Azure Cheatsheet

App Service

Use this Azure reference while you build software engineering projects, review code for technical interview prep, or polish examples for a software engineer resume.

Plans & Tiers

Tier	Plan	vCPU	RAM	Notes
Free	F1	shared	1 GB	60 min/day CPU, no custom domain
Shared	D1	shared	1 GB	Custom domain, no SSL
Basic	B1/B2/B3	1–4	1.75–7 GB	Manual scale, custom SSL
Standard	S1/S2/S3	1–4	1.75–7 GB	Auto-scale, staging slots (5)
Premium v3	P0v3–P3v3	1–8	4–32 GB	Zone redundancy, 30 slots
Isolated v2	I1v2–I6v2	2–32	8–128 GB	Dedicated VNet (ASE v3)

# Create a plan
az appservice plan create \
  --name myPlan \
  --resource-group myRG \
  --location eastus \
  --sku B1 \
  --is-linux          # omit for Windows

# List plans
az appservice plan list -g myRG -o table

# Scale plan (change SKU)
az appservice plan update --name myPlan -g myRG --sku S2

# Delete plan (delete all apps in it first)
az appservice plan delete --name myPlan -g myRG --yes

Create & Deploy a Web App

# Create (runtime = <stack>|<version>)
az webapp create \
  --name myapp \
  --resource-group myRG \
  --plan myPlan \
  --runtime "NODE|20-lts"

# Common runtimes
# "PYTHON|3.12"  "NODE|20-lts"  "DOTNETCORE|8.0"
# "PHP|8.2"      "JAVA|17-java17"  (Windows: "node|20LTS")

# Deploy from local Git
az webapp deployment source config-local-git \
  --name myapp -g myRG
# Returns a Git remote URL — push to it to deploy

# Deploy a ZIP file (fast)
az webapp deploy \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --src-path ./dist.zip \
  --type zip

# Deploy from GitHub (CI/CD)
az webapp create \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --plan myPlan \
  --runtime "NODE|20-lts" \
  --deployment-source-url https://github.com/org/repo \
  --deployment-source-branch main

App Settings & Environment Variables

# Set app settings (env vars)
az webapp config appsettings set \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --settings NODE_ENV=production DATABASE_URL="postgres://..."

# List settings
az webapp config appsettings list --name myapp -g myRG -o table

# Delete a setting
az webapp config appsettings delete \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --setting-names OLD_KEY

# Show connection strings
az webapp config connection-string list --name myapp -g myRG

Custom Domains & SSL

# Add a custom domain (DNS CNAME must point to <app>.azurewebsites.net first)
az webapp config hostname add \
  --webapp-name myapp -g myRG \
  --hostname www.example.com

# List hostnames
az webapp config hostname list --webapp-name myapp -g myRG -o table

# Create a free managed certificate (Standard+ plan)
az webapp config ssl create \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --hostname www.example.com

# Bind the certificate
az webapp config ssl bind \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --certificate-thumbprint <thumbprint> \
  --ssl-type SNI

Deployment Slots

# Create a staging slot
az webapp deployment slot create \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --slot staging

# Deploy to staging
az webapp deploy \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --slot staging \
  --src-path ./dist.zip --type zip

# Swap staging → production
az webapp deployment slot swap \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --slot staging \
  --target-slot production

# Preview swap (traffic routing)
az webapp traffic-routing set \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --distribution staging=20   # 20% to staging

# List slots
az webapp deployment slot list --name myapp -g myRG -o table

Scaling

# Manual scale (Basic+)
az appservice plan update --name myPlan -g myRG --number-of-workers 3

# Enable autoscale (Standard+)
az monitor autoscale create \
  -g myRG \
  --resource myPlan \
  --resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms \
  --name autoscale \
  --min-count 1 --max-count 10 --count 2

# Add scale-out rule (CPU > 70%)
az monitor autoscale rule create \
  -g myRG --autoscale-name autoscale --scale out 1 \
  --condition "Percentage CPU > 70 avg 5m"

Logs & Monitoring

# Enable logging
az webapp log config \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --application-logging filesystem \
  --level information \
  --web-server-logging filesystem \
  --detailed-error-messages true

# Stream live logs
az webapp log tail --name myapp -g myRG

# Download logs
az webapp log download --name myapp -g myRG --log-file ./logs.zip

# Show recent log (last 100 lines)
az webapp log show --name myapp -g myRG --provider application

SSH into Container (Linux Apps)

# Open browser-based SSH
az webapp ssh --name myapp -g myRG

# Or via Kudu REST
curl -u "\$myapp:<deploy-password>" \
  https://myapp.scm.azurewebsites.net/api/command \
  -d '{"command":"ls /home/site/wwwroot"}'

Container Deploy (Docker)

# Deploy a Docker image
az webapp config container set \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --container-image-name nginx:latest

# From a private registry
az webapp config container set \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --container-image-name myregistry.azurecr.io/myapp:v1 \
  --container-registry-url https://myregistry.azurecr.io \
  --container-registry-user myregistry \
  --container-registry-password <password>

# Enable continuous deployment (webhook from ACR)
az webapp deployment container config \
  --name myapp -g myRG \
  --enable-cd true