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Azure Blob Storage ​

Azure has two planes, and telling them apart is what makes the sign-in painless:

  • Management plane (ARM) enumerates which storage accounts exist under your subscriptions. It needs a Microsoft sign-in.
  • Data plane (https://<account>.blob.core.windows.net) lists containers and reads blobs of an account you name. A connection string or SAS URL is enough.

Ways to connect ​

  • Sign in with Microsoft, in Settings → Sign-ins → Microsoft. The sign-in happens inside the app — no CLI to install: your browser opens on Microsoft's page, with a link to click if it did not. It takes a work or school account, and the session is kept and refreshed so it stays signed in.
  • A connection string from the account's Access keys, or a SAS URL. Paste it or drop it; it is checked by listing the account's containers before it is kept. Requests are then signed with the Shared Key scheme, or carry the SAS.
  • Use what this machine already has: an app registration in AZURE_TENANT_ID, AZURE_CLIENT_ID and AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET, or the Azure CLI when az is signed in.

The app takes them in that order — a key or SAS for an account first, then the Microsoft sign-in, the environment, the CLI — and What was checked in the pane lists each one.

Storage accounts ​

Settings → Locations → Blob Storage lists the accounts the sign-in sees across your subscriptions, and the ones you added by key. Open an account to list its containers, each with a tick; the account's own tick puts them all in the tree or takes them all out.

An account that refuses the sign-in — you can see it but hold no data role on it — is read by its account key instead, fetched through ARM, and the row says via account key. When a listing is refused, a container can be added by its name.

Blob and Data Lake Gen2 are the same provider here: a Data Lake account is a storage account with a hierarchical namespace, and the Blob endpoint reads both.

Revoke signs the Microsoft session out; the Azure CLI's own session stays, as az logout is yours to run.

Next: Microsoft OneLake.