Add an Amazon S3 source

This is for:

Developer System Administrator

Amazon simple storage service (S3) is a cloud-based data storage designed to store, manage, and distribute large quantities of data worldwide. Members with the required privileges can add the content of Amazon S3 buckets to a Coveo organization. Coveo indexes Amazon S3 files to make them searchable.

Tip
Leading practice

The number of items that a source processes per hour (crawling speed) depends on various factors, such as network bandwidth and source configuration. See About crawling speed for information on what can impact crawling speed, as well as possible solutions.

Source key characteristics

The following table presents the main characteristics of an Amazon S3 source.

Features Supported Additional information

Amazon S3 version

Latest cloud version

The source supports storage providers that implement S3 APIs compatible with the latest Amazon S3 version.

Indexable content[1]

Buckets[2] and objects (folders and files)

Content update operations

refresh

x

rescan

check

Takes place every day by default

rebuild

check

Content security options

Same users and groups as in your content system

x

Specific users and groups

check

Everyone

check

Metadata indexing for search

Automatic mapping of metadata to fields that have the same name

This setting is disabled by default and not recommended for this source type.

Automatically indexed metadata

Examples of auto-populated default fields (no user-defined metadata required):
 

  • clickableuri

  • filename

  • filetype

  • language (auto-detected from item content)

  • s3modifieddate

  • title
     

After a content update, inspect your item field values in the Content Browser.

Extracted but not indexed metadata

The Amazon S3 source extracts object metadata that the S3 API makes available.
 

After a rebuild, review the View and map metadata subpage for the list of indexed metadata, and index additional metadata.

Custom metadata extraction

AWS lets you set user-defined metadata on objects. The Amazon S3 source automatically extracts user-defined metadata whose names are prefixed with x-amz-meta- during content update operations.

Add an Amazon S3 source

Follow the instructions below to add an Amazon S3 source.

  1. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click Add source.

  2. In the Add a source of content panel, click the Amazon S3 source tile.

  3. Configure your source.

Tip
Leading practice

It’s best to create or edit your source in your sandbox organization first. Once you’ve confirmed that it indexes the desired content, you can copy your source configuration to your production organization, either with a snapshot or manually.

See About non-production organizations for more information and best practices regarding sandbox organizations.

"Configuration" tab

In the Add an Amazon S3 source panel, the Configuration tab is selected by default. It contains your source’s general and authentication information, as well as other parameters.

General information

Name

Enter a name for your source.

Tip
Leading practice

A source name can’t be modified once it’s saved, therefore be sure to use a short and descriptive name, using letters, numbers, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). Avoid spaces and other special characters.
Amazon S3 bucket URL

Enter the address of one or more Amazon S3 buckets using one of the following formats:

Virtual-host style (recommended)
Examples

  • http://<BUCKET>.s3.amazonaws.com/

  • http://<BUCKET>.s3.<AWS_REGION>.amazonaws.com/

Replace <BUCKET> with the name of your bucket, and <AWS_REGION> with your region code.

Path style
Examples

  • http://s3.amazonaws.com/<BUCKET>

  • http://s3.<AWS_REGION>.amazonaws.com/<BUCKET>

Replace <BUCKET> with the name of your bucket, and <AWS_REGION> with your region code.

The source also supports content hosted by non-Amazon S3 providers, like Wasabi. You must then set the ServiceUrl JSON parameter value accordingly.

Example

To index content under https://s3.wasabisys.com/mybucket, you would configure your source as follows:

  1. Enter https://s3.wasabisys.com/mybucket in the Amazon S3 bucket URL box, and then click Save.

  2. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click the source you just created, and then click More > Edit configuration with JSON.

  3. Click anywhere in the JSON configuration box.

  4. Hit Ctrl+F (Windows) or Command+F (Mac).

  5. In the Search field that appears, type ServiceUrl, and then hit Enter.

  6. Set the value of the ServiceUrl parameter to the Wasabi endpoint URL.

    "ServiceUrl": {
  "sensitive": false,
  "value": "https://s3.wasabisys.com"
}

  7. Click Save.

Notes

  • To exclude certain subfolders, first configure and save your source with a broad URL. Then, see Refine the Content to Index.

  • If a region isn’t specified in the URL, it uses the US Standard (us-east-1) region endpoint by default.

  • When the URL points to a folder inside a bucket, only keys starting with that prefix will be crawled.

  • Replace all spaces in the bucket name with %20, if any. For example, http://s3.<AWS_REGION>.amazonaws.com/doc example bucket should be replaced with http://s3.<AWS_REGION>.amazonaws.com/doc%20example%20bucket.
Project

Use the Project selector to associate your source with one or more Coveo projects.

"Authentication" section

Select the authentication type that applies. The options are:

No login - Content to index is available to all

Select this option if your bucket content is public, meaning anonymous users can access the content.

Ensure you’ve granted the Everyone (public access): Objects - List access on your bucket. See the Using the S3 console to set ACL permissions for buckets section in AWS’s Configuring ACLs page for more details. If your bucket permissions aren’t properly set, you’ll encounter an authentication error similar to the one below when attempting a content update operation:

Source credentials do not have sufficient privileges to access the specified Amazon S3 bucket and consequently, Coveo cannot perform any action regarding your source.
Edit the configuration to review the provided AWS Access Key ID and AWS Secret Access Key ID.
Tip

Before building the source, in a browser, test your bucket URL (without a path), and validate that it returns an XML file listing the bucket content (keys). If you get a short Access denied XML error, the source will give an authentication error.
Amazon S3 access key

Select this option if your S3 bucket content is secured, meaning not accessible to anonymous users. Then, enter the Access key ID and Secret access key^ values provided by your AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) account, as detailed in Access key and Secret key. The IAM account must have at least the read permission on the bucket content to index.

"Items" tab

On the Items tab, you can specify how the source handles items based on their file type or content type.

File types

File types let you define how the source handles items based on their file extension or content type. For each file type, you can specify whether to index the item content and metadata, only the item metadata, or neither.

You should fine-tune the file type configurations with the objective of indexing only the content that’s relevant to your users.

Example

Your repository contains .pdf files, but you don’t want them to appear in search results. You click Extensions and then, for the .pdf extension, you change the Default action and Action on error values to Ignore item.

For more details about this feature, see File type handling.

Content and images

If you want Coveo to extract text from image files or PDF files containing images, enable the appropriate option. The extracted text is processed as item data, meaning that it’s fully searchable and will appear in the item Quick view.

Note

When OCR is enabled, ensure the source’s relevant file type configurations index the item content. Indexing the item’s metadata only or ignoring the item will prevent OCR from being applied.

See Enable optical character recognition for details on this feature.

"Content security" tab

Select who will be able to access the source items through a Coveo-powered search interface. For details on the content security options, see Content security.

"Access" tab

On the Access tab, specify whether each group (and API key, if applicable) in your Coveo organization can view or edit the current source.

For example, when creating a new source, you could decide that members of Group A can edit its configuration, while Group B can only view it.

For more information, see Custom access level.

Build the source

  1. Finish adding or editing your source:

    • When you’re done editing the source and want to make your changes effective, click Add and build source/Save and rebuild source.

    • When you want to save your source configuration changes without starting a build/rebuild, such as when you know you want to make other changes soon, click Add source/Save. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click Launch build or Start required rebuild when you’re ready to make your changes effective and index your content.

  2. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, follow the progress of your source addition or modification.

  3. Once the source is built or rebuilt, review its content in the Content Browser.

Index metadata

To use metadata values in search interface facets or result templates, the metadata must be mapped to fields. Coveo automatically maps only a subset of the metadata it extracts. You must map any additional metadata to fields manually.

Note

Not clear on the purpose of indexing metadata? Watch this video.

  1. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click your source, and then click More > View and map metadata in the Action bar.

  2. Review the default metadata that your source is extracting from your content.

  3. Map any currently not indexed metadata that you want to use in facets or result templates to fields.

    Important

    Amazon S3 is no longer returning the DisplayName metadata of the Owner object in API calls. The Coveo Amazon S3 source previously retrieved this S3 metadata as the ObjectOwnerDisplayName Coveo Platform metadata. If you’re indexing this Coveo Platform metadata and using the related field in your search interfaces, update your implementation accordingly.

    1. Click the metadata and then, at the top right, click Add to Index.

    2. In the Apply a mapping on all item types of a source panel, select the field you want to map the metadata to, or add a new field if none of the existing fields are appropriate.

      Note

      For advanced mapping configurations, like applying a mapping to a specific item type, see Manage mappings.

    3. Click Apply mapping.

  4. Return to the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page.

  5. To reindex your source with your new mappings, click your source, and then click More > Rebuild in the Action bar.

  6. Once the source is rebuilt, review your item field values. They should now include the values of the metadata you selected to index.

    1. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click your source, and then click More > Open in Content Browser in the Action bar.

    2. Select the card of the item for which you want to inspect properties, and then click Properties in the Action bar.

    3. In the panel that appears, select the Fields tab.

  7. If needed, extract and map additional metadata.

    More on custom metadata extraction

    AWS lets you set user-defined metadata when you upload objects to your buckets, whether using the S3 console, AWS CLI, REST API, or SDKs. You can also edit object metadata by copying objects to the same destination.

    The Amazon S3 source automatically extracts user-defined metadata with the same x-amz-meta- prefixed name as in S3.

    After uploading objects or editing metadata, rebuild and map each new extracted custom metadata to a field, as you did for the default metadata.

Refine the content to index

You may want to avoid indexing certain subfolders, or to index only a few of them. To do so:

  1. If not already done, create and save your source with a broad bucket URL.

  2. In your source JSON configuration, enter an address filter to refine the targeted content.

    Important

    Your bucket URL must match one of your inclusion addressPatterns and not match any of your exclusion addressPatterns.

  3. Build or rebuild your source.

Required privileges

You can assign privileges to allow access to specific tools in the Coveo Administration Console. The following table indicates the privileges required to view or edit elements of the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page and associated panels. See Manage privileges and Privilege reference for more information.

Note

The Edit all privilege isn’t required to create sources. When granting privileges for the Sources domain, you can grant a group or API key the View all or Custom access level, instead of Edit all, and then select the Can Create checkbox to allow users to create sources. See Can Create ability dependence for more information.
Actions Service Domain Required access level

View sources, view source update schedules, and subscribe to source notifications

Content

Fields

View

Sources

Organization

Organization

Edit sources, edit source update schedules, and edit source mappings

Organization

Organization

View

Content

Fields

Edit

Sources

View and map metadata

Content

Source metadata

View

Fields

Organization

Organization

Content

Sources

Edit

What’s next?

Schedule source updates.

1. An access key is needed to connect to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) service through the software development kit (SDK). The access key is a way to authenticate from the SDK as an Identity and Access Management (IAM) account. The number of requests is unlimited, but you’re charged for every request to your Amazon S3 buckets.
2. Amazon S3 Requester Pays buckets aren’t supported.