FTP for Azure Blob Storage

Question

I had to configure secure FTP on Azure Blob Storage using popular FTP clients (e.g. FileZilla, for example). After much research, I came across a link that reads:

Deployed in a working role, the code creates an FTP server that can accept connections from all popular FTP clients (e.g. FileZilla, for example) to manage and store your blob memory account.

Following the link instructions, I implemented the same thing and deployed a working role in the Azure production environment, and it was successful. But still, I cannot connect the FTP host server (provided by me in the configuration file) using FileZilla. I don’t know what I did wrong or missed something.

Answer 1

But why?

There are already two very good FTP-style Azure Storage clients:
http://storageexplorer.com and http://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com

Both of these, @Guarav noted, can use a shared signature (SAS) to connect to Azure Storage without revealing an account key. Then you can use a different SAS for each client if you are building a service with several tenants, although if you think about it, this is not a good dividing line.

I would use a separate account for each client. Thus, if the storage account is at risk, it affects only one client. The following limit is used:

From https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-scalability-targets/ :

Scaling goals for blocks, queues, tables, and files

Number of storage accounts per subscription: 200

This includes both standard and premium accounts. If you need more than 200 accounts, make a request through Azure Support. The Azure Storage team will review your business and can approve up to 250 accounts.

Answer 2

If you program well with Node.js, you can host an FTP server directly supported by Azure Blob.

You can use nodeftpd in conjunction with azure-storage-fs . nodeftpd is an FTP server written in Node.js and support for a third-party file system manager. azure-storage-fs is a file system manager that is designed to use nodeftpd and communicates directly with Azure Blob.

The integration code with the file system manager is explicitly written in README.md azure-storage-fs . But you will need to write your own authentication code.