Azure File Share storage offers fully managed file shares in the cloud that are accessible via the industry standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. Azure file shares can be mounted concurrently by cloud or on-premises deployments of Windows, Linux, and macOS. Additionally, Azure file shares can be cached on Windows Servers with Azure File Sync for fast access near where the data is being used.
Azure file shares can be used to:
- Replace or supplement on-premises file servers
- "Lift and shift" applications
- Simplify cloud development with shared application settings, diagnostic share, and Dev/Test/Debug tools
Source code | Package (PyPI) | API reference documentation | Product documentation | Samples
- Python 2.7, or 3.5 or later is required to use this package.
- You must have an Azure subscription and an Azure storage account to use this package.
Install the Azure Storage File Share client library for Python with pip:
pip install azure-storage-file-share
If you wish to create a new storage account, you can use the Azure Portal, Azure PowerShell, or Azure CLI:
# Create a new resource group to hold the storage account -
# if using an existing resource group, skip this step
az group create --name my-resource-group --location westus2
# Create the storage account
az storage account create -n my-storage-account-name -g my-resource-group
The Azure Storage File Share client library for Python allows you to interact with four types of resources: the storage account itself, file shares, directories, and files. Interaction with these resources starts with an instance of a client. To create a client object, you will need the storage account's file service URL and a credential that allows you to access the storage account:
from azure.storage.fileshare import ShareServiceClient
service = ShareServiceClient(account_url="https://<my-storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net/", credential=credential)
You can find the storage account's file service URL using the Azure Portal, Azure PowerShell, or Azure CLI:
# Get the file service URL for the storage account
az storage account show -n my-storage-account-name -g my-resource-group --query "primaryEndpoints.file"
The credential
parameter may be provided in a number of different forms, depending on the type of
authorization you wish to use:
-
To use a shared access signature (SAS) token, provide the token as a string. If your account URL includes the SAS token, omit the credential parameter. You can generate a SAS token from the Azure Portal under "Shared access signature" or use one of the
generate_sas()
functions to create a sas token for the storage account, share, or file:from datetime import datetime, timedelta from azure.storage.fileshare import ShareServiceClient, generate_account_sas, ResourceTypes, AccountSasPermissions sas_token = generate_account_sas( account_name="<storage-account-name>", account_key="<account-access-key>", resource_types=ResourceTypes(service=True), permission=AccountSasPermissions(read=True), expiry=datetime.utcnow() + timedelta(hours=1) ) share_service_client = ShareServiceClient(account_url="https://<my_account_name>.file.core.windows.net", credential=sas_token)
-
To use a storage account shared key (aka account key or access key), provide the key as a string. This can be found in the Azure Portal under the "Access Keys" section or by running the following Azure CLI command:
az storage account keys list -g MyResourceGroup -n MyStorageAccount
Use the key as the credential parameter to authenticate the client:
from azure.storage.fileshare import ShareServiceClient service = ShareServiceClient(account_url="https://<my_account_name>.file.core.windows.net", credential="<account_access_key>")
Depending on your use case and authorization method, you may prefer to initialize a client instance with a storage
connection string instead of providing the account URL and credential separately. To do this, pass the storage
connection string to the client's from_connection_string
class method:
from azure.storage.fileshare import ShareServiceClient
connection_string = "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=xxxx;AccountKey=xxxx;EndpointSuffix=core.windows.net"
service = ShareServiceClient.from_connection_string(conn_str=connection_string)
The connection string to your storage account can be found in the Azure Portal under the "Access Keys" section or by running the following CLI command:
az storage account show-connection-string -g MyResourceGroup -n MyStorageAccount
The following components make up the Azure File Share Service:
- The storage account itself
- A file share within the storage account
- An optional hierarchy of directories within the file share
- A file within the file share, which may be up to 1 TiB in size
The Azure Storage File Share client library for Python allows you to interact with each of these components through the use of a dedicated client object.
Four different clients are provided to to interact with the various components of the File Share Service:
- ShareServiceClient -
this client represents interaction with the Azure storage account itself, and allows you to acquire preconfigured
client instances to access the file shares within. It provides operations to retrieve and configure the service
properties as well as list, create, and delete shares within the account. To perform operations on a specific share,
retrieve a client using the
get_share_client
method. - ShareClient -
this client represents interaction with a specific file share (which need not exist yet), and allows you to acquire
preconfigured client instances to access the directories and files within. It provides operations to create, delete,
configure, or create snapshots of a share and includes operations to create and enumerate the contents of
directories within it. To perform operations on a specific directory or file, retrieve a client using the
get_directory_client
orget_file_client
methods. - ShareDirectoryClient -
this client represents interaction with a specific directory (which need not exist yet). It provides operations to
create, delete, or enumerate the contents of an immediate or nested subdirectory, and includes operations to create
and delete files within it. For operations relating to a specific subdirectory or file, a client for that entity can
also be retrieved using the
get_subdirectory_client
andget_file_client
functions. - ShareFileClient - this client represents interaction with a specific file (which need not exist yet). It provides operations to upload, download, create, delete, and copy a file.
For details on path naming restrictions, see Naming and Referencing Shares, Directories, Files, and Metadata.
The following sections provide several code snippets covering some of the most common Storage File Share tasks, including:
Create a file share to store your files
from azure.storage.fileshare import ShareClient
share = ShareClient.from_connection_string(conn_str="<connection_string>", share_name="my_share")
share.create_share()
Use the async client to create a file share
from azure.storage.fileshare.aio import ShareClient
share = ShareClient.from_connection_string(conn_str="<connection_string>", share_name="my_share")
await share.create_share()
Upload a file to the share
from azure.storage.fileshare import ShareFileClient
file_client = ShareFileClient.from_connection_string(conn_str="<connection_string>", share_name="my_share", file_path="my_file")
with open("./SampleSource.txt", "rb") as source_file:
file_client.upload_file(source_file)
Upload a file asynchronously
from azure.storage.fileshare.aio import ShareFileClient
file_client = ShareFileClient.from_connection_string(conn_str="<connection_string>", share_name="my_share", file_path="my_file")
with open("./SampleSource.txt", "rb") as source_file:
await file_client.upload_file(source_file)
Download a file from the share
from azure.storage.fileshare import ShareFileClient
file_client = ShareFileClient.from_connection_string(conn_str="<connection_string>", share_name="my_share", file_path="my_file")
with open("DEST_FILE", "wb") as file_handle:
data = file_client.download_file()
data.readinto(file_handle)
Download a file asynchronously
from azure.storage.fileshare.aio import ShareFileClient
file_client = ShareFileClient.from_connection_string(conn_str="<connection_string>", share_name="my_share", file_path="my_file")
with open("DEST_FILE", "wb") as file_handle:
data = await file_client.download_file()
await data.readinto(file_handle)
List all directories and files under a parent directory
from azure.storage.fileshare import ShareDirectoryClient
parent_dir = ShareDirectoryClient.from_connection_string(conn_str="<connection_string>", share_name="my_share", directory_path="parent_dir")
my_list = list(parent_dir.list_directories_and_files())
print(my_list)
List contents of a directory asynchronously
from azure.storage.fileshare.aio import ShareDirectoryClient
parent_dir = ShareDirectoryClient.from_connection_string(conn_str="<connection_string>", share_name="my_share", directory_path="parent_dir")
my_files = []
async for item in parent_dir.list_directories_and_files():
my_files.append(item)
print(my_files)
Optional keyword arguments that can be passed in at the client and per-operation level.
Use the following keyword arguments when instantiating a client to configure the retry policy:
- retry_total (int): Total number of retries to allow. Takes precedence over other counts.
Pass in
retry_total=0
if you do not want to retry on requests. Defaults to 10. - retry_connect (int): How many connection-related errors to retry on. Defaults to 3.
- retry_read (int): How many times to retry on read errors. Defaults to 3.
- retry_status (int): How many times to retry on bad status codes. Defaults to 3.
- retry_to_secondary (bool): Whether the request should be retried to secondary, if able.
This should only be enabled of RA-GRS accounts are used and potentially stale data can be handled.
Defaults to
False
.
Other optional configuration keyword arguments that can be specified on the client or per-operation.
Client keyword arguments:
- connection_timeout (int): Optionally sets the connect and read timeout value, in seconds.
- transport (Any): User-provided transport to send the HTTP request.
Per-operation keyword arguments:
- raw_response_hook (callable): The given callback uses the response returned from the service.
- raw_request_hook (callable): The given callback uses the request before being sent to service.
- client_request_id (str): Optional user specified identification of the request.
- user_agent (str): Appends the custom value to the user-agent header to be sent with the request.
- logging_enable (bool): Enables logging at the DEBUG level. Defaults to False. Can also be passed in at the client level to enable it for all requests.
- headers (dict): Pass in custom headers as key, value pairs. E.g.
headers={'CustomValue': value}
Storage File clients raise exceptions defined in Azure Core.
All File service operations will throw a StorageErrorException
on failure with helpful error codes.
Get started with our File Share samples.
Several Storage File Share Python SDK samples are available to you in the SDK's GitHub repository. These samples provide example code for additional scenarios commonly encountered while working with Storage File Share:
-
file_samples_hello_world.py (async version) - Examples found in this article:
- Client creation
- Create a file share
- Upload a file
-
file_samples_authentication.py (async version) - Examples for authenticating and creating the client:
- From a connection string
- From a shared access key
- From a shared access signature token
-
file_samples_service.py (async version) - Examples for interacting with the file service:
- Get and set service properties
- Create, list, and delete shares
- Get a share client
-
file_samples_share.py (async version) - Examples for interacting with file shares:
- Create a share snapshot
- Set share quota and metadata
- List directories and files
- Get the directory or file client to interact with a specific entity
-
file_samples_directory.py (async version) - Examples for interacting with directories:
- Create a directory and add files
- Create and delete subdirectories
- Get the subdirectory client
-
file_samples_client.py (async version) - Examples for interacting with files:
- Create, upload, download, and delete files
- Copy a file from a URL
For more extensive documentation on Azure File Share storage, see the Azure File Share storage documentation on docs.microsoft.com.
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