The Azure Identity library provides credentialsâpublic classes derived from the Azure Core library's TokenCredential class. A credential represents a distinct authentication flow for acquiring an access token from Microsoft Entra ID. These credentials can be chained together to form an ordered sequence of authentication mechanisms to be attempted.
How a chained credential worksAt runtime, a credential chain attempts to authenticate using the sequence's first credential. If that credential fails to acquire an access token, the next credential in the sequence is attempted, and so on, until an access token is successfully obtained. The following sequence diagram illustrates this behavior:
Why use credential chains
A chained credential can offer the following benefits:
Environment awareness: Automatically selects the most appropriate credential based on the environment in which the app is running. Without it, you'd have to write code like this:
TokenCredential credential;
if (app.Environment.IsProduction() || app.Environment.IsStaging())
{
credential = new ManagedIdentityCredential(
ManagedIdentityId.FromUserAssignedClientId(userAssignedClientId));
}
else
{
// local development environment
credential = new VisualStudioCredential();
}
Seamless transitions: Your app can move from local development to your staging or production environment without changing authentication code.
Improved resiliency: Includes a fallback mechanism that moves to the next credential when the prior fails to acquire an access token.
There are two disparate philosophies to credential chaining:
DefaultAzureCredential is an opinionated, preconfigured chain of credentials. It's designed to support many environments, along with the most common authentication flows and developer tools. In graphical form, the underlying chain looks like this:
The order in which DefaultAzureCredential
attempts credentials follows.
DefaultAzureCredential
uses these values to authenticate the app to Azure. This method is most often used in server environments but can also be used when developing locally. Yes 2 Workload Identity If the app is deployed to an Azure host with Workload Identity enabled, authenticate that account. Yes 3 Managed Identity If the app is deployed to an Azure host with Managed Identity enabled, authenticate the app to Azure using that Managed Identity. Yes 4 Visual Studio If the developer authenticated to Azure by logging into Visual Studio, authenticate the app to Azure using that same account. Yes 5 Visual Studio Code If the developer authenticated via Visual Studio Code's Azure Resources extension and the Azure.Identity.Broker package is installed, authenticate that account. Yes 6 Azure CLI If the developer authenticated to Azure using Azure CLI's az login
command, authenticate the app to Azure using that same account. Yes 7 Azure PowerShell If the developer authenticated to Azure using Azure PowerShell's Connect-AzAccount
cmdlet, authenticate the app to Azure using that same account. Yes 8 Azure Developer CLI If the developer authenticated to Azure using Azure Developer CLI's azd auth login
command, authenticate with that account. Yes 9 Interactive browser If enabled, interactively authenticate the developer via the current system's default browser. No 10 Broker Authenticates using the default account logged into the OS via a broker. Requires that the Azure.Identity.Broker package is installed. Yes
In its simplest form, you can use the parameterless version of DefaultAzureCredential
as follows:
builder.Services.AddAzureClients(clientBuilder =>
{
clientBuilder.AddSecretClient(
new Uri($"https://{keyVaultName}.vault.azure.net"));
clientBuilder.AddBlobServiceClient(
new Uri($"https://{storageAccountName}.blob.core.windows.net"));
DefaultAzureCredential credential = new();
clientBuilder.UseCredential(credential);
});
How to customize DefaultAzureCredential
The following sections describe strategies for controlling which credentials are included in the chain.
Exclude an individual credentialTo exclude an individual credential from DefaultAzureCredential
, use the corresponding Exclude
-prefixed property in DefaultAzureCredentialOptions. For example:
builder.Services.AddAzureClients(clientBuilder =>
{
clientBuilder.AddSecretClient(
new Uri($"https://{keyVaultName}.vault.azure.net"));
clientBuilder.AddBlobServiceClient(
new Uri($"https://{storageAccountName}.blob.core.windows.net"));
clientBuilder.UseCredential(new DefaultAzureCredential(
new DefaultAzureCredentialOptions
{
ExcludeEnvironmentCredential = true,
ExcludeManagedIdentityCredential = true,
ExcludeWorkloadIdentityCredential = true,
}));
});
In the preceding code sample, EnvironmentCredential
, ManagedIdentityCredential
, and WorkloadIdentityCredential
are removed from the credential chain. As a result, the first credential to be attempted is VisualStudioCredential
. The modified chain contains only development-time credentials and looks like this:
As more Exclude
-prefixed properties are set to true
(credential exclusions are configured), the advantages of using DefaultAzureCredential
diminish. In such cases, ChainedTokenCredential
is a better choice and requires less code. To illustrate, these two code samples behave the same way:
credential = new DefaultAzureCredential(
new DefaultAzureCredentialOptions
{
ExcludeEnvironmentCredential = true,
ExcludeWorkloadIdentityCredential = true,
ExcludeManagedIdentityCredential = true,
ExcludeVisualStudioCodeCredential = true,
ExcludeAzurePowerShellCredential = true,
ExcludeAzureDeveloperCliCredential = true,
ExcludeBrokerCredential = true,
});
credential = new ChainedTokenCredential(
new VisualStudioCredential(),
new AzureCliCredential());
Exclude a credential type category
To exclude all Developer tool
or Deployed service
credentials, set environment variable AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS
to prod
or dev
, respectively. When a value of prod
is used, the underlying credential chain looks as follows:
When a value of dev
is used, the chain looks as follows:
Important
The AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS
environment variable is supported in Azure.Identity
package versions 1.14.0 and later.
To exclude all credentials except for one, set environment variable AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS
to the credential name. For example, you can reduce the DefaultAzureCredential
chain to VisualStudioCredential
by setting AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS
to VisualStudioCredential
. The string comparison is performed in a case-insensitive manner. Valid string values for the environment variable include:
AzureCliCredential
AzureDeveloperCliCredential
AzurePowerShellCredential
BrokerCredential
EnvironmentCredential
InteractiveBrowserCredential
ManagedIdentityCredential
VisualStudioCredential
VisualStudioCodeCredential
WorkloadIdentityCredential
Important
The AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS
environment variable supports individual credential names in Azure.Identity
package versions 1.15.0 and later.
ChainedTokenCredential is an empty chain to which you add credentials to suit your app's needs. For example:
builder.Services.AddAzureClients(clientBuilder =>
{
clientBuilder.AddSecretClient(
new Uri($"https://{keyVaultName}.vault.azure.net"));
clientBuilder.AddBlobServiceClient(
new Uri($"https://{storageAccountName}.blob.core.windows.net"));
clientBuilder.UseCredential(new ChainedTokenCredential(
new AzurePowerShellCredential(),
new VisualStudioCredential()));
});
The preceding code sample creates a tailored credential chain comprised of two development-time credentials. AzurePowerShellCredential
is attempted first, followed by VisualStudioCredential
, if necessary. In graphical form, the chain looks like this:
Tip
For improved performance, optimize credential ordering in ChainedTokenCredential
from most to least used credential.
DefaultAzureCredential
is undoubtedly the easiest way to get started with the Azure Identity library, but with that convenience comes tradeoffs. Once you deploy your app to Azure, you should understand the app's authentication requirements. For that reason, replace DefaultAzureCredential
with a specific TokenCredential
implementation, such as ManagedIdentityCredential
. See the Derived list for options.
Here's why:
ManagedIdentityCredential
always fails in the local development environment, unless explicitly disabled via its corresponding Exclude
-prefixed property.DefaultAzureCredential
checks for the presence of certain environment variables. It's possible that someone could add or modify these environment variables at the system level on the host machine. Those changes apply globally and therefore alter the behavior of DefaultAzureCredential
at runtime in any app running on that machine. For more information on unpredictability, see Use deterministic credentials in production environments.To diagnose an unexpected issue or to understand what a chained credential is doing, enable logging in your app. Optionally, filter the logs to only those events emitted from the Azure Identity library. For example:
using AzureEventSourceListener listener = new((args, message) =>
{
if (args is { EventSource.Name: "Azure-Identity" })
{
Console.WriteLine(message);
}
}, EventLevel.LogAlways);
For illustration purposes, assume the parameterless form of DefaultAzureCredential
was used to authenticate a request to a Log Analytics workspace. The app ran in the local development environment, and Visual Studio was authenticated to an Azure account. The next time the app ran, the following pertinent entries appeared in the output:
DefaultAzureCredential.GetToken invoked. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342
EnvironmentCredential.GetToken invoked. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342
EnvironmentCredential.GetToken was unable to retrieve an access token. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342 Exception: Azure.Identity.CredentialUnavailableException (0x80131500): EnvironmentCredential authentication unavailable. Environment variables are not fully configured. See the troubleshooting guide for more information. https://aka.ms/azsdk/net/identity/environmentcredential/troubleshoot
WorkloadIdentityCredential.GetToken invoked. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342
WorkloadIdentityCredential.GetToken was unable to retrieve an access token. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342 Exception: Azure.Identity.CredentialUnavailableException (0x80131500): WorkloadIdentityCredential authentication unavailable. The workload options are not fully configured. See the troubleshooting guide for more information. https://aka.ms/azsdk/net/identity/workloadidentitycredential/troubleshoot
ManagedIdentityCredential.GetToken invoked. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342
ManagedIdentityCredential.GetToken was unable to retrieve an access token. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342 Exception: Azure.Identity.CredentialUnavailableException (0x80131500): ManagedIdentityCredential authentication unavailable. No response received from the managed identity endpoint.
VisualStudioCredential.GetToken invoked. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342
VisualStudioCredential.GetToken succeeded. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342 ExpiresOn: 2024-08-13T17:16:50.8023621+00:00
DefaultAzureCredential credential selected: Azure.Identity.VisualStudioCredential
DefaultAzureCredential.GetToken succeeded. Scopes: [ https://api.loganalytics.io//.default ] ParentRequestId: d7ef15d1-50f8-451d-afeb-6b06297a3342 ExpiresOn: 2024-08-13T17:16:50.8023621+00:00
In the preceding output, notice that:
EnvironmentCredential
, WorkloadIdentityCredential
, and ManagedIdentityCredential
each failed to acquire a Microsoft Entra access token, in that order.DefaultAzureCredential credential selected:
-prefixed entry indicates the credential that was selectedâVisualStudioCredential
in this case. Since VisualStudioCredential
succeeded, no credentials beyond it were used.RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
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