How to run Azure CLI in docker as if it's locally install and not notice a difference :)

az.sh

# How to use dockerised version Azure CLI (or anything else)
# in a totally transparent way. This solves several challenges:
#   - Persistent login. Don't want to login every time.
#   - Container startup time. It can be noticable.
#   - Access to host's disk.
#   - Run without ever using "docker" command.
#
# WINDOWS NOTE:
#   - You *will* run into volume mapping issues on Windows, sadly.
#   - Either remove any args with '-v` and 'v` and then everything
#     should broadly work, but you will not have access to host file system.
#   - OR. Try to figure out how to make it work and suggest a patch,
#     this will be much appreciated.
#
# Essentially this makes 'az' command look and behave completely
# like it's a locally installed utility and not running in docker at all!

# First, pin the Azure CLI to correct version.
IMAGE=mcr.microsoft.com/azure-cli:2.7.0

# Now make az image always run with home dir mapped into container.
# Anything you do in the running container will persist:
#   - any changes to mapped volume will be reflected permanently;
#   - any changes in other directories will live until the container is deleted.
#
# This means your login to azure will persist until the the container is stoped and removed.
# This will remove the need to login every single time.
docker run \
    -d \
    --name az \
    -v "${HOME}":"${HOME}":cached \
    -w "${HOME}" \
    "${IMAGE}" \
    bash -c 'while true; do sleep 5; done'

# Now login to Azure.
docker exec az az login

# Verify the login has persisted
docker exec az az account show

# Obviously using 'docker exec' every time is utter nonsense.
# So we make a bash alias for az command.
# Use '-w' to exec this in the current host directory.
# This will work as long as we are under $HOME on the host
# which should be the case most of the time. And we have the entire $HOME
# mapped as volume into the container.
# To make this persistent, add to ~/.bashrc or something.
alias az="docker exec -w \"${PWD}\" az az"

# Now every time you run 'az', you will run it in docker :)
# To run host-installed az use backslash prefix for az '\az'

# You can temporarily stop the container if you want.
# The Azure login is still persisted until container is actually deleted.
# Obviously the 'az' alias will now produce error.
docker kill az

# You can restart the container again.
docker restart az

# Verify that you are still logged in
az account show

# Completely zap the container when not needed.
docker kill az || true; docker rm az || true

# The same concepts apply to all command line utilities pretty much.