I've been spending quite a lot of time using Azure over the last many years. In fact, the portal was written in Silverlight. Now the the portal has a great modern UI and complimenting that is a CLI (command line interface) allowing for great automation, grep, awk, jamespath and much more.
When using the CLI to create resources there are occasions, usually when putting together a project or demo, when there are parameters that should be assumed or defaulted.
In this scenario, the following resources must be created for the application architecture.
- Resource Group
- AppService Plan
- AppService Web Application
- DocumentDB
Creating a Resource Group using the CLI is simple using the following command:
az group create --name vaderappgroup --location "East US"
However, each part of the architecture requires --location and typing that each time seems a waste of keystrokes.
Beyond creating the group, the other items also require passing the group name hence more unneeded typing.
Azure CLI Defaults.
Looking at the az configure -h information, setting the defaults are key/value pairs.
$ az configure -h
Command
az configure: Configure Azure CLI 2.0 Preview or view your configuration. The command is
interactive, so just type `az configure` and respond to the prompts.
Arguments
--defaults : Space separated 'name=value' pairs for common arguments defaults, e.g. '--defaults
group=myRG web=myweb vm=myvm'. Use '' to clear the defaults, e.g. --defaults vm=''
web=''.
Let's set the defaults for this scenario.
az configure --defaults location="East US" group="vaderappgroup"
To check the defaults you have configured, run az configure and look at the section [defaults]
[defaults]
location = East US
group = vaderappgroup
When creating any resource using the CLI, if the option is not specified it will use the default if available. To clear any default run az configure --defaults <key>=''
Creating our scenario
Now that the default location and resource group is configured, we can create the application with a little less typing.
Create the resource group
uses --location "East US" from defaults
az group create -n vaderappgroup
Create the app service plan
Uses --location "East US" and --resource-group vaderappgroup from defaults
az appservice plan create -n vaderserviceplan --sku FREE
Create web application
Uses --location "East US" and --resource-group vaderappgroup from defaults
-p|--plan : App Service Plan is required
az appservice web create -n vaderwebapp -p vaderappplan
Creating the DocumentDB
Uses --resource-group vaderappgroup from defaults, location for DocumentDB defaults to region of the resource group unless specified using --locations. Use az documentdb create -h for more information.
Note: If you want to use MongoDB add --kind MongoDB.
az documentdb create -vaderappdb
Resources
Checkout the video below on Azure Command Line Interface with Jason Shaver
