Azure Portal Emulator

Introduction

The Azure Portal Emulator is an emulated version of the Azure Portal that the LocalStack Azure emulator serves directly from its own edge port. It gives you a visual way to work with your emulated resources: browse and filter everything in your local subscription, create resources through guided wizards, inspect blobs and Key Vault secrets, and invoke any ARM operation the emulator implements, all without installing anything beyond the emulator you already run.

Opening the portal

The emulator serves the portal by default. Start the emulator and open:

http://localhost:4566/_localstack/portal/

Open it at localhost (or localhost.localstack.cloud), not 127.0.0.1: the emulator refuses requests from the 127.0.0.1 origin, and the page stays blank there.

There is no separate port, container, or install step: the portal is served on the same edge port as the emulator’s API, so it works wherever the emulator works.

Turning the portal off

Set LS_AZURE_PORTAL=0 on the emulator container. With lstk, add it to an environment profile in your config:

[[containers]]
type = "azure"
tag  = "latest"
port = "4566"
env  = ["noportal"]

[env.noportal]
LS_AZURE_PORTAL = "0"

Or with plain Docker:

docker run -d -p 4566:4566 \
  -e LOCALSTACK_AUTH_TOKEN=$LOCALSTACK_AUTH_TOKEN \
  -e LS_AZURE_PORTAL=0 \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -v ~/.localstack/volume:/var/lib/localstack \
  localstack/localstack-azure

With the portal off, the URL returns 404 and no portal code is loaded. Older emulator images serve the portal only when LS_AZURE_PORTAL=1 is set.

What you can do

Browse resources. All resource groups and resources in your emulated subscription, with filtering, sorting, and configurable columns.
Create resources. Guided create wizards for supported resource types.
Work with data. A storage browser for blob containers (create, upload, download, delete), and Key Vault secrets and certificates.
Invoke any implemented operation. The API operations drawer lists every ARM operation your emulator implements and lets you run it with your own parameters and request body.
See only what works. By default the portal shows the features the emulator implements and leaves the rest out. Turn off Show only implemented features in Settings > Emulator to see the real portal’s full layout, with each feature the emulator does not implement greyed out and the reason given. To make that the default for everyone, set LS_AZURE_PORTAL_SHOW_ONLY_IMPLEMENTED=0 on the emulator container.

Always in sync with your emulator

The portal computes its capability catalog at runtime from the emulator it is running inside. It never claims an operation your emulator version does not support, and it picks up newly implemented operations automatically. There is no separate portal version to keep in step with the emulator.

The portal’s sign-in screen is a mock: one click signs you in, and no credentials are collected. Inside the emulator, the portal acts as the emulator’s default operator principal, LS_AZURE-0000-0000-0000-SP0000000000. Like the principal that the az CLI integration logs in as, it is treated as the current user, with full access to your emulated subscription. If you enable RBAC enforcement (LS_AZURE_ENFORCE_RBAC=1), portal requests are evaluated like any other operator traffic.

Things to know

Local only. The portal manages emulated resources in your local emulator. Nothing it does touches a real Azure subscription, and no data leaves your machine.
Same trust model as the emulator API. Anyone who can reach port 4566 can use the portal, just as they can use the emulator’s REST API. Do not expose the edge port to untrusted networks.
State follows the emulator. Resources created in the portal live in the emulator’s state, and they are gone after a restart, because the Azure emulator doesn’t persist its state.
A subset of the real portal. The Azure Portal Emulator covers the resource types and operations the emulator implements; it is not a re-implementation of every Azure Portal blade.
Telemetry. Portal-originated requests are not counted in the emulator’s usage analytics.

Troubleshooting

404 at /_localstack/portal/. The portal is turned off (LS_AZURE_PORTAL=0), or the emulator image is older than the release that serves it by default: update the image, or set LS_AZURE_PORTAL=1.
Blank page. Open the portal at localhost, not 127.0.0.1 (see Opening the portal).
Page loads but shows errors. Check http://localhost:4566/_localstack/portal/api/meta/health; it reports the emulator edition and the identity the portal is acting as.
A feature you expect is missing. By default the portal shows only what the emulator implements. Turn off Show only implemented features in Settings > Emulator to see everything, greyed out where the emulator does not implement it.
A resource action is greyed out. The emulator does not implement that operation yet; the tooltip names the gap.

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