PowerShell Basics: Want to Use Exchange Online in Azure Cloud PowerShell?

Since rollout in Exchange 2007, PowerShell and Exchange have been partners in helping administrators everywhere manage their environments. Whether on-premises or in the cloud, PowerShell is a powerful tool for working with Exchange. Now the cmdlets for managing Exchange Online are available in Azure Cloud Shell.

In this post, I’ll show you how to access the Exchange Online module easily, and begin working with your Exchange Online resources in Azure Cloud Shell.

Connecting to Exchange Online

To start, we need to establish a connection to Exchange Online in Azure Cloud Shell with the Connect-EXOPSSession cmdlet. This cmdlet connects to Exchange Online with managed identity for Azure (MSI) using your current login.

Before actually connecting to Exchange Online, let’s take a look at what this cmdlet has to offer using get-help.

So we see that we have a few optional parameters that can be used. Generally, you’ll simply run the command as is since you are already logged into Azure through Cloud Shell, and MSI will take care of the authentication for you.

To connect to Exchange Online, simply enter the following:

This process takes a few moments as the connection is made, and the Exchange Online cmdlets are temporarily loaded into the shell as shortcut to the actual cmdlets being run inside of Exchange Online. The process uses implicit remoting, a technique for accessing a PowerShell module from a remote system without permanently installing the module based on Import-PSSession. For more information on implicit remoting and Import-PSSession, see this doc.

Finding the Exchange Commands

Normally, cmdlets available within PowerShell in Cloud Shell would be part of an installed and loaded module. However, when you search the modules in Cloud Shell, you won’t find any modules explicitly calling out Exchange. That is because implicit remoting creates a temporary module containing the imported cmdlets shortcuts to the actual cmdlets running in Exchange Online. So you are not actually running the commands in your shell, but on the remote system’s shell environment. It’s easy to find as it will be the only module name starting with tmp_ as seen in the listing below:

Notice under exported commands, the first command is Add-MailboxFolderPermission so we know that is the module we want to work with.

Now to see the commands available within the module, we use get-module and select out the commands as seen here:

You’ll note I used tmp* for the module name since there is only one temporary module. You would need to call the full name should you have other temporary modules in your session.

Now you have access to the Exchange Online cmdlets. At the time of this blog, that is 131 cmdlets available in Cloud Shell. This may change over time as more cmdlets and other services are added.

Working with Exchange Online Cmdlets

Once connected, you can begin using the cmdlets as you normally would. For example, you can view the non-exchange information for a user object in your Exchange organization using get-user.

View user objects in Azure Cloud Shell using Get-User

Looking for mailbox-specific information? Try get-mailbox.

Listing a mailbox in Azure Cloud Shell using Get-Mailbox

And like all commands in PowerShell, you can use the pipeline and filtering techniques to find more specific information.

Was this post helpful? Do you have other Questions/Comments? Would you like to see other Office 365 services available in Cloud Shell? Let me know in the comments below!

If you want more information on commands from this blog, check out the docs below:

• Connect to Exchange Online with PowerShell
• Import-PSSession
• Managed identities for Azure (MSI)
• Exchange PowerShell Reference
• Get-User
• Get-Mailbox
  

  Connecting to Exchange Online using Connect-EXOPSSession