Manage authentication within Service Connector

In this guide, learn about the different authentication options available in Service Connector, and how to customize environment variables.

Prerequisites

• An Azure subscription - create one for free.
• An Azure App Service, Azure Container Apps or Azure Spring Apps instance.
• This guide assumes that you already know how the basics of connecting services using Service Connector. To review our quickstarts, go to App Service, Container Apps or Azure Spring Apps.

Start creating a new connection

1. Within your App Service, Container Apps or Azure Spring Apps instance, open Service Connector and fill out the form in the Basics tab with the required information about your compute and target services.
2. Select Next : Authentication.

Select an authentication option

Select one of the four different authentication options offered by Service Connector to connect your Azure services together:

• System assigned managed identity: provides an automatically managed identity tied to the resource in Microsoft Entra ID
• User assigned managed identity: provides an identity that can be used on multiple resources
• Connection string: provides one or multiple key-value pairs with secrets or tokens
• Service principal: creates a service principal that defines the access policy and permissions for the user/application in the Microsoft Entra tenant

Service Connector offers the following authentication options:

Target resource	System assigned managed identity	User assigned managed identity (Workload identity)	Connection string	Service principal
Azure AI services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure App Configuration	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure Blob Storage	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure Cache for Redis	No	No	Yes	No
Azure Cache for Redis Enterprise	No	No	Yes	No
Azure Cosmos DB for Apache Cassandra	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure Cosmos DB for Apache Gremlin	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure Cosmos DB for Table	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure Database for MySQL single server	Yes	No	No	No
Azure Database for MySQL flexible server	Yes	No	Yes	No
Azure Database for PostgreSQL single server	Yes	No	Yes	No
Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server	Yes	No	Yes	No
Azure Event Hubs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure Files	No	No	Yes	No
Azure Key Vault	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Azure Queue Storage	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure Service Bus	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure SignalR Service	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Azure SQL Database	Yes	No	Yes	No
Azure Table Storage	No	No	Yes	No
Azure Web PubSub	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Review or update authentication configuration

System assigned managed identity

When using a system-assigned managed identity, optionally review or update its authentication configuration by following these steps:

1. Select Advanced to display more options.

2. Under Role, review the default role selected for your source service or choose another one from the list.

3. Under Configuration information, Service Connector lists a series of configuration settings that will be generated when you create the connection. This list consists of environment variables or application properties. It varies depending on the target resource and authentication method selected. Optionally select the edit button in front of each configuration setting to edit its key.

4. Select Done to confirm.

   

User assigned managed identity

When using a user-assigned managed identity, review or edit its authentication settings by following these steps:

1. Under Subscription, select the Azure subscription that contains your user-assigned managed identity.

2. Under User assigned managed identity, select the managed identity you want to use.

   

3. Optionally select Advanced to display more options.

   1. Under Role, review the default role selected for your source service or choose another one from the list.
   2. Under Configuration information, Service Connector lists a series of configuration settings that will be generated when you create the connection. This list consists of environment variables or application properties and varies depending on the target resource and authentication method selected. Optionally select the edit button in front of each configuration setting to edit its key.
   3. Select Done to confirm.

   

Connection string

When using a connection string, review or edit its authentication settings by following these steps:

1. Optionally select Store Secret in Key Vault to save your connection credentials in Azure Key Vault. This option lets you select an existing Key Vault connection from a drop-down list or create a new connection to a new or an existing Key Vault.

   

2. Optionally select Advanced to display more options.

   1. Under Configuration information, Service Connector lists a series of configuration settings that will be generated when you create the connection. This list consists of environment variables or application properties and varies depending on the target resource and authentication method selected. Optionally select the edit button in front of each configuration setting to edit its key.
   2. Select Done to confirm.

   

Service principal

When connecting Azure services using a service principal, review or edit authentication settings by following these steps:

1. Choose a service principal by entering an object ID or name and selecting your service principal.

2. Under Secret, enter the secret of the service principal.

3. Optionally select Store Secret in Key Vault to save your connection credentials in Azure Key Vault. This option lets you select an existing Key Vault connection from a drop-down list or create a new connection to a new or an existing Key Vault.

   

4. Optionally select Advanced to display more options.

   1. Under Configuration information, Service Connector lists a series of configuration settings that will be generated when you create the connection. This list consists of environment variables or application properties and varies depending on the target resource and authentication method selected. Optionally select the edit button in front of each configuration setting to edit its key.
   2. Select Done to confirm.

   

5. Select Review + Create and then Create to finalize the creation of the connection.

Check authentication configuration

You can review authentication configuration on the following pages in the Azure portal:

• When creating the connection, select the Review + Create tab and check the information listed under Authentication.

  

• After you've created the connection, in the Service connector page, configuration keys are listed.

Next steps

Service Connector internals