Does Managed Identity work with File or Share packages?

Question

Two main questions:

1. Is there a way to do a GetProperties on a fileshare object without using a storage account key, i.e. managed credential?
2. If not, what is the ETA for this feature? One of the posts I link near the bottom mentions later this year, 2024, anything more concrete if that is the case?

Detail:

I was looking for a way to use Managed Identity to perform certain actions on file shares with ShareFileClient from a function app - I see an error when trying to perform, for example, GetProperties (C#).

Error: This API does not support bearer tokens. For OAuth, use the Storage Resource Provider APIs instead.

I tried using the other approach suggested, using CloudStorageAccount and StorageCredentials:

var storageAccount = new CloudStorageAccount(storageCredentials, storageAccountName, endpointSuffix: null, useHttps: true);

to get the client:

var fileClient = storageAccount.CreateCloudFileClient();  

When using the share, it doesn't show the share exists (the share does exist, I double checked):

var share = fileClient.GetShareReference(shareName);

if (!share.Exists())  
        {  
            throw new Exception($"Share '{shareName}' does not exist.");  
}

Here are some details I found of limitations:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/authorize-oauth-rest?tabs=portal
Post mentioning further support for File sdk later this year:

https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-net/issues/41580

Here are the package versions I tested with:

    <PackageReference Include="Azure.Storage.Files.Shares" Version="12.19.1" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Azure.Storage.File" Version="11.2.3" />  

Answer 1

Hello Jordin Catanzaro,

Greetings! Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Platform.

I understand that you want to use Managed Identity to mount Azure File Shares.

Managed Identity cannot be used for mounting Azure File Shares. The only options available are Shared Access Signature, Storage Account Name/Key or specify Storage Account connection string to connect to your File Service. If you wish, you can leave your Feedback in our Feedback channel. All the feedback you share in these forums will be monitored and reviewed by the Microsoft engineering teams responsible for building Azure and I will be reporting this feature to our team as well.

Please refer to these previous threads with a similar ask- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/69619084/is-it-possible-to-connect-azure-file-share-storage-account-from-c-sharp-consol https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/595264/is-it-possible-to-connect-azure-file-share-storage.html https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/193121/can-we-use-managed-identity-to-connect-to-azure-fi.html

However, you might try using them to store and access the key in Azure Key Vault and map the share to a drive using PowerShell or C# code. Alternatively, you might want to try the File service REST API which authenticates using the share key too.

Hope this helps! Please do let us know if you have any further queries. I’m happy to assist you further.

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