Exploring the new DevOps - Azure Command Line Interface 2.0 (CLI)

I'm a huge fan of the command line, and sometimes I feel like Windows people are missing out on the power of text mode. Fortunately, today Windows 10 has bash (via Ubuntu on Windows 10), PowerShell, and "classic" CMD. I use all three, myself.

Five years ago I started managing my Azure cloud web apps using the Azure CLI. I've been a huge fan of it ever since. It was written in node.js, it worked the same everywhere, and it got the job done.

Fast forward to today and the Azure team just announced a complete Azure CLI re-write, and now 2.0 is out, today. Initially I was concerned it had been re-written and didn't understand the philosophy behind it. But I understand it now. While it works on Windows (my daily driver) it's architecturally aligned with Mac and (mostly, IMHO) Linux users. It also supports new thinking around a modern command line with support for things like JMESPath, a query language for JSON. It works well and clearly with the usual suspects of course, like grep, jq, cut, etc. It's easily installed with pip, or you just get Python 3.5.x and then just "pip install --user azure-cli."

Linux people (feel free to check the script) can just do this curl, but it's also in apt-get, of course.

curl -L https://aka.ms/InstallAzureCli | bash

NOTE: Since I already have the older Azure CLI 1.0 on my machine, it's useful to note that these two CLIs can live on the same machine. The new one is "az" and the older is "azure," so no problems there.

Or, for those of you who run individual Docker containers for your tools (or if you're just wanting to explore) you can

docker run -v ${HOME}:/root -it azuresdk/azure-cli-python:<version>

Then I just "az login" and I'm off! Here I'll query my subscriptions:

C:\Users\scott\Desktop>  az account list --output table

Name                                         CloudName    Sub  State    IsDefault

-------------------------------------------  -----------  ---  -------  -----------

3-Month Free Trial                           AzureCloud   0f3  Enabled

Pay-As-You-Go                                AzureCloud   34c  Enabled

Windows Azure MSDN                           AzureCloud   ffb  Enabled  True

At this point, it's already feeling familiar. It's "az noun verb" and there's an optional --output parameter. If I don't include --output by default I'll get JSON...which I can then query with JMESPath if I'd like. (Those of us who are older may be having a little XML/XPath/XQuery déjà vu)

I can use JSON, TSV, tables, and even "colorized json" or JSONC.

C:\Users\scott\Desktop> az appservice plan list --output table   

AppServicePlanName    GeoRegion         Kind    Location          Status

--------------------  ----------------  ------  ----------------  --------

Default1              North Central US  app     North Central US  Ready

Default1              Southeast Asia    app     Southeast Asia    Ready

Default1              West Europe       app     West Europe       Ready

DefaultServerFarm     West US           app     West US           Ready

myEchoHostingPlan     North Central US  app     North Central US  Ready

I can make and manage basically anything. Here I'll make a new App Service Plan and put two web apps in it, all managed in a group:

az group create -n MyResourceGroup
# Create an Azure AppService that we can use to host multiple web apps 

az appservice plan create -n MyAppServicePlan -g MyResourceGroup



# Create two web apps within the appservice (note: name param must be a unique DNS entry)

az appservice web create -n MyWebApp43432 -g MyResourceGroup --plan MyAppServicePlan

az appservice web create -n MyWEbApp43433 -g MyResourceGroup --plan MyAppServicePlan

You might be thinking this looks like PowerShell. Why not use PowerShell? Remember this isn't for Windows primarily. There's a ton of DevOps happening in Python on Linux/Mac and this fits very nicely into that. For those of us (myself included) who are PowerShell fans, PowerShell has massive and complete Azure Support. Of course, while the bash folks will need to use JMESPath to simulate passing objects around, PowerShell can keep on keeping on. There's a command line for everyone.

It’s easy to get started with the CLI at http://aka.ms/CLI and learn about the command line with docs and samples. Check out topics like installing and updating the CLI, working with Virtual Machines, creating a complete Linux environment including VMs, Scale Sets, Storage, and network, and deploying Azure Web Apps – and let them know what you think at azfeedback@microsoft.com. Also, as always, the Azure CLI 2.0 is open source and on GitHub.

Sponsor: Check out JetBrains Rider: a new cross-platform .NET IDE. Edit, refactor, test, build and debug ASP.NET, .NET Framework, .NET Core, or Unity applications. Learn more and get access to early builds!