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Azure Blob Storage

Overview​

Azure Blob Storage (ABS) is a scalable, fully managed, and highly reliable object storage solution offered by Microsoft Azure, designed to store and access data from anywhere in the world. It provides a secure and cost-effective way to store data, including common storage formats such as CSV and Parquet. Rill supports connecting to and reading from Azure Blob Storage using the following Resource URI syntax:

azure://<account>.blob.core.windows.net/<container>/path/file.csv

Connect to Azure Blob Storage​

To connect to Azure Blob Storage, you need to provide authentication credentials. You have four options:

  1. Use Storage Account Key (recommended for cloud deployment)
  2. Use Connection String (alternative for cloud deployment)
  3. Use Shared Access Signature (SAS) Token (most secure, fine-grained control)
  4. Use Azure CLI authentication (local development only - not recommended for production)

Choose the method that best fits your setup. For production deployments to Rill Cloud, use Storage Account Key, Connection String, or SAS tokens. Azure CLI authentication only works for local development and will cause deployment failures.

Storage Account Key​

To ensure seamless deployment to Rill Cloud, configure your Azure Storage Account Key directly in your project's .env file instead of relying solely on Azure CLI authentication (which only works locally).

type: connector

driver: azure

azure_storage_account: rilltest
azure_storage_key: "{{ .env.connector.azure.azure_storage_key }}"

This approach ensures your Azure Blob Storage sources authenticate consistently across both local development and cloud deployment. Follow the Azure Documentation to retrieve your storage account keys.

Connection String​

To ensure seamless deployment to Rill Cloud, configure your Azure Blob Storage credentials using a connection string directly in your project's .env file instead of relying solely on Azure CLI authentication (which only works locally).

type: connector

driver: azure

azure_storage_connection_string: "{{ .env.connector.azure.azure_storage_connection_string }}"

This approach ensures your Azure Blob Storage sources authenticate consistently across both local development and cloud deployment. Follow the Azure Documentation to retrieve your connection string.

Shared Access Signature (SAS) Token​

Use Shared Access Signature (SAS) tokens as an alternative authentication method for Azure Blob Storage. SAS tokens provide fine-grained access control with specific permissions and expiration times for secure access to your storage resources.

type: connector

driver: azure

azure_storage_account: rilltest 
azure_storage_sas_token: "{{ .env.connector.azure.azure_storage_sas_token }}"

This method provides fine-grained access control and enhanced security for your Azure Blob Storage connections. Follow the Azure Documentation to create your Azure SAS token.

Azure CLI Authentication (Local Development Only)​

Not recommended for production

Azure CLI authentication only works for local development. If you deploy to Rill Cloud using this method, your dashboards will fail. Use one of the methods above for production deployments.

  1. Install the Azure CLI if not already installed.
  2. Open a terminal window and run the following command to log in to your Azure account: az login
  3. Verify your authentication status: az account show

You've now configured Azure access from your local environment. Rill will automatically detect and use these credentials when you connect to Azure Blob Storage sources.

Cloud Credentials Management

If your project is already deployed to Rill Cloud with configured credentials, use rill env pull to retrieve and sync these cloud credentials to your local .env file. Warning: This operation will overwrite any existing local credentials for this source.

Deploy to Rill Cloud​

When deploying your project to Rill Cloud, you must provide either an Azure Blob Storage connection string, Azure Storage Key, or Azure Storage SAS token for the containers used in your project. If these credentials exist in your .env file, they'll be pushed with your project automatically. If you're using inferred credentials only, your deployment will result in errored dashboards.

To manually configure your environment variables, run:

rill env configure
Did you know?

If you've already configured credentials locally (in your <RILL_PROJECT_DIRECTORY>/.env file), use rill env push to push these credentials to your Rill Cloud project. This allows other users to retrieve and reuse the same credentials automatically by running rill env pull.