Use Azure Files with Linux

  • 5 minutes to read
  • Contributors

Azure Files is Microsoft's easy to use cloud file system. Azure file shares can be mounted in Linux distributions using the SMB kernel client. This article shows two ways to mount an Azure file share: on-demand with the mount command and on-boot by creating an entry in /etc/fstab.

Note

In order to mount an Azure file share outside of the Azure region it is hosted in, such as on-premises or in a different Azure region, the OS must support the encryption functionality of SMB 3.0.

Prerequisites for mounting an Azure file share with Linux and the cifs-utils package

  • An existing Azure storage account and file share: In order to complete this article, you need to have a storage account and file share. If you haven't already created one, see one of our quickstarts on the subject: Create file shares - CLI.

  • Your storage account name and key You will need the storage account name and key in order to complete this article. If you created one using the CLI quickstart you should already have them, otherwise, consult the CLI quickstart that was linked earlier, in order to learn how to retrieve your storage account key.

  • Pick a Linux distribution to suit your mounting needs.
    Azure Files can be mounted either via SMB 2.1 and SMB 3.0. For connections coming from clients on-premises or in other Azure regions, you must use SMB 3.0; Azure Files will reject SMB 2.1 (or SMB 3.0 without encryption). If you're accessing the Azure file share from a VM within the same Azure region, you may access your file share using SMB 2.1, if and only if, secure transfer required is disabled for the storage account hosting the Azure file share. We always recommend requiring secure transfer and using only SMB 3.0 with encryption.

    SMB 3.0 encryption support was introduced in Linux kernel version 4.11 and has been backported to older kernel versions for popular Linux distributions. At the time of this document's publication, the following distributions from the Azure gallery support mounting option specified in the table headers.

  • Minimum recommended versions with corresponding mount capabilities (SMB version 2.1 vs SMB version 3.0)

    SMB 2.1
    (Mounts on VMs within same Azure region)    		 SMB 3.0
    (Mounts from on premises and cross-region)
    Ubuntu Server 14.04+ 16.04+
    RHEL 7+ 7.5+
    CentOS 7+ 7.5+
    Debian 8+
    openSUSE 13.2+ 42.3+
    SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 12 SP3+

    If your Linux distribution is not listed here, you can check to see the Linux kernel version with the following command:

    uname -r

  • The cifs-utils package is installed.
    The cifs-utils package can be installed using the package manager on the Linux distribution of your choice.

    On Ubuntu and Debian-based distributions, use the apt-get package manager:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cifs-utils

    On RHEL and CentOS, use the yum package manager:

    sudo yum install cifs-utils

    On openSUSE, use the zypper package manager:

    sudo zypper install cifs-utils

    On other distributions, use the appropriate package manager or compile from source

  • Decide on the directory/file permissions of the mounted share: In the examples below, the permission 0777 is used to give read, write, and execute permissions to all users. You can replace it with other chmod permissions as desired.

  • Ensure port 445 is open: SMB communicates over TCP port 445 - check to see if your firewall is not blocking TCP ports 445 from client machine.

Mount the Azure file share on-demand with mount

  1. Install the cifs-utils package for your Linux distribution.

  2. Create a folder for the mount point: A folder for a mount point can be created anywhere on the file system, but it's common convention to create this under the /mnt folder. For example:

    mkdir /mnt/MyAzureFileShare

  3. Use the mount command to mount the Azure file share: Remember to replace <storage-account-name>, <share-name>, <smb-version>, <storage-account-key>, and <mount-point> with the appropriate information for your environment. If your Linux distribution supports SMB 3.0 with encryption (see Understand SMB client requirements for more information), use 3.0 for <smb-version>. For Linux distributions that do not support SMB 3.0 with encryption, use 2.1 for <smb-version>. An Azure file share can only be mounted outside of an Azure region (including on-premises or in a different Azure region) with SMB 3.0.

    sudo mount -t cifs //<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net/<share-name> <mount-point> -o vers=<smb-version>,username=<storage-account-name>,password=<storage-account-key>,dir_mode=0777,file_mode=0777,serverino

Note

When you are done using the Azure file share, you may use sudo umount <mount-point> to unmount the share.

Create a persistent mount point for the Azure file share with /etc/fstab

  1. Install the cifs-utils package for your Linux distribution.

  2. Create a folder for the mount point: A folder for a mount point can be created anywhere on the file system, but it's common convention to create this under the /mnt folder. Wherever you create this, note the absolute path of the folder. For example, the following command creates a new folder under /mnt (the path is an absolute path).

    sudo mkdir /mnt/MyAzureFileShare

  3. Create a credential file to store the username (the storage account name) and password (the storage account key) for the file share. Remember to replace <storage-account-name> and <storage-account-key> with the appropriate information for your environment.

    if [ ! -d "/etc/smbcredentials" ]; then
    sudo mkdir /etc/smbcredentials
fi

if [ ! -f "/etc/smbcredentials/<storage-account-name>.cred" ]; then
    sudo bash -c 'echo "username=<storage-account-name>" >> /etc/smbcredentials/<storage-account-name>.cred'
    sudo bash -c 'echo "password=<storage-account-key>" >> /etc/smbcredentials/<storage-account-name>.cred'
fi

  4. Change permissions on the credential file so only root can read or modify the password file. Since the storage account key is essentially a super-administrator password for the storage account, setting the permissions on the file such that only root can access is important so that lower privilege users cannot retrieve the storage account key.

    sudo chmod 600 /etc/smbcredentials/<storage-account-name>.cred

  5. Use the following command to append the following line to /etc/fstab: Remember to replace <storage-account-name>, <share-name>, <smb-version>, and <mount-point> with the appropriate information for your environment. If your Linux distribution supports SMB 3.0 with encryption (see Understand SMB client requirements for more information), use 3.0 for <smb-version>. For Linux distributions that do not support SMB 3.0 with encryption, use 2.1 for <smb-version>. An Azure file share can only be mounted outside of an Azure region (including on-premises or in a different Azure region) with SMB 3.0.

    sudo bash -c 'echo "//<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net/<share-name> <mount-point> cifs nofail,vers=<smb-version>,credentials=/etc/smbcredentials/<storage-account-name>.cred,dir_mode=0777,file_mode=0777,serverino" >> /etc/fstab'

Note

You can use sudo mount -a to mount the Azure file share after editing /etc/fstab instead of rebooting.

Feedback

Linux users, we want to hear from you!

The Azure Files for Linux users' group provides a forum for you to share feedback as you evaluate and adopt File storage on Linux. Email Azure Files Linux Users to join the users' group.

Next steps

See these links for more information about Azure Files: