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Azure Cloud Services (classic) Config Schema (.cscfg File)

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Important

Cloud Services (classic) is now deprecated for all customers as of September 1st, 2024. Any existing running deployments will be stopped and shut down by Microsoft and the data will be permanently lost starting October 2024. New deployments should use the new Azure Resource Manager based deployment model Azure Cloud Services (extended support).

The service configuration file specifies the number of role instances to deploy for each role in the service, the values of any configuration settings, and the thumbprints for any certificates associated with a role. If the service is part of a Virtual Network, configuration information for the network must be provided in the service configuration file and the virtual networking configuration file. The default extension for the service configuration file is .cscfg.

The Cloud Service (classic) Definition Schema describes the service model.

By default, the Azure Diagnostics configuration schema file is installed to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Azure\.NET SDK\<version>\schemas directory. Replace <version> with the installed version of the Azure SDK.

For more information about configuring roles in a service, see What is the Cloud Service model.

Basic Service Configuration Schema

The basic format of the service configuration file is as follows.

<ServiceConfiguration serviceName="<service-name>" osFamily="<osfamily-number>" osVersion="<os-version>" schemaVersion="<schema-version>">

  <Role …>
    …
  </Role>

  <NetworkConfiguration>
    …
  </NetworkConfiguration>

</ServiceConfiguration>

Schema definitions

The following topics describe the schema for the ServiceConfiguration element:

Service Configuration Namespace

The XML namespace for the service configuration file is: http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration.

ServiceConfiguration Element

The ServiceConfiguration element is the top-level element of the service configuration file.

The following table describes the attributes of the ServiceConfiguration element. All attributes values are string types.

Attribute Description
serviceName Required. The name of the cloud service. The name given here must match the name specified in the service definition file.
osFamily Optional. Specifies the Guest OS that runs on role instances in the cloud service. For information about supported Guest OS releases, see Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix.

If you don't include an osFamily value and you have not set the osVersion attribute to a specific Guest OS version, a default value of 1 is used.
osVersion Optional. Specifies the version of the Guest OS that runs on role instances in the cloud service. For more information about Guest OS versions, see Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix.

You can specify that the Guest OS should be automatically upgraded to the latest version. To do this, set the value of the osVersion attribute to *. When set to *, the role instances are deployed using the latest version of the Guest OS for the specified OS family and automatically upgrades when new versions of the Guest OS are released.

To specify a specific version manually, use the Configuration String from the table in the Future, Current, and Transitional Guest OS Versions section of Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix.

The default value for the osVersion attribute is *.
schemaVersion Optional. Specifies the version of the Service Configuration schema. The schema version allows Visual Studio to select the correct SDK tools to use for schema validation if more than one version of the SDK is installed side-by-side. For more information about schema and version compatibility, see Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix

The service configuration file must contain one ServiceConfiguration element. The ServiceConfiguration element may include any number of Role elements and zero or 1 NetworkConfiguration elements.