PowerShell Core (Microsoft Graph and Az) in a toolbox container on your Linux box
If you’re like me (god, for your sake I hope you aren’t) you love PowerShell and use Linux.
I’m also super lazy. And I don’t like Microsoft adding 5,000 repositories to my system to keep PowerShell updated. The solution? A container!
Toolbox lets you very easily jump into a podman container for a development environment. In this container, you can typically install whatever you’d need as if it was on a bare metal install - no special anything required. Since all I need is PowerShell, we’ll keep things simple.
First, create a Toolbox container:
wporter@wt14sg1a:~$ toolbox create pwsh
Image required to create Toolbx container.
Download registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora-toolbox:42 (367.9MB)? [y/N]: y
Created container: pwsh
Enter with: toolbox enter pwsh
Follow the helpful instructions and enter your container:
wporter@wt14sg1a:~$ toolbox enter pwsh
Welcome to the Toolbx; a container where you can install and run
all your tools.
- Use DNF in the usual manner to install command line tools.
- To create a new tools container, run 'toolbox create'.
For more information, see the documentation.
⬢ [wporter@toolbx ~]$
Then, install PowerShell! I’ll be using the ‘direct download’ method (see docs at learn.microsoft.com).
⬢ [wporter@toolbx ~]$ sudo dnf install https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.5.2/powershell-7.5.2-1.rh.x86_64.rpm
Updating and loading repositories:
Repositories loaded.
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShe 100% | 23.9 MiB/s | 71.5 MiB | 00m03s
Package Arch Version Repository Size
Installing:
powershell x86_64 7.5.2-1.rh @commandline 183.4 MiB
Installing dependencies:
libicu x86_64 76.1-4.fc42 fedora 36.3 MiB
Transaction Summary:
Installing: 2 packages
Total size of inbound packages is 82 MiB. Need to download 11 MiB.
After this operation, 220 MiB extra will be used (install 220 MiB, remove 0 B).
Is this ok [y/N]: y
[1/1] libicu-0:76.1-4.fc42.x86_64 100% | 9.0 MiB/s | 10.7 MiB | 00m01s
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1/1] Total 100% | 7.9 MiB/s | 10.7 MiB | 00m01s
Running transaction
[1/4] Verify package files 100% | 5.0 B/s | 2.0 B | 00m00s
[2/4] Prepare transaction 100% | 9.0 B/s | 2.0 B | 00m00s
[3/4] Installing libicu-0:76.1-4.fc42.x 100% | 135.6 MiB/s | 36.3 MiB | 00m00s
[4/4] Installing powershell-0:7.5.2-1.r 100% | 73.6 MiB/s | 183.6 MiB | 00m02s
Warning: skipped OpenPGP checks for 1 package from repository: @commandline
Complete!
⬢ [wporter@toolbx ~]$ pwsh
PowerShell 7.5.2
PS /home/wporter> whoami
wporter
Now, let’s install the Azure, and Microsoft Graph Authentication modules.
If you’d like to not see the ‘do you trust this repository’ prompts, mark PSGallery as a trusted module repository with Set-PSRepository:
Set-PSRepository PSGallery -InstallationPolicy Trusted
The Azure rollup module is called “Az”. Install it with:
Install-Module Az
To connect to your Azure account, use the Connect-AzAccount cmdlet. You’ll have to use Device Authentication since your container can’t open a browser:
PS /home/wporter> Connect-AzAccount -UseDeviceAuthentication
WARNING: You may need to login again after updating "EnableLoginByWam".
Please select the account you want to login with.
[Login to Azure] To sign in, use a web browser to open the page https://microsoft.com/devicelogin and enter the code AABBCCDDE to authenticate.
Retrieving subscriptions for the selection...
[Tenant and subscription selection]
No Subscription name Subscription ID Tenant name
---- ------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- --------------------------
[1] Azure subscription 1 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 Default Directory
[2] Concierge Subscription 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 Microsoft Learn Sandbox
Select a tenant and subscription: 1
Subscription name Tenant
----------------- ------
Azure subscription 1 Default Directory
Now you can use Azure PowerShell commands! How nice!
To install the Microsoft Graph Authentication module (one part of the Microsoft.Graph rollup module - just a wrapper for authentication/authorization when making API requests), it’s one command:
Install-Module Microsoft.Graph.Authentication
To connect, you’ll need to Connect-MgGraph with the -UseDeviceAuthentication flag (just as you did with the Azure module).
When you’re done with PowerShell, just exit the container or close your terminal. When you need your container again, toolbox enter pwsh to jump right back in!