Setup

GitHub

If you do not have a GitHub ID already then sign up.

• Join GitHub

MacOS or Linux

If you are working on MacOS or a Linux distro then you can just use Bash in your preferred terminal. Skip the WSL step and install the binaries.

Windows 10 / 11

We recommend using the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and installing the binaries into linux rather than at the Windows OS level. This page assumes that you will take that route.

If your personal preference is to work within Windows and to use PowerShell then we understand. You can install both git and az at the OS level instead and then skip to vscode. However you should be aware that you won’t be able to use some of the examples in the labs as they are based on Ubuntu 22.04 running in WSL and use pipelines in Bash.

• Install Windows Subsystem for Linux

  Run as Administrator.

  wsl --install
  

  You will be guided to set up a local admin ID and password.

Binaries

• Install

  • git
  • jq
  • tree
  • stress

  E.g., for Ubuntu/Debian:

  sudo apt update && sudo apt install jq git tree stress
  

• Checks

  git
  jq --help
  tree ~
  stress
  

  You may want to add export JQ_COLORS="1;90:0;35:0;35:0;91:0;33:1;37:1;37" to your ~/.bashrc file to improve the colours.

Azure CLI

• Install the Azure CLI

• Checks:

  az version
  az login
  az account show --output jsonc
  az account show --output json | jq -r .user.name
  

Windows Terminal

For standard CLI use we favour the Windows Terminal on Windows. It will pick up on all of your WSL distros as well as creating profiles for Command Prompt, PowerShell and Cloud Shell.

• Install Windows Terminal

  Refer to the [Windows Terminal documentation] if you wish to customise.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code (vscode) is assumed as our default IDE.

• Install Visual Studio Code
• Install the Remote Development extension pack
  • Open extensions (CTRL+SHIFT+X)
  • Search ms-vscode-remote.vscode-remote-extensionpack
  • Install
• Checks

  • Open Ubuntu in Windows Terminal

  • Open vscode for the current directory

    code .
    

    The vscode engine will be automatically downloaded upon first run, and then Visual Studio Code will open on the desktop.

  • Is “WSL: <distro>” shown at the bottom left?

  • Open Source Control (CTRL+SHIFT+G)

  • Click on the ellipsis (…) on the Source Control sidebar

  • Click on Show Git Output

  • Does the top of the output look similar to this?

    [info] Log level: Info
    [info] Validating found git in: "git"
    [info] Using git "2.34.1" from "git"
    

Visual Studio Code Extensions

• Install additional extensions

  Use the shortcodes to quickly find the right extension. Some will install into the front end and some directly into WSL.

  Extension	Shortcode
  Azure Account	ms-vscode.azure-account
  Azure Resource Manager tools	msazurermtools.azurerm-vscode-tools
  Hashicorp Terraform	hashicorp.terraform
  JSON Tools	eriklynd.json-tools

Terraform

• Install Terraform

• Check:

  terraform --version
  

Packer

Only required for the virtual machine imaging labs.

• Install Packer

• Check:

  packer --version
  

Ansible

Ansible is used in a few of the labs. As per the Ansible docs, Ansible on Azure is installed using the Python installer, pip. It is preinstalled in the Cloud Shell’s container image.

• Install PIP

  sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y python3-pip
  

• Install Ansible

  pip3 install ansible[azure]
  

The remaining steps are option if you are familiar with Ansible and wish to configure it yourself. If you would like a default config then feel free to continue.

• Create the ansible config file and directory structure

  umask 022
  
  cat << ANSIBLE_CFG > ~/.ansible.cfg
  [defaults]
  inventory = ~/ansible/hosts
  roles_path = ~/ansible/roles
  deprecation_warnings=False
  nocows = 1
  ANSIBLE_CFG
  
  mkdir -pm 755 ~/ansible/roles && cd ~/ansible
  
  cat << ANSIBLE_HOSTS > ~/ansible/hosts
  [localhost]
  127.0.0.1
  
  ANSIBLE_HOSTS
  

• Install the Ansible collection for Azure

  ansible-galaxy collection install azure.azcollection
  

• Install Azure modules

  wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ansible-collections/azure/dev/requirements-azure.txt
  sudo pip3 install -r requirements-azure.txt
  

PowerShell

Most of this site has a slight bias towards OSS technologies rather than traditional Windows Server and PowerShell. Most Linux users will prefer to use the Azure CLI. Having said that, it is always useful to have the PowerShell Az module installed as there are some operations that can only be achieved with PowerShell cmdlets. The good news is that PowerShell and the PowerShell Az module are cross platform.

• Install PowerShell & the Az module

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