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Shared Access Signature In Azure

In this article, we will discuss the Shared Access Signature in Azure.

What Is A Shared Access Signature?

A shared access signature is a signed URL that points to one or more storage resources.

What Is A Signed URL?

The signed URL is providing limited access permissions for a limited period for requesting the resource.

Why Do We Need The Shared Access Signature?

Consider an example, where you want to share the storage account file or the storage account with another user. There are 2 ways to accomplish it: -

Share the access key with the user → The issue with this approach is that, after sharing the key, the other user has full access to your storage account
Create a shared access signature → This is the recommended approach where you can provide appropriate permission to the user and specify the time till which the user can make a request

Levels Of Generating The Shared Access Key

The shared access key can be generated at: -

Resource level
Account level

Let us generate the shared access signature at each level.

Generating Shared Access Signature At Resource Level

In this article, we have created a storage account. Inside the storage account, a container is created and a file is uploaded to the container.

Picture showing the text file uploaded in the container of the storage account

Click to Enlarge

To generate the shared access signature on the file, we will work on the following steps: -

Click on the file myfile.txt
In the details tab, there is a tab called Generate SAS

Picture showing the Generate SAS tab for generating the shared access key

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In the Generate SAS tab, you can mention the different criteria for generating the SAS

Picture showing the generate SAS screen for generating the shared access key for text file

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Once the criteria are fulfilled, you can click on the Generate SAS token and URL button
The SAS token and URL are generated

Picture showing the BLOB SAS token and BLOB SAS url of the text file

Click to Enlarge

Picture showing the text file stored in the storage account in the browser

Click to Enlarge

Generating Shared Access Signature At Account Level

You can also generate the SAS at the account level i.e., at the storage account level. At the storage account level, we have a menu option Shared access signature.

Picture showing the Shared access signature submenu for storage account

Click to Enlarge

Once you click on the Shared access signature link, a screen will appear on the right-hand side. Like the resource level, you can specify the different criteria and generate the URL and token.

Picture showing the generate SAS screen for generating the shared access key for storage account

Click to Enlarge

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Monday, April 26, 2021

Updated On -	Thursday, May 20, 2021

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