Kia Zhi Tang (Ryen Tang)

Kia Zhi Tang (Ryen Tang)

Technology Evangelist, Infrastructure as Code Developer, Automation Guru

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Adding PowerShell in Amazon Linux container

2 minute read

With my previous blog posts about installing PowerShell on the following Linux distros:

I will be demonstrating on how you can install PowerShell 6 in Amazon Linux 2 distro container.

Like my previous blog post, I will not be providing a break down of the steps in the Dockerfile with explainations except including comments in the Dockerfile to indicate what it is doing.

PowerShell for Amazon Linux container

In this section, I will provide a Dockerfile text document file that contains all the commands to build a Amazon Linux container and install PowerShell to the Amazon Linux distro when you use DockerCLI docker build command.

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Creating the Dockerfile

Let us create a new Dockerfile text document file to begin with. Next, copy the code below and paste it into that Dockerfile text document file. Remember to save the Dockerfile file and exit from your editor.

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# Pull Amazon Linux container image
FROM amazonlinux:latest AS build

# Define Args and Env needed to create links
ENV PS_INSTALL_FOLDER=/opt/microsoft/powershell/6 \
    # Define ENVs for Localization/Globalization
    DOTNET_SYSTEM_GLOBALIZATION_INVARIANT=false \
    LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 \
    LANG=en_US.UTF-8

# Download the PowerShell RPM package
ADD https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v6.1.0/powershell-6.1.0-1.rhel.7.x86_64.rpm \
    /tmp/powershell-linux.rpm

# Installation and configuration
RUN \
    # Install dependencies
    yum install -y \
	    # Required for help in powershell
	    less \
    # Install powershell package
    && yum install -y /tmp/powershell-linux.rpm \
    # Remove powershell package
    && rm -f /tmp/powershell-linux.rpm \
    # Upgrade packages
    && yum upgrade -y \
    # Clean cached data
    && yum clean all \
    # Remove cache folders and files
    && rm -rf /var/cache/yum

# Configure entrypoint for the container
ENTRYPOINT ["pwsh", "-c"]

# Configure PowerShell as default shell for the container
CMD ["pwsh"]

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Building from the Dockerfile

Now, you will have to use the DockerCLI docker build command to build the Amazon Linux container from the instructions in the Dockerfile text document file.

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# Change to your working directory
cd \The\directory\where\your\Dockerfile\is\saved

# Build the container with the Dockerfile
docker build -t amazonlinux .

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Conclusion

Once the container build has completed, you can use the DockerCLI docker run command to run the container and look at PowerShell instead of Bash.

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docker run --rm --interactive amazonlinux

And if you need to go back into Bash from the pwsh in the container, type bin/bash to switch into Bash.

But if you requires to run the container in bash, you can do it on the same container with the command below.

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docker run --rm --interactive --tty amazonlinux bin/bash

And if you need to go back into PowerShell from the bash in the container, type pwsh to switch into PowerShell.

That is it on how to get PowerShell Core 6 in this distro for Amazon Linux 2 folks.

If you find that this information useful, feel free to bookmark this or share it with your colleagues and friends.

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References

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