How to use CloudDrive to access Storage Service

CloudDrive is a PowerShell (PS) provider that allows the user to access Storage Service as though it was a drive within PS. This allows for using of PS commands to explore the Storage Service using the command shell or scripts. Some of the operations supported are uploading, downloading and listing the contents of the blob storage; changing the permissions on the containers; listing the queues and their current size; inserting, deleting and clearing messages from the queue. The drive provider supports the majority of the operations supported by any drive providers within PS.

 

Requirements

CloudDrive requires:

·         PowerShell – Required for compiling and running the provider

·        StorageClient sample – Required for compiling and running the provider

·        .Net 3.5

PowerShell is available as a feature in Windows™ Server 2008 and free download for other operating systems. Please see http://www.microsoft.com/powershell for more details.

 

How to use CloudDerive

1. Open a Windows Azure SDK command prompt by choosing "Start | Programs | Windows Azure SDK | Windows Azure SDK Command Prompt".
2. Go to the CloudDrive sample folder.By default, this file is installed to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Azure SDK\v1.0\. To work with the sample applications, first unzip them to a directory on your local computer for which you have write access.
3. Build the CloudDrive using the provided “buildme.cmd” script.
4. Register the DLL within an elevated prompt(run cmd.exe as administrator):

   a.       For x86:
   “C:"Windows"Microsoft.NET"Framework"v2.0.50727"InstallUtil.exe CloudDrive.dll”

   b.      For x64:
   “C:"Windows"Microsoft.NET"Framework64"v2.0.50727"InstallUtil.exe CloudDrive.dll"

5. Run "runme.cmd”(in CloudDrive sample folder) from within an elevated command prompt. You'll see:

 

If you want to access Storage Service in cloud, you need edit the script "scripts\MountDrive.ps1" with the appropriate credentials/IP. The following variables should be changed:

·         Account – The account name with which to connect to the data storage.

·        Key – The private key used to sign all of the communication with data storage.

·        ServiceUrl – The URL to access the storage service by CloudDrive.