Creating an Azure CloudShell

I wanted to create a post to show how to setup a Cloud Shell for the first time, and also a few considerations about doing so because you normally only do this process once for your account.

You can access the Cloud Shell in two ways:

Direct link: Open a browser to https://shell.azure.com.
Azure portal: Select the Cloud Shell icon on the Azure portal.

Considerations

When creating a Cloud Shell you’ll only need to do this once per account (usually)
Create your Cloud Shell in a management resource group
Create a storage account specifically for Cloud Shells

Steps

Open a Cloud Shell

Select PowerShell to get started (you can change it later)

You will be told you have no storage selected. Click “Show advanced Settings”

Populate the fields
- Subscription
  - The Azure subscription you’re creating the Cloud Shell resource under
  - If you have more than one; select a subscription which will contain other centralised management resources
- Cloud Shell Region
  - The region you’d like to deploy the Cloud Shell resources to
  - Pick one closest to you as an example
- Show vNet isolation settings
  - Allows the cloud shell to access virtual machines and other resources behind a firewall or using private addresses within Azure.
  - Leave unchecked
- Resource Group
  - The resource group the Cloud Shell will be associated with
  - If you have more than one, select a resource group that is used for management (or create a new one one)
- Storage Account
  - The storage account the Shell will store any files generated
  - I create a new Storage Account specifically for Shells to group them all together
  - Remember the name has to the lower case, between 3 and 24 chars and be globally unique
- File Share
  - This will be the file share where the Cloud Shell data will be stored, within an IMG file
  - I often call the name of the fileshare my username (in case I wanted to use this storage account for more than one user in the future)

You will then be presented with a Cloud Shell running in PowerShell. You can easily flick between the BASH shell by changing shells in the top left corner