Web App on Linux (Preview) enables developers to run their cloud apps natively on Docker Containers for Linux. It makes it easier to migrate existing apps hosted and optimized for the Linux platform into Azure App Service. Furthermore, with custom Docker Container support, developers can implement applications in many programming languages and stacks while taking advantage of Docker tooling as well as the industry leading PaaS capabilities of Azure App Service.

Today, we are announcing the availability of many of our differentiated PaaS capabilities to developers whether they are building apps on Linux or just want to bring their apps already packaged as containers. Developers are invited to experience improved productivity with capabilities such as Continuous Integration (CI), testing and staging environments, testing-in-production, performance testing capabilities, SSH support, and much more.

We are also happy to announce availability of Web App on Linux in the Australia East region, in addition to West US, West Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Here are some of the key enhancements we have added to App Service on Linux Preview:

Site slots & swap

Deployment Slots has been one of the most used features of Azure App Service and our Linux and Containers offering would not be complete without them! Starting today, you can duplicate an existing application into a “slot” and perform the swap operations between pre-production and production slot seamlessly. Learn more about deployment slots. Advanced features like “swap with preview”, “rollback”, and “Application Warm-up” will be added shortly.

Auto scale

You can now easily scale App Service Linux and Container apps out on demand or automatically. With this release, Auto Scale supports CPU, Disk Queue Length, and Memory triggers. Other types of triggers will follow soon.

SSH anyone?

Yes, that’s correct. Now you can SSH (webssh) into your app from a management endpoint. Give it a try by browsing to see this article.

NOTE: SSH server is installed on all our “stock” containers, built-in images. For custom Docker containers, you will need to install an SSH server to use SSH. See a list of our built-in images.

Setup Continuous Deliver using VSTS

Continuous Delivery in Visual Studio Team Services makes it trivial to setup a robust deployment pipeline for your Linux or Container apps.  By default, the pipeline builds a container image, pushes the image to a container registry, and deploys the new image to Azure App Service. You can easily add another Linux or Container app to the pipeline to validate your changes before they ever get to production. Write your own functional tests to make sure things are working at each step along the way. Learn more about setting up Continuous Deliver using VSTS.

Docker image CI/CD from Docker hub

Have your custom Docker image automatically re-deployed when a new version is pushed to Docker hub.

1. Set up web hook on Docker hub to push to your management endpoint:
   

   Read more about Docker image CI/CD from Docker hub.

   Deploy WordPress on Linux

   Following today’s announcement, App Service now supports Azure Database for MySQL (Preview). Easy to install WordPress packages that are backed by Azure Database for MySQL (Preview) are now available for App Service Web Apps on Windows and Linux. For more details, see Create WordPress on App Service Linux.

   Try App Service for Linux

   We are also excited to announce the addition of Web Apps on Linux to Try App Service. You can now try building Linux or Container based applications on App Service for free without having to sign-up to Azure or provide a credit card.

   To learn more see this blog.

   Other features announced today

   • Support for Wildcard Domain names: You can now assign wild card domain names to your web apps. For example, *.constoco.com.
   • Testing in Production (TiP): This feature allows you to direct x% of traffic to the slot or beta site of your application. To learn more follow the link. 
   • Always ON: Using this feature, you can keep your web app always running and avoid a cold start due to idle timeouts. To learn more follow the link. 
   • Site Restart from Azure Portal and API: You can restart your container and web app using this option. This option will force reload of the container from the cached image. 
   • Automatic PORT detection for custom images: There is no need to set PORT AppSetting for your web app anymore. We will try to read your Docker file and automatically configure the internal PORT. The application is listening on. If you already have the PORT application setting configured, then it is honored and preferred .

   We are pleased to bring these feature updates to our customers. For additional questions, please check out our FAQ.

   As always, submit your ideas/feedback in UserVoice. Please add [Linux] or [Container] at the beginning of the title.