The Azure Cloud Shell image has been updated
Published date: November 23, 2020
Cloud Shell provides a large set of useful cloud management tools packaged inside a container. Until now, the base image for the container and the corresponding repository for packages has been Ubuntu 16.04. This release is now approaching end of life, and many of the tools included in Cloud Shell are older than we would like.
Cloud Shell is currently being updated to a newer base image based on Debian 10, while this is not a stand-alone distribution, it will follow Debian 10 closely. The primary difference is that the Cloud Shell image is compiled from source by Microsoft. This will provide a more secure image and guard against and supply chain attacks.
What this means for you is that a very large number of packages have been updated. Almost every single tool included in the Cloud Shell image has a newer version, including many of the most-commonly-used ones. Some lesser-used tools have also been removed and some others added. Some highlights on updated tools: PowerShell 7.1, Python 3.7, & Ruby 2.5.
For a full list of changes please see the pull request on our Cloud Shell GitHub repository.