Category: Visual Studio

Jan082019January 8, 2019January 15, 20196 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Mastering Azure with Cloud Shell

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Work

There are multiple ways to interact and manage resources in Microsoft Azure. You can use the Azure Portal or command line tools like the Azure PowerShell module or the Azure CLI, which you can install on your local machine. However, to set up a cloud management workstation for administrators and developers can be quite a lot of work. Especially if you have multiple machines, keeping consistency between these machines can be challenging. Another challenge is keeping the environment secure and all the tools up to date. This any many more things are addressed by the Cloud Shell.

Cloud Shell is not brand new, Microsoft announced Cloud Shell at Build 2017. This blog post is about how you can master Azure with Cloud Shell and to give you an overview about the possibilities of Cloud Shell.

What is Cloud Shell

Cloud Shell offers a browser-accessible, pre-configured shell experience for managing Azure resources without the overhead of installing, versioning, and maintaining a machine yourself. Azure Cloud Shell is assigned per unique user account and automatically authenticated with each session. This makes it a private and secure environment.

You get a modern web-based command line experience which can be accessed from several end points like the Azure Portal, shell.azure.com and the Azure mobile app, Visual Studio Code or directly in the Azure docs.

In the backend Azure uses containers and automatically attaches an Azure File Share to the container. You can store the data on it, so your data is persistent. This persist your data across different Cloud Shell sessions.

You can choose your preferred shell experience. Cloud Shell supports Bash and PowerShell and included your favorite third party tools and common tools and languages. If something like a module is missing, you can simply add it.

Nov122018November 12, 2018January 12, 20191 Commentby Thomas Maurer

WLinux – The best WSL for Windows 10

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Virtualization, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Windows, Windows 10, Work

A couple of Windows 10 releases back, Microsoft delivered the Windows Subsystem for Linux. The Windows Subsystem for Linux allows you to run Linux distros, like Ubuntu, Debian, Suse and others, on Windows 10. Around the Microsoft Ignite 2018 timeframe another distro was released to the Windows Store called WLinux. WLinux is a Linux environment for Windows 10 built on work by Microsoft Research and the Debian project. WLinux is a custom Linux distro built from Debian specifically for use on the WSL. While other distros are available for WSL, WLinux is the first optimized for use by users of WSL for WSL. It helps developer run Linux tooling on Windows and integrates into perfectly into Windows.

WLinux Setup

WLinux comes with a custom setup, to prepare your environment in a very simple and easy wizard. It lets you setup some predefined software and settings and configure integration into Windows.

WLinux WSL Docker Bridge to Windows

If you want to run Docker in the Windows Subsystem for Linux, you can bring the Docker Client to the Windows Docker Engine. This allows you to run Docker directly from WSL and from PowerShell at the same time.

Microsoft Tooling

Of course WLinux brings the usual Linux development tools and easy setup for Ruby, NodeJS, Go, Java, Python, editors like emacs and even different shells. You can also easily add Microsoft tooling by adding Azure CLI, PowerShell Core and even Visual Studio Code.

Windows Explorer Integration and WSL Utilities (wslu)

It easily lets you to setup Windows Explorer integration and brings wslu, a collection of utilities for WSL, preinstalled. Wslu bringt the following features to the WSL

wslusc This is a WSL shortcut creator to create a shortcut on your Windows 10 Desktop.
wslsys This is a WSL system information printer to print out some basic system information.
wslfetch This is a WSL Screenshoot Information Tool to print information in an elegant way.
wslupath This is a WSL Windows path Converter that can convert Windows path to other styles of path.
wslview This is a fake WSL browser that can help you open link in default Windows browser.

If you want to know more about WLinux, check out the website Whitewater Foundry.

Or download WLinux from the Microsoft Store.

You can also contribute on the project on GitHub.

Jul172018July 17, 2018January 8, 20190 Commentby Thomas Maurer

You can now run a Visual Studio Code based editor in Azure Cloud Shell

Posted in Cloud, Containers, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Work

Azure Cloud Shell, a browser-accessible shell for managing Azure resources, just got even more powerful. Today Microsoft added a new Visual Studio Code editor to Azure Cloud Shell. Okay, it is not the real Visual Studio Code, it is an editor based on the Visual Studio Code open-source project Monaco. Monaco is the same web-standards based editor that powers Visual Studio Code, and the editor is now integrated directly into Cloud Shell.

Now you not only have editors like vim, emacs or nano, you also able to run code, directly with in the Azure Cloud Shell. This is pretty handy when it comes to quickly edit some files like scripts or ARM templates.

This is not the first time the Azure Cloud Shell team and the Visual Studio Code team collaborated: Azure Cloud Shell in Visual Studio Code

Apr202018April 20, 2018January 8, 20192 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Connect to Azure Stack from Azure Cloud Shell

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, PowerShell, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code

A little while ago Microsoft announced the Azure Cloud Shell. The Azure Cloud Shell is a perfect tool to manage your Azure resources using the Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell. Wouldn’t it be great to also manage your resources running on Azure Stack? Thanks to the consistency between Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Azure Stack, you can use the same tools to manage your hybrid cloud.

First of all login to your Azure Cloud Shell on shell.azure.com or in the Azure Portal.

After the login you have to register Azure Stack as a new cloud by running the following command:

az cloud register \
-n AzureStack \
--endpoint-resource-manager "https://management.region.url.com" \
--suffix-storage-endpoint "region.url.com" \
--suffix-keyvault-dns ".vault.region.url.com"

az cloud register \

-n AzureStack \

--endpoint-resource-manager "https://management.region.url.com" \

--suffix-storage-endpoint "region.url.com" \

--suffix-keyvault-dns ".vault.region.url.com"

Now you can list the new Azure Stack cloud by using:

az cloud list -o table

1	az cloud list -o table

To switch to the Azure Stack Cloud use the following command:

az cloud set -n AzureStack

1	az cloud set -n AzureStack

If you are doing this the first time and you use another account you can use az login to login.

az login

az login

One thing you should do is to switch the profile version to an Azure Stack compatible version

az cloud update --profile 2017-03-09-profile

1	az cloud update --profile 2017-03-09-profile

Now you can start using the Azure CLI in the Azure Cloud Shell to manage your Azure Stack. First of all yes this works also if you just use the Azure CLI. In the case this case, the Azure Stack needs to be accessible from the internet. If your Azure Stack is not accessible from the internet, you can just use the Azure CLI directly from your management machine.

Azure Cloud Shell is very powerful, you can run Azure CLI as well as Azure PowerShell. Fun Fact, since you an also run the Azure Cloud Shell directly in Visual Studio Code, you can also just open up the shell session and start working from Visual Studio Code.

You can learn more in my blog post: Mastering Azure with Cloud Shell

Feb252018February 25, 2018January 8, 20193 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

My Favorite Visual Studio Code Themes

Posted in Fun, Microsoft, PowerShell, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Windows, Windows 10

While I am doing presentations, I often do demos, and since a lot of my demos are PowerShell based, I use a lot of Visual Studio Code. With that I often get the question which is the Visual Studio Code Theme I use. Even I change my Visual Studio Code Themes pretty often, I have a couple of favorites I want to share.

Azure Contrast (rainglow)

Rainglow has a huge amount for different themes, my favorite one is their Azure, Azure Contrast theme.

Cobalt2

My current favorite Visual Studio Code Theme is Cobalt2. Cobalt2 is a dark but colorful theme for Visual Studio. I like it because it is a dark theme, but it not uses the classic dark grey background, instead I like the mix of dark blue and yellow.

Atom One Dark

Atom One Dark is another Dark theme I started to like very much. I like the popping colors on the dark background.

Ayu Mirage – Visual Studio Code Theme

The Ayu Themes for Visual Studio are simple, bright and elegant themes. I prefer the Ayu Mirage theme which as I said looks very elegant. The Ayu themes also have other options like the Ayu light which is also one of my favorites.

Dracula

Dracula is one of the famous Visual Studio Code themes, which is also available on other platforms. When I am not using the Cobalt2 theme, I most often switch to Dracula.

Ayu Light

I mentioned the Ayu Themes before, and this is the light version of it. I am mostly using dark themes, but when I switch to a light theme, I mostly use Ayu Light.

PowerShell ISE

If you are coming form PowerShell scripting, you are already familiar with the PowerShell ISE. The PowerShell ISE theme bring you back in to the old school world and even gives you the PowerShell blue background terminal.

There are a lot of other great Visual Studio Code Themes out there. What is your favorite? Let me know in the comments!

Dec282017December 28, 2017January 8, 20190 Commentby Thomas Maurer

Azure Cloud Shell – shell.azure.com and in Visual Studio Code

Posted in Cloud, Containers, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Web, Windows 10, Work

Back in May Microsoft made the Azure Cloud Shell available in the Microsoft Azure Portal. Now you can use it even quicker by just go to shell.azure.com. First you login with your Microsoft account or Work and School account, and if your account is in multiple Azure Active Directory tenants, you select the right tenant and you will be automatically logged in. So even if you are on a PC where you can not install the Azure CLI or the Azure PowerShell module, you can still easily fire up a shell where you can run the Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell and other CLI tools like Docker, Kubectl, emacs, vim, nano, git and more.

In addition you can also open up Azure Cloud Shell directly from Visual Studio Code

With that, enjoy your holidays and I wish you a good start in the new year!

May112017May 11, 2017January 7, 20190 Commentby Thomas Maurer

PowerShell for Visual Studio Code 1.0 – Your improved PowerShell ISE

Posted in Cloud, Containers, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Web, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Server, Work

Microsoft yesterday not only announced the new Azure Cloud Shell, Azure PowerShell 4.0, they also announced something I was waiting for a long time. Microsoft finally announced the version 1 of the PowerShell for Visual Studio Code with a lot for great enhancements. David Wilson describes this on the PowerShell Team blog.

This supports the PowerShell development on the following platforms:

Windows 7 through 10 with PowerShell v3 and higher
Linux with PowerShell v6 (all PowerShell-supported distributions)
macOS and OS X with PowerShell v6

Features:

PowerShell ISE-like interactive development experience with the PowerShell Integrated Console
Rich debugging experience including variables view, call stack, watch window, and various breakpoint types
Integrated script analysis and code fixes provided by PSScriptAnalyzer
Code navigations that allow you to find definitions and references of functions across your script files
Highly configurable code formatter based on community best practices
New file and project creation using Plaster templates
Editor scripting API through the $psEditor object model

The biggest thing about this for me, is the support to run code line by line, which will help a lot in demos and presentations.

So what does this mean for the PowerShell ISE?

The PowerShell ISE has been the official editor for PowerShell throughout most of the history of Windows PowerShell. Now with the advent of the cross-platform PowerShell Core, we need a new official editor that’s available across all supported OS platforms and versions. Visual Studio Code is now that editor and the majority of our effort will be focused there.
However, the PowerShell ISE will remain in Windows supporting Windows PowerShell with no plans to remove it. We will consider investing effort there in the future if there is a high demand for it, but for now we think that we will be able to provide the best possible experience to the PowerShell community through Visual Studio Code.

Really looking forward to work with PowerShell for Visual Studio Code.

Category: Visual Studio

WLinux – The best WSL for Windows 10

WLinux Setup

WLinux WSL Docker Bridge to Windows

Microsoft Tooling

Windows Explorer Integration and WSL Utilities (wslu)

My Favorite Visual Studio Code Themes

Azure Contrast (rainglow)

Cobalt2

Atom One Dark

Ayu Mirage – Visual Studio Code Theme

Dracula

Ayu Light

PowerShell ISE

PowerShell for Visual Studio Code 1.0 – Your improved PowerShell ISE

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