Lately, I’ve been a real fan of 2 ways of managing my Azure resources: number one, the new Window Terminal (Preview) and number 2, the Azure Cloud Shell. Now there is a way to combine the two. Last weekend (August 2nd) an announcement was made in regards to the new Windows Terminal Preview v0.3 Release.

The newest version of the preview has, among other improvements, a new connector that allows you to connect to the Azure Cloud Shell within the Terminal. That means that we can access our files and projects stored within Azure. More specifically the code we have stored in the linked “clouddrive” in your Azure subscription.

Pankaj Bhojwani, in his article announcing the Azure Cloud Shell Connector in Windows Terminal, outlines how to add the Azure Shell profile to your Windows Terminal. First, you need to ensure that you are running the latest version of the Windows terminal. In the menu drop-down, select “About” and verify that you are running version 0.3.2142.0 or above.

If you are not, install the latest release from our GitHub repo release page. Or from the Microsoft Store,

From there, it’s easy. Open the Windows terminal, in the drop-down, select “Settings” and add the following code to the end of the profile section.

{ "acrylicOpacity" : 0.60000002384185791 , "closeOnExit" : false , "colorScheme" : "Campbell" , "commandline" : "Azure" , "connectionType" : "{d9fcfdfa-a479-412c-83b7-c5640e61cd62}" , "cursorColor" : "#FFFFFF" , "cursorShape" : "bar" , "fontFace" : "Consolas" , "fontSize" : 14 , "guid" : "{b453ae62-4e3d-5e58-b989-0a998ec441b8}" , "historySize" : 9001 , "icon" : "ms-appx:///ProfileIcons/{b453ae62-4e3d-5e58-b989-0a998ec441b8}.png" , "name" : "Azure Cloud Shell" , "padding" : "0, 0, 0, 0" , "snapOnInput" : true , "startingDirectory" : "%USERPROFILE%" , "useAcrylic" : false },

I changed two things from Pankaj’s article. The first one is the colour scheme. I changed it to “Campbell.” I was not a big fan of the “Vintage” scheme, and the second change is the “useAcrylic” set to false instead of true. This last one prevents the semi-transparent background of the terminal. Again… Not a big fan.

The changes look like this.

Now that its setup and running here is how you use the connector

Open up the “Azure Cloud Shell” tab. You will be asked to authenticate by going to “microsoft.com/devicelogin” and enter the code displayed. Once you enter the code in your browser, and login with your account. Switch back to the windows Terminal, and within a few seconds, you will see an “Authenticated” message. If you have multiple tenants in your account, you will be asked to select the one you want to connect with. Enter the tenant number of the one you wish to connect to.

If you want to save these connection settings, type Y when asked. Saving your connection settings will allow you to login without going through steps 1-5 in the future.

The app will establish a connection with the cloud shell (this could take a minute) and Bingo you are now connected to your Azure Cloud Shell!

The next time you start the Azure Shell tab, you only need to enter “0” to confirm the tenant to access.

You’re in and have access to the same environment as if you were using it in a browser.

Remember… this is still preview. It’s pretty cool. But still preview and will get better.

Thanks

Pierre