Azure Cloud Shell FAQ

What is Azure Cloud Shell?

The Azure Cloud Shell is an integrated, interactive, browser-based shell for creating, and managing Azure infrastructure. You can directly access the cloud shell from Azure Web Portal or browse to URL https://shell.azure.com You can choose to use the PowerShell or Bash experience using it.

What files are present in Azure Cloud Shell?

Microsoft routinely maintains and updates Cloud Shell, which comes equipped with commonly used CLI tools including Linux shell interpreters, PowerShell modules, Azure tools, text editors, source control, build tools, container tools, database tools, and more. Cloud Shell also includes language support for several popular programming languages such as Node.js, .NET, and Python.

How does the Azure Cloud Shell work, does it assign a server machine?

The machine that provides your Cloud Shell session is temporary, and it is recycled after your session is inactive for 20 minutes. Cloud Shell requires an Azure file share to be mounted. As a result, your subscription must be able to set up storage resources to access Cloud Shell.

How much of storage does Azure Cloud Shell consume?

The storage account File shares receive a 5-GB image created for you to persist and the storage cost is borne by the storage account/user.

How to remove/reconfigure Azure Cloud Shell?

dismount-clouddrive will reset the settings. Then you can remove the resource group, storage, and file share for the respective cloud drive.

Can you configure Azure Cloud Shell to a user-defined storage account?

Yes, can do so by clicking on Show advanced settings option while configuring the cloud shell.

Can we run a NodeJS or Python application in Azure Cloud Shell, i.e. use it as a Server?

As per documentation, Cloud Shell is intended for interactive use cases. As a result, any long-running non-interactive sessions are ended without warning.

Though you can make use of cloud shell for development and testing, it is not intended for production always running applications.

How to access Azure virtual network resources from Azure Cloud Shell?

A regular Cloud Shell session runs in a container in a Microsoft network separate from your resources. This means that commands running inside the container cannot access resources that can only be accessed from a specific virtual network.

For this reason Azure allows you to deploy Cloud Shell into an Azure virtual network that you control. From there, the container is able to interact with resources within the virtual network you select.