Working with Azure CLI – Automate Your Infrastructure

Today, we dive into one of the most powerful tools for automating Azure: the Azure Command-Line Interface (Azure CLI).

You’ll learn how to:

• Install Azure CLI on your system

• Log in and configure your Azure environment

• Deploy your first resource (a virtual machine) using CLI

• Understand scripting potential for automation

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🛠️ What is Azure CLI?

Azure CLI is a cross-platform command-line tool to manage Azure resources.
It works on Linux, macOS, and Windows and helps automate tasks that you’d otherwise perform manually in the Azure Portal.

🧠 Think of it as a DevOps-friendly way to control Azure using scripts and commands!

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🔽 Step 1: Install Azure CLI

Depending on your OS, follow the appropriate method:

✅ For Windows:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://aka.ms/installazurecliwindows \
-OutFile .\AzureCLI.msi; Start-Process msiexec.exe \
-Wait -ArgumentList '/I AzureCLI.msi /quiet'; rm .\AzureCLI.msi

✅ For Ubuntu/Debian:

curl -sL https://aka.ms/InstallAzureCLIDeb | sudo bash

✅ For macOS:

brew update && brew install azure-cli

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🔐 Step 2: Login to Azure via CLI

Once installed, open a terminal or PowerShell and run:

az login

This opens a browser window to authenticate your Microsoft account. After successful login, your terminal displays your subscription info.

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📦 Step 3: Set Subscription and Default Region

(Optional if you have multiple subscriptions)

az account list --output table
az account list --query "[].{Name:name, ID:id}" --output table
az account set --subscription "<your-subscription-name>"

Set a default region to avoid typing it every time:

az group list --query "[].name" --output table
az configure --defaults location=eastus

📁 Step 4: Create a Resource Group using CLI

open git bash

# create a shell script to install and configure nginx webserver
vi create_nginx_server.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Set your Azure subscription ID
subscription_id="<SubscriptionId>"

# Set your Azure resource group, VNet, and subnet names
resource_group="web-rg"
vnet_name="web-vnet"
subnet_name="web-subnet"

# Set VM details
vm_name="testservervm"
vm_username="testuser"
vm_password="TestUser@123456"

# Set custom data script for Nginx installation and configuration
custom_data=$(cat <<EOF
#cloud-config
package_update: true
package_upgrade: true
packages:
  - nginx
  - wget
  - unzip

runcmd:
  - systemctl enable nginx
  - systemctl start nginx
  - wget -O /tmp/lugx_temp.zip https://templatemo.com/download/templatemo_589_lugx_gaming
  - unzip -q /tmp/lugx_temp.zip -d /var/www/
  - mv /var/www/templatemo_589_lugx_gaming/* /var/www/html/
  - rm -rf /tmp/lugx_temp.zip /var/www/templatemo_589_lugx_gaming
  - chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html
  - chmod -R 755 /var/www/html
  - systemctl restart nginx
EOF
)

# Set the active subscription
az account set --subscription "$subscription_id"

# Create a resource group
az group create --name "$resource_group" --location eastus

# Create a virtual network
az network vnet create --resource-group "$resource_group" --name "$vnet_name" --address-prefix 10.0.0.0/16 --subnet-name "$subnet_name" --subnet-prefix 10.0.0.0/24

# Create a public IP address
az network public-ip create --resource-group "$resource_group" --name "${vm_name}-pip" --sku Standard

# Create a network security group (NSG) and allow SSH and HTTP traffic
az network nsg create --resource-group "$resource_group" --name "${vm_name}-nsg"
az network nsg rule create --resource-group "$resource_group" --nsg-name "${vm_name}-nsg" --name allow-ssh --priority 100 --access Allow --protocol Tcp --direction Inbound --source-address-prefixes '*' --source-port-ranges '*' --destination-address-prefixes '*' --destination-port-ranges 22
az network nsg rule create --resource-group "$resource_group" --nsg-name "${vm_name}-nsg" --name allow-http --priority 200 --access Allow --protocol Tcp --direction Inbound --source-address-prefixes '*' --source-port-ranges '*' --destination-address-prefixes '*' --destination-port-ranges 80

# Create a virtual machine
az vm create \
  --resource-group "$resource_group" \
  --name "$vm_name" \
  --image Ubuntu2204 \
  --admin-username "$vm_username" \
  --admin-password "$vm_password" \
  --public-ip-address "${vm_name}-pip" \
  --nsg "${vm_name}-nsg" \
  --vnet-name "$vnet_name" \
  --subnet "$subnet_name" \
  --custom-data "$custom_data" \
  --size Standard_B1s \
  --generate-ssh-keys

# Open HTTP port in NSG (redundant but ensures it's open)
az vm open-port --resource-group "$resource_group" --name "$vm_name" --port 80

# Output VM details
public_ip=$(az vm show --show-details --resource-group "$resource_group" --name "$vm_name" --query publicIps --output tsv)
echo "VM $vm_name created successfully."
echo "Public IP: $public_ip"
echo "SSH username: $vm_username"
echo "Web server URL: http://$public_ip"

chmod +x create_nginx_server.sh
./create_nginx_server.sh

🧹 Step 7: Access the website

check on browsere URL: http://$public_ip

🧹 Step 8: Clean Up Resources

To delete the resource group and all resources:

# Delete all
az group delete --name $resource_group --yes
# az group delete --name $resource_group --yes --no-wait

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🧹 Step 9: Check the resources are deleted

az group list --query "[].name" --output table

🚀 Why Use Azure CLI?

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✅ Summary