Integrate Azure Files with Service Connector

This page shows supported authentication methods and clients, and shows sample code you can use to connect Azure File Storage to other cloud services using Service Connector. You might still be able to connect to Azure File Storage in other programming languages without using Service Connector. This page also shows default environment variable names and values (or Spring Boot configuration) you get when you create the service connection.

Supported compute services

Service Connector can be used to connect the following compute services to Azure Files:

• Azure App Service
• Azure Functions
• Azure Container Apps
• Azure Spring Apps

Supported authentication types and client types

The table below shows which combinations of authentication methods and clients are supported for connecting your compute service to Azure Files using Service Connector. A “Yes” indicates that the combination is supported, while a “No” indicates that it is not supported.

Client Type	System-assigned managed identity	User-assigned managed identity	Secret / connection string	Service principal
.NET	No	No	Yes	No
Java	No	No	Yes	No
Java - Spring Boot	No	No	Yes	No
Node.js	No	No	Yes	No
Python	No	No	Yes	No
PHP	No	No	Yes	No
Ruby	No	No	Yes	No
None	No	No	Yes	No

This table indicates that the only supported authentication method for all client types is the Secret / connection string method. The System-assigned managed identity, User-assigned managed identity, and Service principal methods are not supported for any of the client types to connect to Azure Files.

Default environment variable names or application properties and sample code

Use the connection details below to connect compute services to Azure File Storage. For each example below, replace the placeholder texts <account-name>, <account-key>, <storage-account-name> and <storage-account-key> with your own account name, account key, storage account name, and storage account key. For more information about naming conventions, check the Service Connector internals article.

Connection string

SpringBoot client type

Application properties	Description	Example value
azure.storage.account-name	File storage account name	<storage-account-name>
azure.storage.account-key	File storage account key	<storage-account-key>
azure.storage.file-endpoint	File storage endpoint	https://<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net/
spring.cloud.azure.storage.fileshare.account-name	File storage account name for Spring Cloud Azure version above 4.0	<storage-account-name>
spring.cloud.azure.storage.fileshare.account-key	File storage account key for Spring Cloud Azure version above 4.0	<storage-account-key>
spring.cloud.azure.storage.fileshare.endpoint	File storage endpoint for Spring Cloud Azure version above 4.0	https://<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net/

Other client types

Default environment variable name	Description	Example value
AZURE_STORAGEFILE_CONNECTIONSTRING	File storage connection string	DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=<account-name>;AccountKey=<account-key>;EndpointSuffix=core.windows.net

Sample code

Refer to the steps and code below to connect to Azure File Storage using an account key.

.NET

1. Install dependency.

   dotnet add package Azure.Storage.Files.Shares --version 12.16.0
   

2. Get the connection string from the environment variable added by Service Connector.

   using System;
   using Azure.Storage.Files.Shares;
   using Azure.Storage.Files.Shares.Models;
   
   var connectionString = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("AZURE_STORAGEFILE_CONNECTIONSTRING");
   ShareServiceClient service = new ShareServiceClient(connectionString)
   

Java

1. Add the following dependency in your pom.xml file:

   <dependency>
       <groupId>com.azure</groupId>
       <artifactId>azure-storage-file-share</artifactId>
       <version>12.20.1</version>
   </dependency>
   

2. Get the connection string from the environment variable added by Service Connector.

   import com.azure.storage.file.share.*;
   
   String connectionString = System.getenv("AZURE_STORAGEFILE_CONNECTIONSTRING");
   ShareServiceClient fileServiceClient = new ShareServiceClientBuilder()
       .connectionString(CONNECTION_STRING).buildClient();
   

SpringBoot

Refer to Storage File Sample to set up your Spring application. Two sets of configuration properties are provided according to the version of Spring Cloud Azure (below 4.0 and above 4.0). For more information, check Azure Storage File Share Properties.

Python

1. Install dependency.

   pip install azure-storage-file-share
   

2. Get the connection string from the environment variable added by Service Connector.

   from azure.storage.fileshare import ShareServiceClient
   
   connection_string = os.getenv('AZURE_STORAGEFILE_CONNECTIONSTRING')
   service_client = ShareServiceClient.from_connection_string(connection_string)
   

NodeJS

1. Install dependency.

   npm install @azure/storage-file-share
   

2. Get the connection string from the environment variable added by Service Connector.

   const { ShareServiceClient } = require("@azure/storage-file-share");
   
   const connection_string = process.env.AZURE_STORAGEFILE_CONNECTIONSTRING;
   const shareServiceClient = ShareServiceClient.fromConnectionString(connection_string);
   

Other

For other languages, you can use the connection information that Service Connector sets to the environment variables to connect to Azure File Storage. For environment variable details, see Integrate Azure Files with Service Connector.

Next steps

Follow the tutorials listed below to learn more about Service Connector.

Learn about Service Connector concepts