persisting-shell-storage.md

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Persist files for Bash in Azure Cloud Shell | Microsoft Docs	Walkthrough of how Bash in Azure Cloud Shell persists files.	azure		jluk	timlt	azure-resource-manager		azure	infrastructure-services	vm-linux	na	article	09/25/2017	juluk

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How Bash in Cloud Shell storage works

Bash in Cloud Shell persists files through both of the following methods:

• Creating a disk image of your $Home directory to persist all contents within the directory. The disk image is saved in your specified file share as acc_<User>.img at fileshare.storage.windows.net/fileshare/.cloudconsole/acc_<User>.img, and it automatically syncs changes.
• Mounting your specified file share as clouddrive in your $Home directory for direct file-share interaction. /Home/<User>/clouddrive is mapped to fileshare.storage.windows.net/fileshare.

Note

All files in your $Home directory, such as SSH keys, are persisted in your user disk image, which is stored in your mounted file share. Apply best practices when you persist information in your $Home directory and mounted file share.

Use the clouddrive command

With Bash in Cloud Shell, you can run a command called clouddrive, which enables you to manually update the file share that is mounted to Cloud Shell.

Mount a new clouddrive

Prerequisites for manual mounting

You can update the file share that's associated with Cloud Shell by using the clouddrive mount command.

If you mount an existing file share, the storage accounts must be:

• Locally redundant storage or geo-redundant storage to support file shares.
• Located in your assigned region. When you are onboarding, the region you are assigned to is listed in the resource group name cloud-shell-storage-<region>.

The clouddrive mount command

Note

If you're mounting a new file share, a new user image is created for your $Home directory. Your previous $Home image is kept in your previous file share.

Run the clouddrive mount command with the following parameters:

clouddrive mount -s mySubscription -g myRG -n storageAccountName -f fileShareName

To view more details, run clouddrive mount -h, as shown here:

Unmount clouddrive

You can unmount a file share that's mounted to Cloud Shell at any time. Since Cloud Shell requires a mounted file share to be used, you will be prompted to create and mount another file share on the next session.

1. Run clouddrive unmount.
2. Acknowledge and confirm prompts.

Your file share will continue to exist unless you delete it manually. Cloud Shell will no longer search for this file share on subsequent sessions. To view more details, run clouddrive unmount -h, as shown here:

Warning

Although running this command will not delete any resources, manually deleting a resource group, storage account, or file share that's mapped to Cloud Shell will erase your $Home directory disk image and any files in your file share. This action cannot be undone.

List clouddrive

To discover which file share is mounted as clouddrive, run the df command.

The file path to clouddrive will show your storage account name and file share in the URL. For example, //storageaccountname.file.core.windows.net/filesharename

justin@Azure:~$ df
Filesystem                                          1K-blocks   Used  Available Use% Mounted on
overlay                                             29711408 5577940   24117084  19% /
tmpfs                                                 986716       0     986716   0% /dev
tmpfs                                                 986716       0     986716   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda1                                           29711408 5577940   24117084  19% /etc/hosts
shm                                                    65536       0      65536   0% /dev/shm
//mystoragename.file.core.windows.net/fileshareName 5368709120    64 5368709056   1% /home/justin/clouddrive
justin@Azure:~$

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Next steps

Bash in Cloud Shell Quickstart
Learn about Microsoft Azure Files storage
Learn about storage tags