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Spring Cloud Azure authentication

  • Article

This article applies to: ✅ Version 4.19.0 ✅ Version 5.18.0

This article describes all the Spring Cloud Azure authentication methods.

DefaultAzureCredential

The DefaultAzureCredential is appropriate for most scenarios where the application is intended to be run in the Azure Cloud. This is because the DefaultAzureCredential combines credentials commonly used to authenticate when deployed with credentials used to authenticate in a development environment.

Note

DefaultAzureCredential is intended to simplify getting started with the SDK by handling common scenarios with reasonable default behaviors. If you want more control or your scenario isn't served by the default settings, you should use other credential types.

The DefaultAzureCredential will attempt to authenticate via the following mechanisms in order:

Diagram showing the authentication mechanism for `DefaultAzureCredential`.

  • Environment - The DefaultAzureCredential will read account information specified via environment variables and use it to authenticate.
  • Managed Identity - If the application is deployed to an Azure host with Managed Identity enabled, the DefaultAzureCredential will authenticate with that account.
  • IntelliJ - If you've authenticated via Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ, the DefaultAzureCredential will authenticate with that account.
  • Visual Studio Code - If you've authenticated via the Visual Studio Code Azure Account plugin, the DefaultAzureCredential will authenticate with that account.
  • Azure CLI - If you've authenticated an account via the Azure CLI az login command, the DefaultAzureCredential will authenticate with that account.

Tip

Be sure the security principal has been granted sufficient permission to access the Azure resource. For more information, see Authorize access with Microsoft Entra ID.

Note

Since Spring Cloud Azure AutoConfigure 4.1.0, a ThreadPoolTaskExecutor bean named springCloudAzureCredentialTaskExecutor will be automatically registered by default and will manage all threads created by Azure Identity. The name of each thread managed by this thread pool is prefixed with az-identity-. This ThreadPoolTaskExecutor bean is independent of the Executor bean provided by Spring Boot.

Managed identities

A common challenge is the management of secrets and credentials used to secure communication between different components making up a solution. Managed identities eliminate the need to manage credentials. Managed identities provide an identity for applications to use when connecting to resources that support Microsoft Entra authentication. Applications may use the managed identity to obtain Microsoft Entra tokens. For example, an application may use a managed identity to access resources like Azure Key Vault where you can store credentials in a secure manner or to access storage accounts.

We encourage using managed identity instead of using connection string or key in your application because it's more secure and will save the trouble of managing secrets and credentials. In this case, DefaultAzureCredential could better serve the scenario of developing locally using account information stored locally, then deploying the application to Azure Cloud and using managed identity.

Managed identity types

There are two types of managed identities:

  • System-assigned - Some Azure services allow you to enable a managed identity directly on a service instance. When you enable a system-assigned managed identity, an identity is created in Microsoft Entra that's tied to the lifecycle of that service instance. So when the resource is deleted, Azure automatically deletes the identity for you. By design, only that Azure resource can use this identity to request tokens from Microsoft Entra ID.
  • User-assigned - You may also create a managed identity as a standalone Azure resource. You can create a user-assigned managed identity and assign it to one or more instances of an Azure service. With user-assigned managed identities, the identity is managed separately from the resources that use it.

Note

When using a user-assigned managed identity, you can specify the client ID via spring.cloud.azure.credential.client-id or spring.cloud.azure.<azure-service>.credential.client-id. You don't need credential configuration if you use a system-assigned managed identity.

Tip

Be sure the security principal has been granted sufficient permission to access the Azure resource. For more information, see Authorize access with Microsoft Entra ID.

For more information about managed identity, see What are managed identities for Azure resources?.

Other credential types

If you want more control, or your scenario isn't served by the DefaultAzureCredential or the default settings, you should use other credential types.

Authentication and authorization with Microsoft Entra ID

With Microsoft Entra ID, you can use Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) to grant permissions to a security principal, which may be a user or an application service principal. When a security principal (a user or an application) attempts to access an Azure resource, for example an Event Hubs resource, the request must be authorized. With Microsoft Entra ID, access to a resource is a two-step process:

  1. First, the security principal's identity is authenticated, and an OAuth 2.0 token is returned.
  2. Next, the token is passed as part of a request to the Azure service to authorize access to the specified resource.

Authenticate with Microsoft Entra ID

To connect applications to resources that support Microsoft Entra authentication, you can set the following configurations with the prefix spring.cloud.azure.credential or spring.cloud.azure.<azure-service>.credential

The following table lists authentication properties:

Property Description
client-id The client ID to use when performing service principal authentication with Azure.
client-secret The client secret to use when performing service principal authentication with Azure.
client-certificate-path Path of a PEM certificate file to use when performing service principal authentication with Azure.
client-certificate-password The password of the certificate file.
username The username to use when performing username/password authentication with Azure.
password The password to use when performing username/password authentication with Azure.
managed-identity-enabled Whether to enable managed identity.

Tip

For the list of all Spring Cloud Azure configuration properties, see Spring Cloud Azure configuration properties.

The application will look in several places to find an available credential, and will use DefaultAzureCredential if no credential properties are configured. If you want to use specific credential, see the following examples for guidance.

The following example shows you how to authenticate using a system-assigned managed identity:

spring.cloud.azure:
  credential:
    managed-identity-enabled: true

The following example shows you how to authenticate using a user-assigned managed identity:

spring.cloud.azure:
  credential:
    managed-identity-enabled: true
    client-id: ${AZURE_CLIENT_ID}

The following example shows you how to authenticate using a service principal with a client secret:

spring.cloud.azure:
  credential:
    client-id: ${AZURE_CLIENT_ID}
    client-secret: ${AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET}
  profile:
    tenant-id: <tenant>

Note

The values allowed for tenant-id are: common, organizations, consumers, or the tenant ID. For more information about these values, see the Used the wrong endpoint (personal and organization accounts) section of Error AADSTS50020 - User account from identity provider does not exist in tenant. For information on converting your single-tenant app, see Convert single-tenant app to multitenant on Microsoft Entra ID.

The following example shows you how to authenticate using a service principal with a client PFX certificate:

spring.cloud.azure:
  credential:
    client-id: ${AZURE_CLIENT_ID}
    client-certificate-path: ${AZURE_CLIENT_CERTIFICATE_PATH}
    client-certificate-password: ${AZURE_CLIENT_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD}
  profile:
    tenant-id: <tenant>

Note

The values allowed for tenant-id are: common, organizations, consumers, or the tenant ID. For more information about these values, see the Used the wrong endpoint (personal and organization accounts) section of Error AADSTS50020 - User account from identity provider does not exist in tenant. For information on converting your single-tenant app, see Convert single-tenant app to multitenant on Microsoft Entra ID.

The following example shows you how to authenticate using a service principal with client PEM certificate:

spring.cloud.azure:
  credential:
    client-id: ${AZURE_CLIENT_ID}
    client-certificate-path: ${AZURE_CLIENT_CERTIFICATE_PATH}
  profile:
    tenant-id: <tenant>

Note

The values allowed for tenant-id are: common, organizations, consumers, or the tenant ID. For more information about these values, see the Used the wrong endpoint (personal and organization accounts) section of Error AADSTS50020 - User account from identity provider does not exist in tenant. For information on converting your single-tenant app, see Convert single-tenant app to multitenant on Microsoft Entra ID.

The following example shows you how to authenticate using a user credential:

spring.cloud.azure:
  credential:
    client-id: ${AZURE_CLIENT_ID}
    username: ${AZURE_USER_USERNAME}
    password: ${AZURE_USER_PASSWORD}

The following example shows you how to authenticate with Key Vault using a different service principal. This example configures the application with two credentials: one system-assigned managed identity and one service principal. The Key Vault Secret client will use the service principal, but any other components will use managed identity instead.

spring.cloud.azure:
  credential:
    managed-identity-enabled: true
  keyvault.secret:
    credential:
      client-id: ${AZURE_CLIENT_ID}
      client-secret: ${AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET}
    profile:
      tenant-id: <tenant>

Note

The values allowed for tenant-id are: common, organizations, consumers, or the tenant ID. For more information about these values, see the Used the wrong endpoint (personal and organization accounts) section of Error AADSTS50020 - User account from identity provider does not exist in tenant. For information on converting your single-tenant app, see Convert single-tenant app to multitenant on Microsoft Entra ID.

Authorize access with Microsoft Entra ID

The authorization step requires that one or more Azure roles be assigned to the security principal. The roles that are assigned to a security principal determine the permissions that the principal will have.

Tip

For the list of all Azure built-in roles, see Azure built-in roles.

The following table lists the Azure built-in roles for authorizing access to Azure services supported in Spring Cloud Azure:

Role Description
App Configuration Data Owner Allows full access to App Configuration data.
App Configuration Data Reader Allows read access to App Configuration data.
Azure Event Hubs Data Owner Allows full access to Azure Event Hubs resources.
Azure Event Hubs Data Receiver Allows receive access to Azure Event Hubs resources.
Azure Event Hubs Data Sender Allows send access to Azure Event Hubs resources.
Azure Service Bus Data Owner Allows full access to Azure Service Bus resources.
Azure Service Bus Data Receiver Allows receive access to Azure Service Bus resources.
Azure Service Bus Data Sender Allows send access to Azure Service Bus resources.
Storage Blob Data Owner Provides full access to Azure Storage blob containers and data, including assigning POSIX access control.
Storage Blob Data Reader Read and list Azure Storage containers and blobs.
Storage Queue Data Reader Read and list Azure Storage queues and queue messages.
Redis Cache Contributor Manage Redis caches.

Note

When using Spring Cloud Azure Resource Manager to get the connection strings for Event Hubs, Service Bus, and Storage Queue, or the properties of Cache for Redis, assign the Azure built-in role Contributor. Azure Cache for Redis is special, and you can also assign the Redis Cache Contributor role to get the Redis properties.

Note

A Key Vault access policy determines whether a given security principal, namely a user, application or user group, can perform different operations on Key Vault secrets, keys, and certificates. You can assign access policies using the Azure portal, the Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell. For more information, see Assign a Key Vault access policy.

Important

Azure Cosmos DB exposes two built-in role definitions: Cosmos DB Built-in Data Reader and Cosmos DB Built-in Data Contributor. However, Azure portal support for role management isn't available yet. For more information about the permission model, role definitions, and role assignment, see Configure role-based access control with Microsoft Entra ID for your Azure Cosmos DB account.

SAS tokens

You can also configure services for authentication with Shared Access Signature (SAS). spring.cloud.azure.<azure-service>.sas-token is the property to configure. For example, use spring.cloud.azure.storage.blob.sas-token to authenticate to Storage Blob service.

Connection strings

Connection string is supported by some Azure services to provide connection information and credentials. To connect to those Azure services using connection string, just configure spring.cloud.azure.<azure-service>.connection-string. For example, configure spring.cloud.azure.eventhubs.connection-string to connect to the Event Hubs service.