The Microsoft Azure environment has many features and, with them, the need to be able to explore and manage the underlying storage infrastructure. There are many alternatives to do this, But a free tool that Microsoft makes available is the Explorador de Azure Storage (NORTH AMERICAN STOCK MARKET).
Available for Windows, Mac y Linux, This GUI tool enables blob browsing and management, records, Azure Tables and Queues. At the same time, it is feasible to manage Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Data Lake Storage entities. In this post, we explore how to use Azure Storage Explorer.
Azure Storage Explorer installation
Download the installation file from the Microsoft download site and run the installer. After accepting the license agreement, the destination location and the start menu location, will be able to start. This makes it very quick and easy to install..
Azure Storage connection
Once installed, the first step will be to connect to your existing Azure Storage. In this example, we are using an Azure account and the default Azure environment.
Once Next is clicked, you will be prompted for your credentials and then the storage will be completed on the Explorer screen as shown below.
In this example, there are two resources available, storage accounts and disks. Storage accounts are the generic containers for blogs and archives. Disks are the underlying volumes that are attached to running virtual machines. Inside the explorer, can interact with both types very easily.
Create a file share
Navigate to a storage account and after expanding the container, right click on Shared Files and choose Create Shared File. You will be asked to provide a name and then it will be created immediately.
As you can see, the file share, demo-share was created and you can browse the folder, upload files, remove files and inspect information.
Let's create a new directory, using the New Folder command. Once you click, you will be asked to give the folder a name.
After creating the directory, double click on the newly created directory to navigate inside. Browse for a file to upload from your local drive and click Upload Files. Click on the ... to locate the file to upload and its new directory will be pre-filled. Click Upload to add the file to the directory.
Retrieve shared access signature
A common task is to create a shared access signature link (SAS). This type of link enables you to give limited time and access to a link for a person or program to use.. With Azure Storage Explorer, creating these links is very easy. In the newly uploaded file, right click and choose Get Shared Access Signature.
You will be prompted for a dialog box asking for the Access Policy, the access times allowed and the permissions that will be assigned to this link.
After clicking Create, you will be provided with the URI and the Query String. Copying the URI will give you both the URI and the query string together.
Below is an example of this type of link.
<https://articlesdiag.file.core.windows.net/demo-share/test-folder/test-file.txt?st=2020-04-23T18%3A12%3A26Z&se=2020-04-24T18%3A12%3A26Z&sp=rl&sv=2018-03-28&sr=f&sig=%2FL7LWWOCNliwuh9ebYnzb2yEUDjGe%2ByBQg%2FKn%2FryETU%3D>
If the time has expired, you will see an error like the following, instead of being able to enter the file itself.
CORS rule settings (cross-origin resource sharing)
If you need to specify CORS rules, you can do it on file shares, blob containers, queues and tables quickly and easily. To do it, right click on Shared Files (as an example) and choose Configure CORS Settings.
You will be presented with a dialog box allowing you to enter up to five (5) CORS rules. Next, shows an example of how to add a CORS rule.
As you can see, CORS rules are specific to allowed origins.
Tables
If you need to work with tables within Azure Storage Explorer, This is very easy to do. Navigate to a storage account and the tables section. Search for a table or create a new one. Inside a table, you have several options to manipulate the table.
- Query
- Import and export
- Add / Edit / Delete
- Table statistics (recalculating)
With the Add command, can add a row (entity) to the table or property itself. To enable more advanced queries, click the Query button to create a filter and find just what you are looking for.
As you can see, can set complicated query conditions, save and replay those queries as needed.
Settings
In summary, there are some settings that it is useful to pay attention to. Even though not all are mentioned here, there are some that will help connect to Azure.
Attorney
On the application settings page you will find the proxy alternatives. This is useful if you need to route your traffic through a corporate proxy..
Check in
Also in the application settings page you will find the login alternatives. Even though the Microsoft authentication library (MSAL) is in preliminary version, this is still a useful property that you may need to enable. Since this library enables the use of enhanced single sign-on and multi-factor authentication, it is feasible that this is necessary.
AzCopy
In summary, on the Transfers screen, there are the AzCopy alternatives. These options control the default values used by the AzCopy command. This is essential, since depending on the size of the files and the type of files you are transferring, this is useful to be able to control those settings.
conclusion
Using Azure Storage Explorer enables easy access to Azure storage resources. Without depending on the interface of the online portal, you can quickly use a cross-platform GUI solution to quickly manage storage resources, what includes charging, download and create resources.
