Manage authentication within Service Connector

In this guide, learn about the different authentication options available in Service Connector, and how to customize environment variables.

Prerequisites

• An Azure subscription - create one for free.
• An Azure App Service, Azure Container Apps or Azure Spring Apps instance.
• This guide assumes that you already know how the basics of connecting services using Service Connector. To review our quickstarts, go to App Service, Container Apps or Azure Spring Apps.

Start creating a new connection

1. Within your App Service, Container Apps or Azure Spring Apps instance, open Service Connector and fill out the form in the Basics tab with the required information about your compute and target services.
2. Select Next : Authentication.

Select an authentication option

Select one of the four different authentication options offered by Service Connector to connect your Azure services together:

• System assigned managed identity: provides an automatically managed identity tied to the resource in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)
• User assigned managed identity: provides an identity that can be used on multiple resources
• Connection string: provides one or multiple key-value pairs with secrets or tokens
• Service principal: creates a service principal that defines the access policy and permissions for the user/application in the Azure AD tenant

Service Connector offers the following authentication options:

Target resource	System assigned managed identity	User assigned managed identity	Connection string	Service principal
App Configuration
Azure SQL
Azure Cache for Redis
Azure Cache for Redis Enterprise
Azure Cosmos DB - Cassandra
Azure Cosmos - Gremlin
Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB
Azure Cosmos Table
Azure Cosmos - SQL
Blob Storage
Confluent Cloud
Event Hubs
Keyvault
MySQL single server
MySQL flexible server
Postgres single server
Postgres, flexible server
Storage Queue
Storage File
Storage Table
Service Bus
SignalR
WebPub Sub

Review or update authentication configuration

System assigned managed identity

When using a system-assigned managed identity, optionally review or update its authentication configuration by following these steps:

1. Select Advanced to display more options.

2. Under Role, review the default role selected for your source service or choose another one from the list.

3. Under Configuration information, Service Connector lists a series of configuration settings that will be generated when you create the connection. This list consists of environment variables or application properties. It varies depending on the target resource and authentication method selected. Optionally select the edit button in front of each configuration setting to edit its key.

4. Select Done to confirm.

   

User assigned managed identity

When using a user-assigned managed identity, review or edit its authentication settings by following these steps:

1. Under Subscription, select the Azure subscription that contains your user-assigned managed identity.

2. Under User assigned managed identity, select the managed identity you want to use.

   

3. Optionally select Advanced to display more options.

   1. Under Role, review the default role selected for your source service or choose another one from the list.
   2. Under Configuration information, Service Connector lists a series of configuration settings that will be generated when you create the connection. This list consists of environment variables or application properties and varies depending on the target resource and authentication method selected. Optionally select the edit button in front of each configuration setting to edit its key.
   3. Select Done to confirm.

   

Connection string

When using a connection string, review or edit its authentication settings by following these steps:

1. Optionally select Store Secret in Key Vault to save your connection credentials in Azure Key Vault. This option lets you select an existing Key Vault connection from a drop-down list or create a new connection to a new or an existing Key Vault.

   

2. Optionally select Advanced to display more options.

   1. Under Configuration information, Service Connector lists a series of configuration settings that will be generated when you create the connection. This list consists of environment variables or application properties and varies depending on the target resource and authentication method selected. Optionally select the edit button in front of each configuration setting to edit its key.
   2. Select Done to confirm.

   

Service principal

When connecting Azure services using a service principal, review or edit authentication settings by following these steps:

1. Choose a service principal by entering an object ID or name and selecting your service principal.

2. Under Secret, enter the secret of the service principal.

3. Optionally select Store Secret in Key Vault to save your connection credentials in Azure Key Vault. This option lets you select an existing Key Vault connection from a drop-down list or create a new connection to a new or an existing Key Vault.

   

4. Optionally select Advanced to display more options.

   1. Under Configuration information, Service Connector lists a series of configuration settings that will be generated when you create the connection. This list consists of environment variables or application properties and varies depending on the target resource and authentication method selected. Optionally select the edit button in front of each configuration setting to edit its key.
   2. Select Done to confirm.

   

5. Select Review + Create and then Create to finalize the creation of the connection.

Check authentication configuration

You can review authentication configuration on the following pages in the Azure portal:

• When creating the connection, select the Review + Create tab and check the information listed under Authentication.

  

• After you've created the connection, in the Service connector page, configuration keys are listed.

Next steps

Service Connector internals