Multer Azure Blob Storage

ES6 & Typescript friendly Multer storage engine for Azure's blob storage.

Adapted from package multer-azure-blob-storage, updated to use a more recent blob storage dependency. All attempts were made to be backwards compatible, please report any issues if you switch to this package for existing code.

Installation

npm i -S multer-az-storage-blob

or

yarn add multer-az-storage-blob

Usage

Typescript

Leverages strong typings

import * as multer from 'multer';
import { MulterAzureStorage, MASNameResolver } from 'multer-az-storage-blob';

const resolveBlobName: MASNameResolver = (req: any, file: Express.Multer.File): Promise<string> => {
    return new Promise<string>((resolve, reject) => {
        const blobName: string = yourCustomLogic(req, file);
        resolve(blobName);
    });
};

export type MetadataObj = { [k: string]: string };
const resolveMetadata: MASObjectResolver = (req: any, file: Express.Multer.File): Promise<MetadataObj> => {
    return new Promise<MetadataObj>((resolve, reject) => {
        const metadata: MetadataObj = yourCustomLogic(req, file);
        resolve(metadata);
    });
};

const resolveContentSettings: MASObjectResolver = (req: any, file: Express.Multer.File): Promise<MetadataObj> => {
    return new Promise<MetadataObj>((resolve, reject) => {
        const contentSettings: MetadataObj = yourCustomLogic(req, file);
        resolve(contentSettings);
    });
};

const azureStorage: MulterAzureStorage = new MulterAzureStorage({
    authenticationType: 'azure ad',    
    accountName: 'mystorageaccountname',
    containerName: 'documents',
    blobName: resolveBlobName,
    metadata: resolveMetadata,
    contentSettings: resolveContentSettings,
    containerAccessLevel: 'blob',
});

const upload: multer.Instance = multer({
    storage: azureStorage
});

app.post('/documents', upload.any(), (req: Request, res: Response, next: NextFunction) => {
  console.log(req.files)
  res.status(200).json(req.files)
});

Javascript ES6

Common.js style imports

const multer = require('multer')
const MulterAzureStorage = require('multer-az-storage-blob').MulterAzureStorage;

E6 style imports

import * as multer from 'multer';
import { MulterAzureStorage } from 'multer-az-storage-blob';

Rest of the JS code

const resolveBlobName = (req, file) => {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        const blobName = yourCustomLogic(req, file);
        resolve(blobName);
    });
};

const resolveMetadata = (req, file) => {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        const metadata = yourCustomLogic(req, file);
        resolve(metadata);
    });
};

const resolveContentSettings = (req, file) => {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject)) => {
        const contentSettings = yourCustomLogic(req, file);
        resolve(contentSettings);
    };
};

const azureStorage = new MulterAzureStorage({
    authenticationType: 'azure ad',  
    accountName: 'mystorageaccountname',
    containerName: 'documents',
    blobName: resolveBlobName,
    metadata: resolveMetadata,
    contentSettings: resolveContentSettings,
    containerAccessLevel: 'blob'
});

const upload = multer({
    storage: azureStorage
});

app.post('/documents', upload.any(), (req, res, next) => {
  console.log(req.files)
  res.status(200).json(req.files)
});

More details on using upload can be found in the Multer documentation

File information

Multer Azure Blob Storage will return the following information in each file uploaded. This can be found in the req.files param:

Configuration object

Details of the configuration object that needs to be passed into the constructor of the MulterAzureStorage class. When dependency migrated from older azure blob package, all attempts were made to ensure backward compatibility for code using the alternate so many configuration variables are not required or can be passed via environment variables instead.

For more information about the meaning of individual parameters please check Azure documentation on node.js integration.

Defaults

For the optional parameters in the configuration object for the MulterAzureStorage class, here are the default fallbacks:

• containerAccessLevel: private
• blobName: Date.now() + '-' + uuid.v4() + path.extname(file.originalname). This results in a url safe filename that looks like '1511161727560-d83d24c8-d213-444c-ba72-316c7a858805.png' urlExpirationTime: used in a previous version of this package, it is retained for backwards compatibility, but no longer used.

  File naming

The containerName can be anything you choose, as long as it's unique to the storage account and as long as it fits Azure's naming restrictions. If the container does not exist the storage engine will create it.

The blobName in an Azure container also needs to have a unique name.

multer-azure-storage-blob allows you to customize the containerName and blobName per request before uploading the file. This can be done by proving a MASNameResolver function in the configuation object for the desired parameter.

const resolveName: MASNameResolver = (req: any, file: Express.Multer.File): Promise<string> => {
    return new Promise<string>((resolve, reject) => {
        // Compute containerName or blobName with your custom logic.
        const computedName: string = yourCustomLogic(req, file);
        resolve(computedName);
    });
};

multer-azure-storage-blob also allows you to add/customize metadata and contentSettings per request before uploading the file. This can be done by proving a MASObjectResolver function in the configuation object for the desired parameter.

export type MetadataObj = { [k: string]: string };
const resolveMetadata: MASObjectResolver = (req: any, file: Express.Multer.File): Promise<MetadataObj> => {
    return new Promise<MetadataObj>((resolve, reject) => {
        const metadata: MetadataObj = yourCustomLogic(req, file);
        resolve(metadata);
    });
};

Azure

Creating a storage account

For instructions on how to create a storage account, see the following Azure documentation.

Credentials (Quick tips)

azure ad is Microsoft's recommended method, please check Azure Documentation for more details on how to configure the blob storage account.

If this is not an option, sas token authorization allows more granular control of access to blob storage. SAS tokens can be generated through the Azure portal for storage accounts and can be restricted to containers.

A valid connection string can contain a SAS token or the account name/key.

For explicit account name and access key authentication, provide the account's access key available through the Azure portal, and the name of the storage account. This method is the least secure and allows clients unrestricted access to all containers on the storage account.

Never commit SAS tokens, connection strings, or access keys to version control.

For backward compatibility, if no authenticationType is provided, it will attempt to use a connection string or account name / access key.

MulterAzureStorage will preferentially use configuration options as passed in. If they are not passed in, it will check for them as environment variables with the keys below.

1. For authentication with azure ad, See [additional documentation] (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/javascript/api/overview/azure/identity-readme?view=azure-node-latest#defaultazurecredential) on how to configure your application to securely use Azure AD for blob storage integration. In development you must include one of these sets of credential variables as environment variables or entries in .env file.
2. AZURE_STORAGE_CONNECTION_STRING, for the connectionString.
3. AZURE_STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY, for the accessKey.
4. AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT, for the accountName.
5. AZURE_STORAGE_SAS_TOKEN, for the sasToken

Tests

Not implemented yet

Thanks

All great things are built on the shoulder of giants. I want to thank my giants for lending their shoulders:

• mckalexee
• MantaCodeDevs
• Symphonicc and Bayo O

License

MIT

Change log

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file. This project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

1.0.0 - 2017-11-20

• Initial release

1.0.0 - 2017-11-20

• Added the ability to include metadata per file uploaded

1.1.0 - 2021-10-17

• Dependency updates
• General cleanup
• Allow resolving contentSettings like metadata. (Credit hstahl)
• Allow default export. (Credit jheysen)

1.2.0

• Dependency updates
• Remove pinning of dependency versions in favor of semantic versioning

1.3.0 2023-06-28

• Rename to multer-azure-storage-blob as this has become a new package.
• Changed dependency on azure-blob to @azure/storage-blob to allow new auth types, refactored accordingly
• Other dependency updates/cleanup