Site Extensions are an amazing part of Azure Websites, they have the ability to (surprise, surprise) extend the functionality of a Website by providing new language support or some new functionality to the site. This can be seen from my last post where I added WordPress Command Line Interface support to Azure Websites.
In that post, I showed how you can use the new preview portal to add the site extension, but in this post I wanted to talk about both the Current Management Portal as well as the Preview Portal so there is single place to find both instruction sets.
Site Extensions (Management Portal)
There is no integration within the management portal to enable Site Extensions, but all isn’t lost. You can still add site extensions from your Kudu Console (SCM Site), one of the easiest ways to get to your website is the portal (provided you’re already there). You can click Browse to launch your website.
Once our website loads, we can change the URL, slightly, to enter into the Kudu Console. You’ll notice I’ve added the https:// protocol to the beginning of the URL and .scm after the name of the website.
In the navigation bar, you will see Site Extensions.
There are two tabs on the Site Extensions page, Installed and Gallery. There might not be anything listed under installed at first. Click on gallery to get the list of Site Extensions you can install.
Clicking on a plus sign on a gallery item will install the Site Extension. After the Site Extension is install, you must hit the “Restart Site” button in the upper right hand corner of the Site Extensions page. Clicking on the circled letter ‘i’ will display the detailed information for the Site Extension.
Site Extensions (Preview Portal)
There is direct Site Extension integration in the Preview Portal. We’ll start from the default blade for our Website.
Click on Settings in the Command Bar. This opens the settings list in which we will find an option for Extensions.
This opens a blade which lists previously installed Site Extensions, and has an add button to add new Extensions to our website.
Click Add. This opens the Site Extension gallery, where we can select a new Site Extension to enable.
The next step is to accept the legal terms for the Site Extension.
Then finish the installation process by clicking OK.
You can Browse, Update or Delete the Site Extension by right-clicking on the entry in this list.