logged in:     0
  Memory usage: 11%               IP address for eth0: 10.1.0.5
  Swap usage:   0%

 * Ubuntu's Kubernetes 1.14 distributions can bypass Docker and use containerd
   directly, see https://bit.ly/ubuntu-containerd or try it now with

     snap install microk8s --classic

  Get cloud support with Ubuntu Advantage Cloud Guest:
    http://www.ubuntu.com/business/services/cloud

 * Canonical Livepatch is available for installation.
   - Reduce system reboots and improve kernel security. Activate at:
     https://ubuntu.com/livepatch

18 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.


Last login: Tue Apr  9 02:51:07 2019 from 104.42.62.28
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

michael@vm-linux-02:~$

As you can see above, this command can be run in Azure Cloud Shell in PowerShell as well as in Bash. This is a great feature and one of the reasons I recommend using PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell

And that's it. Now you can connect to ALL your VMs in Azure!