Azure Extension

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Documentation / Extensions

0.10 (stable)

Azure Extension

The azure extension is a loadable extension that adds a filesystem abstraction for the Azure Blob storage to DuckDB.

Installing and Loading

To install and load the azure extension, run:

INSTALL azure;
LOAD azure;

Usage

Once the authentication is set up, you can query Azure storage as follows:

For Azure Blob Storage

Allowed URI schemes: az or azure

SELECT count(*)
FROM 'az://⟨my_container⟩/⟨path⟩/⟨my_file⟩.⟨parquet_or_csv⟩';

Globs are also supported:

SELECT *
FROM 'az://⟨my_container⟩/⟨path⟩/*.csv';

SELECT *
FROM 'az://⟨my_container⟩/⟨path⟩/**';

Or with a fully qualified path syntax:

SELECT count(*)
FROM 'az://⟨my_storage_account⟩.blob.core.windows.net/⟨my_container⟩/⟨path⟩/⟨my_file⟩.⟨parquet_or_csv⟩';

SELECT *
FROM 'az://⟨my_storage_account⟩.blob.core.windows.net/⟨my_container⟩/⟨path⟩/*.csv';

For Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS)

Allowed URI schemes: abfss

SELECT count(*)
FROM 'abfss://⟨my_filesystem/⟨path⟩/⟨my_file⟩.⟨parquet_or_csv⟩';

Globs are also supported:

SELECT *
FROM 'abfss://⟨my_filesystem/⟨path⟩/*.csv';

SELECT *
FROM 'abfss://⟨my_filesystem/⟨path⟩/**';

Or with a fully qualified path syntax:

SELECT count(*)
FROM 'abfss://⟨my_storage_account⟩.dfs.core.windows.net/⟨my_filesystem⟩/⟨path⟩/⟨my_file⟩.⟨parquet_or_csv⟩';

SELECT *
FROM 'abfss://⟨my_storage_account⟩.dfs.core.windows.net/⟨my_filesystem⟩/⟨path⟩/*.csv';

Configuration

Use the following configuration options how the extension reads remote files:

Name	Description	Type	Default
`azure_http_stats`	Include http info from Azure Storage in the `EXPLAIN ANALYZE` statement.	`BOOLEAN`	`false`
`azure_read_transfer_concurrency`	Maximum number of threads the Azure client can use for a single parallel read. If `azure_read_transfer_chunk_size` is less than `azure_read_buffer_size` then setting this > 1 will allow the Azure client to do concurrent requests to fill the buffer.	`BIGINT`	`5`
`azure_read_transfer_chunk_size`	Maximum size in bytes that the Azure client will read in a single request. It is recommended that this is a factor of `azure_read_buffer_size`.	`BIGINT`	`1024*1024`
`azure_read_buffer_size`	Size of the read buffer. It is recommended that this is evenly divisible by `azure_read_transfer_chunk_size`.	`UBIGINT`	`1024*1024`
`azure_transport_option_type`	Underlying adapter to use in the Azure SDK. Valid values are: `default` or `curl`.	`VARCHAR`	`default`
`azure_context_caching`	Enable/disable the caching of the underlying Azure SDK HTTP connection in the DuckDB connection context when performing queries. If you suspect that this is causing some side effect, you can try to disable it by setting it to false (not recommended).	`BOOLEAN`	`true`

Setting azure_transport_option_type explicitly to curl with have the following effect:

On Linux, this may solve certificates issue (Error: Invalid Error: Fail to get a new connection for: https://⟨storage account name⟩.blob.core.windows.net/. Problem with the SSL CA cert (path? access rights?)) because when specifying the extension will try to find the bundle certificate in various paths (that is not done by curl by default and might be wrong due to static linking).

On Windows, this replaces the default adapter (WinHTTP) allowing you to use all curl capabilities (for example using a socks proxies).

On all operating systems, it will honor the following environment variables:

CURL_CA_INFO: Path to a PEM encoded file containing the certificate authorities sent to libcurl. Note that this option is known to only work on Linux and might throw if set on other platforms.

CURL_CA_PATH: Path to a directory which holds PEM encoded file, containing the certificate authorities sent to libcurl.

Example:

SET azure_http_stats = false;
SET azure_read_transfer_concurrency = 5;
SET azure_read_transfer_chunk_size = 1048576;
SET azure_read_buffer_size = 1048576;

Authentication

The Azure extension has two ways to configure the authentication. The preferred way is to use Secrets.

Authentication with Secret

Multiple Secret Providers are available for the Azure extension:

If you need to define different secrets for different storage accounts you can use the SCOPE configuration.

If you use fully qualified path then the ACCOUNT_NAME attribute is optional.

`CONFIG` Provider

The default provider, CONFIG (i.e., user-configured), allows access to the storage account using a connection string or anonymously. For example:

CREATE SECRET secret1 (
    TYPE AZURE,
    CONNECTION_STRING '⟨value⟩'
);

If you do not use authentication, you still need to specify the storage account name. For example:

-- Note that PROVIDER CONFIG is optional as it is the default one
CREATE SECRET secret2 (
    TYPE AZURE,
    PROVIDER CONFIG,
    ACCOUNT_NAME '⟨storage account name⟩'
);

The CREDENTIAL_CHAIN provider allows connecting using credentials automatically fetched by the Azure SDK via the Azure credential chain. By default, the DefaultAzureCredential chain used, which tries credentials according to the order specified by the Azure documentation. For example:

CREATE SECRET secret3 (
    TYPE AZURE,
    PROVIDER CREDENTIAL_CHAIN,
    ACCOUNT_NAME '⟨storage account name⟩'
);

DuckDB also allows specifying a specific chain using the CHAIN keyword. This takes a ; separated list of providers that will be tried in order. For example:

CREATE SECRET secret4 (
    TYPE AZURE,
    PROVIDER CREDENTIAL_CHAIN,
    CHAIN 'cli;env',
    ACCOUNT_NAME '⟨storage account name⟩'
);

The possible values are the following: cli; managed_identity; env; default;

If no explicit CHAIN is provided, the default one will be default

`SERVICE_PRINCIPAL` Provider

The SERVICE_PRINCIPAL provider allows connecting using a Azure Service Principal (SPN).

Either with a secret:

CREATE SECRET azure_spn (
    TYPE AZURE,
    PROVIDER SERVICE_PRINCIPAL,
    TENANT_ID '⟨tenant id⟩',
    CLIENT_ID '⟨client id⟩',
    CLIENT_SECRET '⟨client secret⟩',
    ACCOUNT_NAME '⟨storage account name⟩'
);

Or with a certificate:

CREATE SECRET azure_spn_cert (
    TYPE AZURE,
    PROVIDER SERVICE_PRINCIPAL,
    TENANT_ID '⟨tenant id⟩',
    CLIENT_ID '⟨client id⟩',
    CLIENT_CERTIFICATE_PATH '⟨client cert path⟩',
    ACCOUNT_NAME '⟨storage account name⟩'
);

Configuring a Proxy

To configure proxy information when using secrets, you can add HTTP_PROXY, PROXY_USER_NAME, and PROXY_PASSWORD in the secret definition. For example:

CREATE SECRET secret5 (
    TYPE AZURE,
    CONNECTION_STRING '⟨value⟩',
    HTTP_PROXY 'http://localhost:3128',
    PROXY_USER_NAME 'john',
    PROXY_PASSWORD 'doe'
);

When using secrets, the HTTP_PROXY environment variable will still be honored except if you provide an explicit value for it.

When using secrets, the SET variable of the Authentication with variables session will be ignored.

The Azure CREDENTIAL_CHAIN provider, the actual token is fetched at query time, not at the time of creating the secret.

Authentication with Variables (Deprecated)

SET variable_name = variable_value;

Where variable_name can be one of the following:

Name	Description	Type	Default
`azure_storage_connection_string`	Azure connection string, used for authenticating and configuring azure requests.	`STRING`	-
`azure_account_name`	Azure account name, when set, the extension will attempt to automatically detect credentials (not used if you pass the connection string).	`STRING`	-
`azure_endpoint`	Override the azure endpoint for when the Azure credential providers are used.	`STRING`	`blob.core.windows.net`
`azure_credential_chain`	Ordered list of Azure credential providers, in string format separated by `;`. For example: `'cli;managed_identity;env'`. See the list of possible values in the `CREDENTIAL_CHAIN` provider section. Not used if you pass the connection string.	`STRING`	-
`azure_http_proxy`	Proxy to use when login & performing request to azure.	`STRING`	`HTTP_PROXY` environment variable (if set).
`azure_proxy_user_name`	Http proxy username if needed.	`STRING`	-
`azure_proxy_password`	Http proxy password if needed.	`STRING`	-

Additional Information

Difference between ADLS and Blob Storage

Even though ADLS implements similar functionality as the Blob storage, there are some important performance benefits to using the ADLS endpoints for globbing, especially when using (complex) glob patterns.

To demonstrate, lets look at an example of how the a glob is performed internally using respectively the Glob and ADLS endpoints.

Using the following filesystem:

root
├── l_receipmonth=1997-10
│   ├── l_shipmode=AIR
│   │   └── data_0.csv
│   ├── l_shipmode=SHIP
│   │   └── data_0.csv
│   └── l_shipmode=TRUCK
│       └── data_0.csv
├── l_receipmonth=1997-11
│   ├── l_shipmode=AIR
│   │   └── data_0.csv
│   ├── l_shipmode=SHIP
│   │   └── data_0.csv
│   └── l_shipmode=TRUCK
│       └── data_0.csv
└── l_receipmonth=1997-12
    ├── l_shipmode=AIR
    │   └── data_0.csv
    ├── l_shipmode=SHIP
    │   └── data_0.csv
    └── l_shipmode=TRUCK
        └── data_0.csv

The following query performed through the blob endpoint

SELECT count(*)
FROM 'az://root/l_receipmonth=1997-*/l_shipmode=SHIP/*.csv';

will perform the following steps:

List all the files with the prefix root/l_receipmonth=1997-
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-10/l_shipmode=SHIP/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-10/l_shipmode=AIR/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-10/l_shipmode=TRUCK/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-11/l_shipmode=SHIP/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-11/l_shipmode=AIR/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-11/l_shipmode=TRUCK/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-12/l_shipmode=SHIP/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-12/l_shipmode=AIR/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-12/l_shipmode=TRUCK/data_0.csv
Filter the result with the requested pattern root/l_receipmonth=1997-*/l_shipmode=SHIP/*.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-10/l_shipmode=SHIP/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-11/l_shipmode=SHIP/data_0.csv
- root/l_receipmonth=1997-12/l_shipmode=SHIP/data_0.csv

Meanwhile, the same query performed through the datalake endpoint,

SELECT count(*)
FROM 'abfss://root/l_receipmonth=1997-*/l_shipmode=SHIP/*.csv';