Azure Blob Storage

Detailed information on the Azure Blob Store state store component

Component format

To setup the Azure Blob Storage state store create a component of type state.azure.blobstorage. See this guide on how to create and apply a state store configuration.

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: <NAME>
spec:
  type: state.azure.blobstorage
  # Supports v1 and v2. Users should always use v2 by default. There is no
  # migration path from v1 to v2, see `versioning` below.
  version: v2
  metadata:
  - name: accountName
    value: "[your_account_name]"
  - name: accountKey
    value: "[your_account_key]"
  - name: containerName
    value: "[your_container_name]"

Versioning

Dapr has 2 versions of the Azure Blob Storage state store component: v1 and v2. It is recommended to use v2 for all new applications. v1 is considered legacy and is preserved for compatibility with existing applications only.

In v1, a longstanding implementation issue was identified, where the key prefix was incorrectly stripped by the component, essentially behaving as if keyPrefix was always set to none.
The updated v2 of the component fixes the incorrect behavior and makes the state store correctly respect the keyPrefix property.

While v1 and v2 have the same metadata fields, they are otherwise incompatible, with no automatic data migration path for v1 to v2.

If you are using v1 of this component, you should continue to use v1 until you create a new state store.

Spec metadata fields

Field Required Details Example
accountName Y The storage account name "mystorageaccount".
accountKey Y (unless using Microsoft Entra ID) Primary or secondary storage key "key"
containerName Y The name of the container to be used for Dapr state. The container will be created for you if it doesn’t exist "container"
azureEnvironment N Optional name for the Azure environment if using a different Azure cloud "AZUREPUBLICCLOUD" (default value), "AZURECHINACLOUD", "AZUREUSGOVERNMENTCLOUD"
endpoint N Optional custom endpoint URL. This is useful when using the Azurite emulator or when using custom domains for Azure Storage (although this is not officially supported). The endpoint must be the full base URL, including the protocol (http:// or https://), the IP or FQDN, and optional port. "http://127.0.0.1:10000"
ContentType N The blob’s content type "text/plain"
ContentMD5 N The blob’s MD5 hash "vZGKbMRDAnMs4BIwlXaRvQ=="
ContentEncoding N The blob’s content encoding "UTF-8"
ContentLanguage N The blob’s content language "en-us"
ContentDisposition N The blob’s content disposition. Conveys additional information about how to process the response payload "attachment"
CacheControl N The blob’s cache control "no-cache"

Setup Azure Blob Storage

Follow the instructions from the Azure documentation on how to create an Azure Storage Account.

If you wish to create a container for Dapr to use, you can do so beforehand. However, the Blob Storage state provider will create one for you automatically if it doesn’t exist.

In order to setup Azure Blob Storage as a state store, you will need the following properties:

  • accountName: The storage account name. For example: mystorageaccount.
  • accountKey: Primary or secondary storage account key.
  • containerName: The name of the container to be used for Dapr state. The container will be created for you if it doesn’t exist.

Authenticating with Microsoft Entra ID

This component supports authentication with Microsoft Entra ID as an alternative to use account keys. Whenever possible, it is recommended that you use Microsoft Entra ID for authentication in production systems, to take advantage of better security, fine-tuned access control, and the ability to use managed identities for apps running on Azure.

The following scripts are optimized for a bash or zsh shell and require the following apps installed:

You must also be authenticated with Azure in your Azure CLI.

  1. To get started with using Microsoft Entra ID for authenticating the Blob Storage state store component, make sure you’ve created an Microsoft Entra ID application and a Service Principal as explained in the Authenticating to Azure document.
    Once done, set a variable with the ID of the Service Principal that you created:
SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_ID="[your_service_principal_object_id]"
  1. Set the following variables with the name of your Azure Storage Account and the name of the Resource Group where it’s located:
STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME="[your_storage_account_name]"
RG_NAME="[your_resource_group_name]"
  1. Using RBAC, assign a role to our Service Principal so it can access data inside the Storage Account.
    In this case, you are assigning the “Storage blob Data Contributor” role, which has broad access; other more restrictive roles can be used as well, depending on your application.
RG_ID=$(az group show --resource-group ${RG_NAME} | jq -r ".id")
az role assignment create \
  --assignee "${SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_ID}" \
  --role "Storage blob Data Contributor" \
  --scope "${RG_ID}/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/${STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME}"

When authenticating your component using Microsoft Entra ID, the accountKey field is not required. Instead, please specify the required credentials in the component’s metadata (if any) according to the Authenticating to Azure document.

For example:

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: <NAME>
spec:
  type: state.azure.blobstorage
  version: v1
  metadata:
  - name: accountName
    value: "[your_account_name]"
  - name: containerName
    value: "[your_container_name]"
  - name: azureTenantId
    value: "[your_tenant_id]"
  - name: azureClientId
    value: "[your_client_id]"
  - name: azureClientSecret
    value : "[your_client_secret]"

Apply the configuration

In Kubernetes

To apply Azure Blob Storage state store to Kubernetes, use the kubectl CLI:

kubectl apply -f azureblob.yaml

Running locally

To run locally, create a components dir containing the YAML file and provide the path to the dapr run command with the flag --resources-path.

This state store creates a blob file in the container and puts raw state inside it.

For example, the following operation coming from service called myservice:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3500/v1.0/state \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"
  -d '[
        {
          "key": "nihilus",
          "value": "darth"
        }
      ]'

This creates the blob file in the container with key as filename and value as the contents of file.

Concurrency

Azure Blob Storage state concurrency is achieved by using ETags according to the Azure Blob Storage documentation.