Linux in the Cloud

3 minute read

The three largest public clouds — AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure — all default to Linux for their compute offerings. Understanding Linux is essential for anyone working with cloud infrastructure.

Default VM Images Are Linux

When you create a virtual machine on any major cloud platform, the default options are Linux:

Amazon Web Services (EC2)

# Creating an EC2 instance from the CLI — default AMI is Amazon Linux 2023
aws ec2 run-instances \
  --image-id ami-0c101f26f147fa7fd \   # Amazon Linux 2023
  --instance-type t3.micro \
  --key-name my-key-pair

# Connecting via SSH
ssh -i my-key.pem ec2-user@<public-ip>

ec2-user@ip-10-0-1-5:~$ uname -a
Linux ip-10-0-1-5 6.1.82-99.168.amzn2023.x86_64 ... Amazon Linux

Popular EC2 Linux images:

  • Amazon Linux 2023 — AWS’s own RHEL-compatible distro
  • Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 LTS — most popular choice
  • Debian 12 — stable, widely used
  • RHEL / Rocky Linux — enterprise workloads

Google Cloud (Compute Engine)

# Create a GCP VM — default is Debian Linux
gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --image-family=debian-12 \
  --image-project=debian-cloud \
  --machine-type=e2-micro

# SSH access via gcloud
gcloud compute ssh my-vm
user@my-vm:~$ cat /etc/debian_version
12.5

Microsoft Azure

# Create an Azure VM — Ubuntu is the most common Linux choice
az vm create \
  --resource-group myRG \
  --name myVM \
  --image Ubuntu2204 \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys

# SSH in
ssh azureuser@<public-ip>
azureuser@myVM:~$ lsb_release -a
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS

Cloud Shell Environments

Each major cloud provider offers a browser-based Linux shell — no local setup required:

Platform Cloud Shell Included Tools
AWS CloudShell Available in browser AWS CLI, Python, Node.js, git
Google Cloud Shell Always-on, 5 GB persistent gcloud, kubectl, Terraform, git
Azure Cloud Shell Bash or PowerShell Azure CLI, kubectl, Terraform

Cloud Shell gives you a real Linux terminal in your browser:

# Google Cloud Shell — accessed from console.cloud.google.com
Welcome to Cloud Shell! Type "help" to get started.
youremail@cloudshell:~ (my-project)$ uname -a
Linux cs-1234 5.10.0 ... Debian GNU/Linux 11

# Run kubectl, gcloud, terraform — everything pre-installed
kubectl get nodes
gcloud projects list
terraform --version

This is extremely useful for learning Linux in the cloud — no local install needed.

Serverless Runtimes Run on Linux

Serverless functions (AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, Azure Functions) execute your code inside Linux-based micro-VMs or containers:

AWS Lambda Runtime Environments

# This Python Lambda function runs on Amazon Linux 2
import os

def handler(event, context):
    # The runtime is Linux — you can use Linux syscalls
    print(os.uname())
    # posix.uname_result(sysname='Linux', nodename='...', ...)
    return {"statusCode": 200, "body": "Hello from Linux!"}

Lambda runtime environments:

  • Python 3.12 → Amazon Linux 2023
  • Node.js 20 → Amazon Linux 2023
  • Java 21 → Amazon Linux 2023
  • Go 1.21 → Amazon Linux 2023

Understanding Linux file paths, permissions, and environment variables matters even in serverless — your function reads config from /tmp, needs specific file permissions, and uses Linux environment variables.

Managed Kubernetes Node Pools Are Linux

Managed Kubernetes services (EKS, GKE, AKS) provision Linux worker nodes by default:

# EKS node group — Amazon Linux 2 by default
aws eks describe-nodegroup \
  --cluster-name my-cluster \
  --nodegroup-name standard-workers \
  --query 'nodegroup.amiType'
# "AL2_x86_64"  ← Amazon Linux 2

# GKE node pool — Container-Optimized OS (ChromiumOS/Linux based)
gcloud container node-pools describe default-pool \
  --cluster my-cluster \
  --format="value(config.imageType)"
# COS_CONTAINERD  ← Container-Optimized OS (Linux)

# AKS node pool — Ubuntu Linux
az aks nodepool show \
  --resource-group myRG \
  --cluster-name myAKS \
  --name nodepool1 \
  --query 'osType'
# "Linux"

All three major managed Kubernetes services default to Linux worker nodes. Windows node pools are available but optional and much less common.

Why Cloud = Linux

Reason Explanation
Cost No licensing fees — saving millions at scale
Performance Linux kernel is highly optimised for server workloads
Container support Containers ARE Linux — native kernel support
Automation Shell scripting, cron, systemd — all Linux-native
Security Mature permission model, SELinux/AppArmor, auditd
Ecosystem Every cloud tool is built and tested on Linux first

Key Takeaways

  • AWS, GCP, and Azure all default to Linux VMs when creating compute instances
  • Every major cloud offers a browser-based Linux terminal (Cloud Shell) — great for learning
  • Serverless runtimes (Lambda, Cloud Functions) run your code on Linux
  • Managed Kubernetes (EKS, GKE, AKS) worker nodes default to Linux
  • Linux is the dominant OS in cloud computing, not Windows
← Back to Linux in DevOps Next → Automation Use Cases

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