[New Feature] Oracle Cloud Shell in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

This blog post covers the new feature released by Oracle Cloud which is Cloud Shell for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Cloud Shell gives you access to an always available Linux shell directly in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console.

Note: Cloud Shell is NOT available yet with Free Tier or Trial account.

If you want to know more about the new services released by oracle, click here

What Is Cloud Shell?

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Cloud Shell is a web browser-based terminal accessible from the Oracle Cloud Console.

• Cloud Shell is free to use (within monthly tenancy limits) and provides access to a Linux shell.
• Cloud Shell is a feature available to all OCI users, accessible from the Console.
• Your Cloud Shell will appear in the Oracle Cloud Console as a persistent frame of the Console and will stay active as you navigate to different pages of the Console.

Cloud Shell provides:

• A machine to use as a host for a Linux shell which is pre-configured with the latest version of the OCI CLI and several useful tools.
• 5 GB of storage for your home directory to save your work between Cloud Shell sessions.
• A persistent frame of the Console which stays active as you navigate to different pages of the console.

How Cloud Shell Works

The Cloud Shell machine is a small virtual machine running a Bash shell which you access through the OCI Console. Cloud Shell is free to use (within your tenancy’s monthly limits) and doesn’t require any setup or prerequisites. The only thing needed is a valid IAM policy that grants access to Cloud Shell.

To know more about IAM and Policy in Oracle Cloud (OCI), check our post Here

Cloud Shell includes a VM provisioned for you that executes in its tenancy (so it doesn’t use any of your tenancy’s resources) and hosts your shell in an Oracle Linux OS while you’re actively using Cloud Shell.

Required IAM Policy

To get started with Cloud Shell, you’ll need to grant the user access to Cloud Shell via an IAM policy. Each service in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure integrates with IAM for authentication and authorization, for all interfaces (the Console, SDK or CLI, and REST API).

The Command which will be used to grant the user access to Cloud shell is:

allow group <GROUP-NAME> to use cloud-shell in tenancy

To know more about Oracle Policies please read our blog from here.

Limitations Of Cloud Shell

Following things should be kept in mind while using Cloud Shell:

• Cloud Shell offers 5 GB of storage for VM’s home directory. After 6 months of non-use, the administrator will get a notification that the storage will be removed in 60 days. Starting a Cloud Shell session resets the storage removal timer.
• Changing the region selection in the console will not change the region for existing Cloud Shell instances, you will need to open a new Cloud Shell.
• Cloud Shell gets time out after 20 min of inactivity and the maximum length of a session can be 24 Hours.
• For those who need additional storage for Cloud Shell or want to run non-interactive long-running tasks are encouraged to use Compute and Storage resources in their tenancy.

How To Access Cloud Shell

1) Sign in to your Console for your tenancy, now to access Cloud Shell you need to create a valid IAM Policy.

2) Go to Policies under “Governance & Administration” as shown below and create a policy to give access to Cloud Shell.

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3) Create a policy using this policy statement:

allow group <GROUP-NAME> to use cloud-shell in tenancy

4) Now Sign in again to the Console for your tenancy, and then click the Cloud Shell icon at the top-right of the page.

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Note: You will not be able to access the console on Free Tier or Trial account

Example

Here is just an example of what you can do with Cloud Shell.

Run an OCI CLI Command in the Console

1. Open Cloud Shell.

2. Run an OCI CLI command at the prompt. Try this one:

   $ oci os ns get

3. Confirm the result (your tenancy’s unique namespace).

Related/References

• Oracle Cloud Shell Release Notes
• Download the Step-By-Step Activity Guide to Register for an Oracle Cloud Trial Account.
• Command Line Interface (CLI) In Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Architect: Step-By-Step Activity Guides To Clear Exam

Next Task For You

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