Exercise - Run your first PowerShell commands

  • 1 minute

In this unit, you use Azure Cloud Shell as a Linux terminal. You also can access Cloud Shell through the Azure portal or at Cloud Shell sign-in. You don't need to install anything on your PC or laptop to use Cloud Shell.

Note

In this module, you're using the Azure Cloud Shell on the right-hand side of the screen, but in real-world situations, you can also use the integrated Terminal in Visual Studio Code by selecting Terminal > New Terminal, then selecting Powershell in the drop-down in the top-left of the Terminal window.

Before beginning this exercise, be sure to activate the sandbox.

  1. Run the following command in Cloud Shell, and then press Enter to verify that your system is set up to use PowerShell. The $PSVersionTable verifies your installation.

    $PSVersionTable

    Your output resembles the following table:

     Name                           Value
 ----                           -----
 PSVersion                      7.3.6
 PSEdition                      Core
 GitCommitId                    7.3.6
 OS                             Linux 5.4.0-1058-azure #60~18.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Aug 31 20:34:4…
 Platform                       Unix
 PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}
 PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
 SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
 WSManStackVersion              3.0

    The output provides information about your PowerShell version, and your platform and edition.

    For information limited to your version of PowerShell, you can run a modified version of $PSVersionTable.

  2. Run the following command in Cloud Shell, and then press Enter.

    $PSVersionTable.PSVersion

    Your output now resembles the following table:

    Major  Minor  Patch  PreReleaseLabel BuildLabel
-----  -----  -----  --------------- ----------
7      3      6

    This output gives you more details about your version of PowerShell.

Running $PSVersionTable results in output that looks like a table, but is actually an object. For this reason, you can use a period (.) to access a specific property, such as PSVersion.