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Configure Azure PowerShell

Using the Azure Portal to create and manage resources can be beneficial for one-off tasks and learning about different services offered in Azure; however, it becomes more practical to take advantage of a scripting language such as PowerShell for management of tasks as it allows the use of one-liner syntax, piping outputs, and scripting.

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It is recommended to use PowerShell 7. If not already installed on the management machine, instuctions on installing the latest version of PowerShell 7 can be found here.

Install Azure PowerShell​

Navigate to PowerShell, Run as an administrator, and install the Azure PowerShell module using the following command:

PowerShell
Install-Module az -Scope AllUsers -Force

Authenticate to Azure​

Authenticate to an Azure tenant. This method will involve the Az PowerShell module opening a web browser window to authenticate with an account that has rights to a Azure subscription.

PowerShell
Connect-AzAccount

The following cmdlets can be useful to confirm the context of the tenant and subscription actively being managed as one account can be used to manage multiple tenants and Azure subscriptions.

PowerShell
Get-AzContext
Get-AzContext -ListAvailable
Get-AzSubscription

Find Azure commands​

Here we will use the Get-Command cmdlet to retrieve available cmdlets that contain the Get verb, AzVM contained in the noun, and are apart of the Az.Compute module.

PowerShell
Get-Command -Verb Get -Noun AzVM* -Module Az.Compute
Output
CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------
Alias           Get-AzVmssDiskEncryptionStatus                     7.1.1      Az.Compute
Alias           Get-AzVmssVMDiskEncryptionStatus                   7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVM                                           7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMAccessExtension                            7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMADDomainExtension                          7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMAEMExtension                               7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMBootDiagnosticsData                        7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMChefExtension                              7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMCustomScriptExtension                      7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMDiagnosticsExtension                       7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMDiskEncryptionStatus                       7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMDscExtension                               7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMDscExtensionStatus                         7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMExtension                                  7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMExtensionImage                             7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMExtensionImageType                         7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMImage                                      7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMImageOffer                                 7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMImagePublisher                             7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMImageSku                                   7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMRunCommand                                 7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMRunCommandDocument                         7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMSize                                       7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMSqlServerExtension                         7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVmss                                         7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVmssDiskEncryption                           7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVmssRollingUpgrade                           7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVmssSku                                      7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVmssVM                                       7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVmssVMDiskEncryption                         7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVmssVMRunCommand                             7.1.1      Az.Compute
Cmdlet          Get-AzVMUsage                                      7.1.1      Az.Compute