Azure CLI commands cheatsheet

Azure CLI commands cheatsheet

Lets’s understand how to use various Azure CLI commands to provision resources in Azure Cloud.

Table of contents

Introduction

The Azure command-line interface (Azure CLI) is a set of commands used to create and manage Azure resources. The Azure CLI is available across Azure services and is designed to get you working quickly with Azure, with an emphasis on automation.

You can either download Azure CLI on your system (Microsoft installer). You can get it for Microsoft, Linux, MacOS or even Docker.

Another way to access it is by using Cloud Shell from Azure portal and choosing Bash mode.

Screenshot of the Azure portal showing the cloud shell icon.

You can then issue a command as follows

Azure CLI interactive mode places you in an interactive shell with auto-completion, command descriptions, and examples.

az interactive

As a developer, it will help you provision resources by writing a script. Here are some of the commands to get you started.

Logging in

Login with web

az login

Login in CLI

az login -u myemail@address.com

List subscriptions

az account list

Set subscription

az account set --subscription "xxx"
OR
az account set -s "xxx"

Listing locations and resources / general

List all locations

az account list-locations

List all my resources

az resource list

Get what version of the CLI you have

azure --version

Get help

azure help

Creating a basic VM / Resource Group / Storage Account

Get all available VM sizes

az vm list-sizes --location eastus

List all locations/regions supported in current subscription

az account list-locations -o table

Get all available VM images for Windows and Linux

az vm image list --output table

Create a Linux VM

az vm create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM --image ubuntults

Create a Windows VM

az vm create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM --image win2016datacenter

Create a Resource group

az group create --name myresourcegroup --location eastus

List Resource groups and show in table format

az group list -o table

Create a Storage account.

az storage account create -g myresourcegroup -n mystorageaccount -l eastus --sku Standard_LRS

DELETING A RESOURCE GROUP

Permanently deletes a resource group

az group delete --name myResourceGroup

Managing VM's

List your VMs

az vm list

Start a VM

az vm start --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM

Stop a VM

az vm stop --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM

Deallocate a VM

az vm deallocate --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM

Restart a VM

az vm restart --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM

Redeploy a VM

az vm redeploy --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM

Delete a VM

az vm delete --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM

Create image of a VM

az image create --resource-group myResourceGroup --source myVM --name myImage

Create VM from image

az vm create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myNewVM --image myImage

List VM extensions

az vm extension list --resource-group azure-playground-resources --vm-name azure-playground-vm

Delete VM extensions

az vm extension delete --resource-group azure-playground-resources --vm-name azure-playground-vm --name bootstrapper

Managing Batch Account

Create a Batch account.

az batch account create -g myresourcegroup -n mybatchaccount -l eastus

Create a Storage account.

az storage account create -g myresourcegroup -n mystorageaccount -l eastus --sku Standard_LRS

Associate Batch with storage account.

az batch account set -g myresourcegroup -n mybatchaccount --storage-account mystorageaccount

We can now authenticate directly against the account for further CLI interaction.

az batch account login -g myresourcegroup -n mybatchaccount

Display the details of our created account.

az batch account show -g myresourcegroup -n mybatchaccount

Create a new application.

az batch application create --resource-group myresourcegroup --name mybatchaccount --application-id myapp --display-name "My Application"

Add zip files to application

az batch application package create --resource-group myresourcegroup --name mybatchaccount --application-id myapp --package-file my-application-exe.zip --version 1.0

Assign the application package as the default version.

az batch application set --resource-group myresourcegroup --name mybatchaccount --application-id myapp --default-version 1.0

Retrieve a list of available images and node agent SKUs.

az batch pool node-agent-skus list

Create new Linux pool with VM config

az batch pool create \
    --id mypool-linux \
    --vm-size Standard_A1 \
    --image canonical:ubuntuserver:16.04.0-LTS \
    --node-agent-sku-id “batch.node.ubuntu 16.04”

Now let's resize the pool to start up some VMs.

az batch pool resize --pool-id mypool-linux --target-dedicated 5

We can check the status of the pool to see when it has finished resizing.

az batch pool show --pool-id mypool-linux

List the compute nodes running in a pool.

az batch node list --pool-id mypool-linux

If a particular node in the pool is having issues, it can be rebooted or reimaged. A typical node ID will be in the format 'tvm-xxxxxxxxxx_1-'.

az batch node reboot --pool-id mypool-linux --node-id tvm-123_1-20170316t000000z

Re-allocate work to another node.

az batch node delete \
    --pool-id mypool-linux \
    --node-list tvm-123_1-20170316t000000z tvm-123_2-20170316t000000z \
    --node-deallocation-option requeue

Create a new job to encapsulate the tasks that we want to add.

az batch job create --id myjob --pool-id mypool

Add tasks to the job.

…where is your preferred shell for execution (/bin/sh, /bin/bash, /bin/ksh etc.), and /path/to/script.sh is, of course, the full path of the shell script you’re invoking to get things started.

az batch task create --job-id myjob --task-id task1 --application-package-references myapp#1.0 --command-line "/bin/<shell> -c /path/to/script.sh"

Add many tasks at once

az batch task create --job-id myjob --json-file tasks.json

Now that all the tasks are added - we can update the job so that it will automatically be marked as completed once all the tasks are finished.

az batch job set --job-id myjob --on-all-tasks-complete terminateJob

Monitor the status of the job.

az batch job show --job-id myjob

Monitor the status of a task.

az batch task show --job-id myjob --task-id task1

Delete a job

az batch job delete --job-id myjob

Managing Containers

If you HAVE AN SSH run this to create an Azure Container Service Cluster (~10 mins)

az acs create -n acs-cluster -g acsrg1 -d applink789

If you DO NOT HAVE AN SSH run this to create an Azure Container Service Cluster (~10 mins)

az acs create -n acs-cluster -g acsrg1 -d applink789 --generate-ssh-keys

List clusters under your whole subscription

az acs list --output table

List clusters in a resource group

az acs list -g acsrg1 --output table

Display details of a container service cluster

az acs show -g acsrg1 -n acs-cluster --output list

Scale using ACS

az acs scale -g acsrg1 -n acs-cluster --new-agent-count 4

Delete a cluster

az acs delete -g acsrg1 -n acs-cluster