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Amazon S3 Compatible Stores

S3 is a non-streaming Destination type. Cribl Edge does not have to run on AWS in order to deliver data to S3.

Stores that are S3-compatible will also work with this Destination type. For example, the S3 Destination can be adapted to send data to services like Databricks and Snowflake, for which Cribl Edge currently has no preconfigured Destination. For these integrations, please contact Cribl Support.

Type: Non-Streaming | TLS Support: Yes | PQ Support: No

Configuring Cribl Edge to Output to S3 Destinations
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From the top nav, click Manage, then select a Fleet to configure. Next, you have two options:

To configure via the graphical QuickConnect UI, click Routing > QuickConnect (Stream) or Collect (Edge). Next, click + Add Destination at right. From the resulting drawer’s tiles, select Amazon > S3. Next, click either + Add Destination or (if displayed) Select Existing. The resulting drawer will provide the options below.

Or, to configure via the Routing UI, click Data > Destinations (Stream) or More > Destinations (Edge). From the resulting page’s tiles or the Destinations left nav, select Amazon > S3. Next, click New Destination to open a New Destination modal that provides the options below.

General Settings
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Output ID: Enter a unique name to identify this S3 definition.

S3 bucket name: Name of the destination S3 Bucket. This value can be a constant, or a JavaScript expression that will be evaluated only at init time. E.g., referencing a Global Variable: myBucket-${C.vars.myVar}.

Event-level variables are not available for JavaScript expressions. This is because the bucket name is evaluated only at Destination initialization. If you want to use event-level variables in file paths, Cribl recommends specifying them in the Partitioning Expression field (described below), because this is evaluated for each file.

Staging location: Filesystem location in which to locally buffer files before compressing and moving to final destination. Cribl recommends that this location be stable and high-performance. (This field is not displayed or available on Cribl.Cloud-managed Edge Nodes.)

Key prefix: Root directory to prepend to path before uploading. Enter either a constant, or a JS expression (enclosed in single quotes, double quotes, or backticks) that will be evaluated only at init time.

Data format: The output data format defaults to JSON. Raw and Parquet are also available. Selecting Parquet (supported only on Linux, not Windows) exposes a Parquet Settings left tab, where you must configure certain options in order to export data in Parquet format.

Optional Settings
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Region: Region where the S3 bucket is located.

You must grant your IAM role or user the GetBucketLocation permission to the S3 bucket when no Region is selected. See Amazon S3 Permissions for an example.

Partitioning expression: JavaScript expression that defines how files are partitioned and organized. Default is date-based. If blank, Cribl Edge will fall back to the event’s __partition field value (if present); or otherwise to the root directory of the Output Location and Staging Location.

Compress: Data compression format used before moving to final destination. Defaults to none. Cribl recommends setting this to gzip. This setting is not available when Data format is set to Parquet.

File name prefix expression: The output filename prefix. Must be a JavaScript expression (which can evaluate to a constant), enclosed in quotes or backticks. Defaults to CriblOut.

File name suffix expression: The output filename suffix. Must be a JavaScript expression (which can evaluate to a constant), enclosed in quotes or backticks. Defaults to `.${C.env["CRIBL_WORKER_ID"]}.${__format}${__compression === "gzip" ? ".gz" : ""}`, where __format can be json or raw, and __compression can be none or gzip.

To prevent files from being overwritten, Cribl appends a random sequence of 6 characters to the end of their names. File name prefix and suffix expressions do not bypass this behavior.

For example, if you set the File name prefix expression to CriblExec and set the File name suffix expression to .csv, the file name might display as CriblExec-adPRWM.csv with adPRWM appended.

Backpressure behavior: Select whether to block or drop events when all receivers are exerting backpressure. (Causes might include an accumulation of too many files needing to be closed.) Defaults to Block.

Tags: Optionally, add tags that you can use for filtering and grouping at the final destination. Use a tab or hard return between (arbitrary) tag names.

Authentication
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Use the Authentication Method buttons to select one of these options:

Auto: This default option uses the AWS instance’s metadata service to automatically obtain short-lived credentials from the IAM role attached to an EC2 instance. The attached IAM role grants Cribl Edge Workers access to authorized AWS resources. Can also use the environment variables AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY. Works only when running on AWS.

Manual: If not running on AWS, you can select this option to enter a static set of user-associated IAM credentials (your access key and secret key) directly or by reference. This is useful for Workers not in an AWS VPC, e.g., those running a private cloud. The Manual option exposes these corresponding additional fields:

  • Access key: Enter your AWS access key. If not present, will fall back to the env.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID environment variable, or to the metadata endpoint for IAM role credentials.

  • Secret key: Enter your AWS secret key. If not present, will fall back to the env.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY environment variable, or to the metadata endpoint for IAM credentials.

Secret: If not running on AWS, you can select this option to supply a stored secret that references an AWS access key and secret key. The Secret option exposes this additional field:

  • Secret key pair: Use the drop-down to select an API key/secret key pair that you’ve configured in Cribl Edge’s secrets manager. A Create link is available to store a new, reusable secret.

Assume Role
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Enable for S3: Toggle to Yes to use Assume Role credentials to access S3.

AssumeRole ARN: Enter the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the role to assume.

External ID: Enter the External ID to use when assuming role. This is required only when assuming a role that requires this ID in order to delegate third-party access. For details, see AWS’ documentation.

Processing Settings
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Post‑Processing
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Pipeline: Pipeline to process data before sending the data out using this output.

System fields: A list of fields to automatically add to events that use this output. By default, includes cribl_pipe (identifying the Cribl Edge Pipeline that processed the event). Supports c* wildcards. Other options include:

  • cribl_host – Cribl Edge Node that processed the event.
  • cribl_wp – Cribl Edge Worker Process that processed the event.
  • cribl_input – Cribl Edge Source that processed the event.
  • cribl_output – Cribl Edge Destination that processed the event.

Parquet Settings
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To write out Parquet files, note that:

  • Cribl Edge Workers support Parquet only when running on Linux, not on Windows.
  • See Working with Parquet for pointers on how to avoid problems such as data mismatches.
  • The S3 Collector currently does not support ingesting data in the Parquet format. Therefore, data that you export in Parquet format cannot be replayed.

Parquet schema: Select a schema from the drop-down. To modify a schema or create a new one, follow the instructions below.

Row group size: Set the target memory size for row group segments. Modify this value to optimize memory use when writing. Value must be a positive integer smaller than the File size value, with appropriate units. Defaults to 16 MB.

Page size: Set the target memory size for page segments. Generally, set lower values to improve reading speed, or set higher values to improve compression. Value must be a positive integer smaller than the Row group size value, with appropriate units. Defaults to 1 MB.

Advanced Settings
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Max file size (MB): Maximum uncompressed output file size. Files of this size will be closed and moved to final output location. Defaults to 32.

Max file open time (sec): Maximum amount of time to write to a file. Files open for longer than this limit will be closed and moved to final output location. Defaults to 300.

Max file idle time (sec): Maximum amount of time to keep inactive files open. Files open for longer than this limit will be closed and moved to final output location. Defaults to 30.

Max open files: Maximum number of files to keep open concurrently. When this limit is exceeded, on any individual Worker Process, Cribl Edge will close the oldest open files, and move them to the final output location. Defaults to 100.

Cribl Edge will close files when any of the four above conditions is met.

Add Output ID: When set to Yes (the default), adds the Output ID field’s value to the staging location’s file path. This ensures that each Destination’s logs will write to its own bucket.

For a Destination originally configured in a Cribl Edge version below 2.4.0, the Add Output ID behavior will be switched off on the backend, regardless of this slider’s state. This is to avoid losing any files pending in the original staging directory, upon Cribl Edge upgrade and restart. To enable this option for such Destinations, Cribl’s recommended migration path is:

  • Clone the Destination.
  • Redirect the Routes referencing the original Destination to instead reference the new, cloned Destination.

This way, the original Destination will process pending files (after an idle timeout), and the new, cloned Destination will process newly arriving events with Add output ID enabled.

Remove staging dirs: Toggle to Yes to delete empty staging directories after moving files. This prevents the proliferation of orphaned empty directories. When enabled, exposes this additional option:

  • Staging cleanup period: How often (in seconds) to delete empty directories when Remove staging dirs is enabled. Defaults to 300 seconds (every 5 minutes). Minimum configurable interval is 10 seconds; maximum is 86400 seconds (every 24 hours).

Endpoint: S3 service endpoint. If empty, Cribl Edge will automatically construct the endpoint from the AWS Region. To access the AWS S3 endpoints, use the path-style URL format. You don’t need to specify the bucket name in the URL, because Cribl Edge will automatically add it to the URL path. For details, see AWS’ Path‑Style Requests topic.

Object ACL: Object ACL (Access Control List) to assign to uploaded objects.

Storage class: Select a storage class for uploaded objects. Defaults to Standard. The other options are: Reduced Redundancy Storage; Standard, Infrequent Access; One Zone, Infrequent Access; Intelligent Tiering; Glacier; or Deep Archive.

Server-side encryption: Encryption type for uploaded objects – used to enable encryption on data at rest. Defaults to no encryption; the other options are Amazon S3 Managed Key or AWS KMS Managed Key.

AWS S3 always encrypts data in transit using HTTPS, with default one-way authentication from server to clients. With other S3-compatible stores (such as our native MinIO Destination), use an https:// URL to invoke in-transit encryption. Two-way authentication is not required to get encryption, and requires clients to possess a certificate.

Signature version: Signature version to use for signing S3 requests. Defaults to v4.

Reuse connections: Whether to reuse connections between requests. The default setting (Yes) can improve performance.

Reject unauthorized certificates: Whether to accept certificates that cannot be verified against a valid Certificate Authority (e.g., self-signed certificates). Defaults to Yes.

Environment: If you’re using GitOps, optionally use this field to specify a single Git branch on which to enable this configuration. If empty, the config will be enabled everywhere.

Amazon S3 Permissions
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The following permissions are needed to write to an Amazon S3 bucket:

  • s3:GetBucketLocation – Needed if Region is not configured.
  • s3:ListBucket – Needed unless Verify if bucket exists is toggled off.
  • s3:PutObject

Creating and Modifying Parquet Schemas
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When you need to add a new Parquet schema or modify an existing one:

  1. Navigate to the Parquet Schema Library, located at Processing > Knowledge > Parquet Schemas.

  2. Create or modify the schema, as described here.

Cribl strongly recommends that to modify an existing schema, you first clone it and give the clone its own distinct name.

  1. Return to this Destination, and select the new or modified schema in the Parquet schema drop-down.

  2. Click Save.

Cloning First Is Safer than Just Modifying
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Modifying an existing schema in the Schema Library does not propagate your modifications to the Destination’s copy of the schema.

  • Cloning and renaming schemas is the safest approach, because in Step 3 above, it removes any doubt that your Destination will now use the newly-modified version of your schema.
  • If you do not clone and rename the schema (i.e., you leave the schema name unchanged), you still must re-select the schema in the Destination’s Parquet schema drop-down, and click Save, to bring the modified version into the Destination.

Internal Fields
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Cribl Edge uses a set of internal fields to assist in forwarding data to a Destination.

Field for this Destination:

  • __partition