Create Azure Active Directory App Registration with Azure CLI

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Create Azure Active Directory App Registration with Azure CLI

There are now an insane number of ways to register applications in Azure Active Directory — but many ways are no longer supported or have been discontinued, for example the old Azure PowerShell tools.

However, new tools — for example PowerShell Az — do not support all features, are not well documented or do not behave as expected. In addition, for months there has been a bug in PowerShell that makes the tooling installation take up to 60 minutes! Powershell Gallery slowness: Install-Module -Name Az takes 60 minutes instead of 3

However, one way is still stable and working: the Azure CLI.

Install Azure CLI

Using WinGet:

winget install -e --id Microsoft.AzureCLI

Using Chocolatey:

choco install azure-cli

Manual Install: Azure CLI Docs

Login

Login into your Azure Account from CLI:

or use device code login to use a custom browser window (e.g. multi account feature of your browser):

az login --use-device-code

Select a subscription

az account set --subscription $subscriptionId

Create Azure App Registration

When creating the app, it is important to consider what type of app is desired. By default, certain parameters always refer to a web app, e.g. Reply URLs. If a SPA is desired, an update must also take place after the creation!

Create WebApp

$uri = "https://ba-sample-webapp.azurewebsites.net/" $appName = "Benjamin Abt Sample WebApp"
$appHomepage = "https://ba-sample-webapp.azurewebsites.net/" $appReplyUrls = @("https://ba-sample-webapp.azurewebsites.net/", "https://ba-sample-webapp.azurewebsites.net/logout/")
Write-Host "Web App Creating.."
$app = az ad app create --display-name $appName --homepage $appHomepage --reply-urls $appReplyUrls | ConvertFrom-Json 
Write-Host "Web App $($app.appId) Created."

Create SPA App

$uri = "https://ba-sample-webapp.azurewebsites.net/"
$appName = "Benjamin Abt Sample WebApp"
$appHomepage = "https://ba-sample-webapp.azurewebsites.net/" $appReplyUrls = @("https://ba-sample-webapp.azurewebsites.net/", "https://ba-sample-webapp.azurewebsites.net/logout/")
Write-Host "SPA App Creating.."
$app = az ad app create --display-name $appName --homepage $appHomepage | ConvertFrom-Json
Write-Host "SPA App
$($app.appId) Created."
Write-Host "SPA App Updating.."
# there is no CLI support to add reply urls to a SPA, so we have to patch manually via az rest
$appPatchUri = "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/applications/{0}" -f $app.objectId $appReplyUrlsString = "'{0}'" -f ($appReplyUrls -join "','")
$appPatchBody = "{spa:{redirectUris:[$appReplyUrlsString]}}"
az rest --method PATCH --uri $appPatchUri --headers 'Content-Type=application/json' --body $appPatchBody
Write-Host "SPA App Updated."

Conclusion:

It is still very simple and fast to create Azure AD App Registrations, however it is just not well documented.

Autor

Benjamin Abt

Ben is a passionate developer and software architect and especially focused on .NET, cloud and IoT. In his professional he works on high-scalable platforms for IoT and Industry 4.0 focused on the next generation of connected industry based on Azure and .NET. He runs the largest german-speaking C# forum myCSharp.de, is the founder of the Azure UserGroup Stuttgart, a co-organizer of the AzureSaturday, runs his blog, participates in open source projects, speaks at various conferences and user groups and also has a bit free time. He is a Microsoft MVP since 2015 for .NET and Azure.

Originally published at https://schwabencode.com on March 9, 2022.