Azure Identity client library for Python¶
The Azure Identity library provides Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) token authentication support across the Azure SDK. It provides a set of ``TokenCredential` <https://learn.microsoft.com/python/api/azure-core/azure.core.credentials.tokencredential?view=azure-python>`_ implementations, which can be used to construct Azure SDK clients that support Azure AD token authentication.
Source code | Package (PyPI) | API reference documentation | Azure AD documentation
Getting started¶
Prerequisites¶
Python 3.7 or a recent version of Python 3 (this library doesn’t support end-of-life versions)
Authenticate during local development¶
When debugging and executing code locally, it’s typical for developers to use their own accounts for authenticating calls to Azure services. The Azure Identity library supports authenticating through developer tools to simplify local development.
Authenticate via Visual Studio Code¶
Developers using Visual Studio Code can use the Azure Account extension to authenticate via the editor. Apps using DefaultAzureCredential
or VisualStudioCodeCredential
can then use this account to authenticate calls in their app when running locally.
To authenticate in Visual Studio Code, ensure the Azure Account extension is installed. Once installed, open the Command Palette and run the Azure: Sign In command.
It’s a known issue that VisualStudioCodeCredential
doesn’t work with Azure Account extension versions newer than 0.9.11. A long-term fix to this problem is in progress. In the meantime, consider authenticating via the Azure CLI.
Authenticate via the Azure CLI¶
DefaultAzureCredential
and AzureCliCredential
can authenticate as the user signed in to the Azure CLI. To sign in to the Azure CLI, run az login
. On a system with a default web browser, the Azure CLI will launch the browser to authenticate a user.
When no default browser is available, az login
will use the device code authentication flow. This flow can also be selected manually by running az login --use-device-code
.
Authenticate via the Azure Developer CLI¶
Developers coding outside of an IDE can also use the Azure Developer CLI to authenticate. Applications using the DefaultAzureCredential
or the AzureDeveloperCliCredential
can then use this account to authenticate calls in their application when running locally.
To authenticate with the Azure Developer CLI, users can run the command azd login
. For users running on a system with a default web browser, the Azure Developer CLI will launch the browser to authenticate the user.
For systems without a default web browser, the azd login --use-device-code
command will use the device code authentication flow.
Key concepts¶
Credentials¶
A credential is a class that contains or can obtain the data needed for a service client to authenticate requests. Service clients across the Azure SDK accept a credential instance when they’re constructed, and use that credential to authenticate requests.
The Azure Identity library focuses on OAuth authentication with Azure AD. It offers various credential classes capable of acquiring an Azure AD access token. See the Credential classes section below for a list of this library’s credential classes.
DefaultAzureCredential¶
DefaultAzureCredential
is appropriate for most applications that will run in Azure because it combines common production credentials with development credentials. DefaultAzureCredential
attempts to authenticate via the following mechanisms, in this order, stopping when one succeeds:
Note:
DefaultAzureCredential
is intended to simplify getting started with the library by handling common scenarios with reasonable default behaviors. Developers who want more control or whose scenario isn’t served by the default settings should use other credential types.
Environment -
DefaultAzureCredential
will read account information specified via environment variables and use it to authenticate.Workload Identity - If the application is deployed to Azure Kubernetes Service with Managed Identity enabled,
DefaultAzureCredential
will authenticate with it.Managed Identity - If the application is deployed to an Azure host with Managed Identity enabled,
DefaultAzureCredential
will authenticate with it.Azure Developer CLI - If the developer has authenticated via the Azure Developer CLI
azd login
command, theDefaultAzureCredential
will authenticate with that account.Azure CLI - If a user has signed in via the Azure CLI
az login
command,DefaultAzureCredential
will authenticate as that user.Azure PowerShell - If a user has signed in via Azure PowerShell’s
Connect-AzAccount
command,DefaultAzureCredential
will authenticate as that user.Interactive browser - If enabled,
DefaultAzureCredential
will interactively authenticate a user via the default browser. This credential type is disabled by default.
Note about VisualStudioCodeCredential
¶
Due to a known issue, VisualStudioCodeCredential
has been removed from the DefaultAzureCredential
token chain. When the issue is resolved in a future release, this change will be reverted.
Examples¶
The following examples are provided below:
Authenticate with DefaultAzureCredential
¶
More details on configuring your environment to use the DefaultAzureCredential
can be found in the class’s reference documentation.
This example demonstrates authenticating the BlobServiceClient
from the azure-storage-blob library using DefaultAzureCredential
.
from azure.identity import DefaultAzureCredential
from azure.storage.blob import BlobServiceClient
default_credential = DefaultAzureCredential()
client = BlobServiceClient(account_url, credential=default_credential)
Enable interactive authentication with DefaultAzureCredential
¶
Interactive authentication is disabled in the DefaultAzureCredential
by default and can be enabled with a keyword argument:
DefaultAzureCredential(exclude_interactive_browser_credential=False)
When enabled, DefaultAzureCredential
falls back to interactively authenticating via the system’s default web browser when no other credential is available.
Specify a user-assigned managed identity for DefaultAzureCredential
¶
Many Azure hosts allow the assignment of a user-assigned managed identity. To configure DefaultAzureCredential
to authenticate a user-assigned identity, use the managed_identity_client_id
keyword argument:
DefaultAzureCredential(managed_identity_client_id=client_id)
Alternatively, set the environment variable AZURE_CLIENT_ID
to the identity’s client ID.
Define a custom authentication flow with ChainedTokenCredential
¶
DefaultAzureCredential
is generally the quickest way to get started developing applications for Azure. For more advanced scenarios, ChainedTokenCredential links multiple credential instances to be tried sequentially when authenticating. It will try each chained credential in turn until one provides a token or fails to authenticate due to an error.
The following example demonstrates creating a credential that will first attempt to authenticate using managed identity. The credential will fall back to authenticating via the Azure CLI when a managed identity is unavailable. This example uses the EventHubProducerClient
from the azure-eventhub client library.
from azure.eventhub import EventHubProducerClient
from azure.identity import AzureCliCredential, ChainedTokenCredential, ManagedIdentityCredential
managed_identity = ManagedIdentityCredential()
azure_cli = AzureCliCredential()
credential_chain = ChainedTokenCredential(managed_identity, azure_cli)
client = EventHubProducerClient(namespace, eventhub_name, credential_chain)
Async credentials¶
This library includes a set of async APIs. To use the async credentials in azure.identity.aio, you must first install an async transport, such as aiohttp. For more information, see azure-core documentation.
Async credentials should be closed when they’re no longer needed. Each async credential is an async context manager and defines an async close
method. For example:
from azure.identity.aio import DefaultAzureCredential
# call close when the credential is no longer needed
credential = DefaultAzureCredential()
...
await credential.close()
# alternatively, use the credential as an async context manager
credential = DefaultAzureCredential()
async with credential:
...
This example demonstrates authenticating the asynchronous SecretClient
from azure-keyvault-secrets with an asynchronous
credential.
from azure.identity.aio import DefaultAzureCredential
from azure.keyvault.secrets.aio import SecretClient
default_credential = DefaultAzureCredential()
client = SecretClient("https://my-vault.vault.azure.net", default_credential)
Managed identity support¶
Managed identity authentication is supported via either the DefaultAzureCredential
or the ManagedIdentityCredential
directly for the following Azure services:
Examples¶
Authenticate with a user-assigned managed identity¶
from azure.identity import ManagedIdentityCredential
from azure.keyvault.secrets import SecretClient
credential = ManagedIdentityCredential(client_id=managed_identity_client_id)
client = SecretClient("https://my-vault.vault.azure.net", credential)
Authenticate with a system-assigned managed identity¶
from azure.identity import ManagedIdentityCredential
from azure.keyvault.secrets import SecretClient
credential = ManagedIdentityCredential()
client = SecretClient("https://my-vault.vault.azure.net", credential)
Cloud configuration¶
Credentials default to authenticating to the Azure AD endpoint for Azure Public Cloud. To access resources in other clouds, such as Azure Government or a private cloud, configure credentials with the authority
argument. AzureAuthorityHosts defines authorities for well-known clouds:
from azure.identity import AzureAuthorityHosts
DefaultAzureCredential(authority=AzureAuthorityHosts.AZURE_GOVERNMENT)
Not all credentials require this configuration. Credentials that authenticate through a development tool, such as AzureCliCredential
, use that tool’s configuration. Similarly, VisualStudioCodeCredential
accepts an authority
argument but defaults to the authority matching VS Code’s “Azure: Cloud” setting.
Credential classes¶
Authenticate Azure-hosted applications¶
Credential |
Usage |
---|---|
``DefaultAzureCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/defaultazurecredential>`_ |
Provides a simplified authentication experience to quickly start developing applications run in Azure. |
``ChainedTokenCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/chainedtokencredential>`_ |
Allows users to define custom authentication flows composing multiple credentials. |
``EnvironmentCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/environmentcredential>`_ |
Authenticates a service principal or user via credential information specified in environment variables. |
``ManagedIdentityCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/managedidentitycredential>`_ |
Authenticates the managed identity of an Azure resource. |
|
Supports Azure AD workload identity on Kubernetes. |
Authenticate service principals¶
Authenticate users¶
Credential |
Usage |
Reference |
---|---|---|
``AuthorizationCodeCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/authorizationcodecredential>`_ |
Authenticates a user with a previously obtained authorization code. |
|
``DeviceCodeCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/devicecodecredential>`_ |
Interactively authenticates a user on devices with limited UI. |
|
``InteractiveBrowserCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/interactivebrowsercredential>`_ |
Interactively authenticates a user with the default system browser. |
|
``OnBehalfOfCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/onbehalfofcredential>`_ |
Propagates the delegated user identity and permissions through the request chain. |
|
``UsernamePasswordCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/usernamepasswordcredential>`_ |
Authenticates a user with a username and password (doesn’t support multi-factor authentication). |
Authenticate via development tools¶
Credential |
Usage |
Reference |
---|---|---|
``AzureCliCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/azclicredential>`_ |
Authenticates in a development environment with the Azure CLI. |
|
|
Authenticates in a development environment with the Azure Developer CLI. |
|
``PowerShellCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/powershellcredential>`_ |
Authenticates in a development environment with the Azure PowerShell. |
|
``VisualStudioCodeCredential` <https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/vscodecredential>`_ |
Authenticates as the user signed in to the Visual Studio Code Azure Account extension. |
Note:
AzureDeveloperCliCredential
is in beta and its name may change before the stable release.
Environment variables¶
DefaultAzureCredential and EnvironmentCredential can be configured with environment variables. Each type of authentication requires values for specific variables:
Service principal with secret¶
Variable name |
Value |
---|---|
|
ID of an Azure AD application |
|
ID of the application’s Azure AD tenant |
|
one of the application’s client secrets |
Service principal with certificate¶
Variable name |
Value |
---|---|
|
ID of an Azure AD application |
|
ID of the application’s Azure AD tenant |
|
path to a PEM or PKCS12 certificate file including private key |
|
password of the certificate file, if any |
Username and password¶
Variable name |
Value |
---|---|
|
ID of an Azure AD application |
|
a username (usually an email address) |
|
that user’s password |
Configuration is attempted in the above order. For example, if values for a client secret and certificate are both present, the client secret will be used.
Troubleshooting¶
See the troubleshooting guide for details on how to diagnose various failure scenarios.
Error handling¶
Credentials raise CredentialUnavailableError
when they’re unable to attempt authentication because they lack required data or state. For example,
EnvironmentCredential will raise this exception when its configuration is incomplete.
Credentials raise azure.core.exceptions.ClientAuthenticationError
when they fail to authenticate. ClientAuthenticationError
has a message
attribute, which describes why authentication failed. When raised by DefaultAzureCredential
or ChainedTokenCredential
, the message collects error messages from each credential in the chain.
For more information on handling specific Azure AD errors, see the Azure AD error code documentation.
Logging¶
This library uses the standard logging library for logging. Credentials log basic information, including HTTP sessions (URLs, headers, etc.) at INFO level. These log entries don’t contain authentication secrets.
Detailed DEBUG level logging, including request/response bodies and header values, isn’t enabled by default. It can be enabled with the logging_enable
argument. For example:
credential = DefaultAzureCredential(logging_enable=True)
CAUTION: DEBUG level logs from credentials contain sensitive information. These logs must be protected to avoid compromising account security.
Next steps¶
Client library support¶
Client and management libraries listed on the Azure SDK release page that support Azure AD authentication accept credentials from this library. You can learn more about using these libraries in their documentation, which is linked from the release page.
Known issues¶
This library doesn’t support Azure AD B2C.
For other open issues, refer to the library’s GitHub repository.
Provide feedback¶
If you encounter bugs or have suggestions, open an issue.
Contributing¶
This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.microsoft.com.
When you submit a pull request, a CLA-bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., label, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You’ll only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information, see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.