Azure Storage Common Laravel Package

Getting Started

This package is deprecated and retired as of March 17, 2024—do not use it for new work. If you're encountering it in an existing Laravel project, first audit your dependencies:

composer why microsoft/azure-storage-common

It is a transitive dependency of legacy Azure Storage SDKs (microsoft/azure-storage-blob, table, etc.), not a standalone API. You’ll interact with it only through clients like BlobRestProxy::createBlobService(). Your immediate priority should be migrating to the actively supported azure/storage-blob package, per Microsoft’s official retirement guide.

Implementation Patterns

• Never instantiate directly—it provides shared utilities (retry middleware, SAS builders, stream helpers), but developers only use it indirectly via legacy client builders:

  // Legacy SAS generation (avoid in new code)
  use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Blob\BlobSharedAccessSignatureHelper;
  $sasToken = BlobSharedAccessSignatureHelper::generateBlobServiceSharedAccessSignatureToken(
      $accountName, $accountKey, ContainerAccessPolicy::CREATE, new \DateTime('+1h')
  );
  
  // Legacy client with retry middleware (common pattern)
  use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Common\Middlewares\CommonMiddleWare;
  $client = BlobRestProxy::createBlobService($connectionString, [
      'middlewares' => [new CommonMiddleWare('2019-02-02')]
  ]);
  

• Retry & middleware: Configure retry policies via CommonMiddleWare’s constructor (e.g., new CommonMiddleWare('2019-02-02', $retryOptions)), but note this is incompatible with Laravel’s PSR-18/HTTPlug ecosystems.
• Utilities: Legacy helpers like Utilities::generateGuid() or EdmType::fromValue() exist, but modern alternatives (ramsey/uuid, native PHP types) are safer and better-maintained.

Gotchas and Tips

• ⚠️ Critical retirement risk: No patches, security updates, or support post-March 2024. Even if you just use it for SAS tokens, move to the new SDK’s BlobSasBuilder before deadline.
• TLS 1.0/1.1 vulnerabilities: Older versions had known TLS issues—though fixed in v1.5.0 (2020), no further patches are coming. Ensure your Azure Storage endpoint enforces TLS 1.2+ client-side.
• Guzzle conflicts: While v1.5.2 claims Guzzle 6/7 compatibility, Laravel 10+ typically requires Guzzle 7.8+ and PSR-17. Run composer check-platform-reqs to detect conflicts.
• Date/time gotchas: Accepts DateTime/DateTimeImmutable (v1.5.0+), but many internal helpers use string formats—always prefer DateTimeImmutable to avoid mutation side effects.
• Debug auth failures: Check for:
  • Mismatched x-ms-version (set via CommonMiddleWare)
  • Incorrect account key in connection string
  • Non-UTC timestamps causing signature validation errors (colons added in v1.5.2)
• Extension point warning: CommonMiddleWare is mutable and not PSR-15 compliant—replacing it with modern middleware (e.g., Laravel’s HTTP client interceptors) will be far easier than patching legacy logic.