Connect Cribl Search to Google Cloud Storage

Configure Cribl Search to query your Google Cloud Storage data.

Google Cloud Storage is a managed service for storing unstructured data.

In this guide, you’ll set up a Dataset Provider and a Dataset to search your Google Cloud Storage account.

Data transfer costs and other charges may apply. For details, see the Data Transfer Charges section below.

Add a Google Cloud Storage Dataset Provider

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A Dataset Provider tells Cribl Search where to query and contains access credentials. Here, you will add a Google Cloud Storage Dataset Provider.

To add a new Dataset Provider, select Data, then Dataset Providers, then Add Provider.

Configure the New Dataset Provider modal as follows:

1. ID is a unique identifier for the Dataset Provider. This is how you’ll reference it when assigning Datasets to it. Start the ID with a letter; the rest of the ID can use letters, numbers, and underscores (for example, my_dataset_provider_1).
2. Description is optional.
3. Set Dataset Provider Type to Google Cloud Storage.
4. The Service Account Credentials are the contents of your Google Cloud service account (JSON keys). You can also drag and drop a file into the field, or upload a file by clicking the upload button.
   For more information on the permissions needed, see the Google Cloud Permissions section.
   For more information on obtaining your Google Cloud Storage credentials, see Google’s Authenticate to Cloud Storage.
5. Specify an Endpoint. If empty, the endpoint will default to https://storage.googleapis.com. For a list of the endpoints, see the Google Cloud Storage API Reference doc.
6. Select Save when finished.

Google Cloud Permissions

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To let Cribl Search access your Google Cloud data, your Google Cloud service account needs at the minimum all of the following roles:

• Storage Legacy Bucket Reader
• Storage Legacy Object Reader

Alternatively, you can define a custom role that has all of the following permissions:

• storage.buckets.get
• storage.objects.list

For more information, see Google’s IAM roles for Cloud Storage.

Add a Google Cloud Storage Dataset

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Now you’ll add a Dataset that tells Cribl Search what data to search from the Dataset Provider.

To add a new Dataset, select Data, then Datasets, then Add Dataset.

Configure the New Dataset modal as follows.

Identify the Dataset

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Use the first few fields to uniquely identify this Dataset and specify its type:

1. ID is an identifier unique for both Cribl Search and Cribl Lake. Start the ID with a letter; the rest of the ID can use letters, numbers, and underscores (for example, my_dataset_1). You’ll use this to specify the Dataset in a query’s scope, telling Cribl Search to search the Dataset (for example, dataset=my_dataset_1).
2. Description is optional.
3. Set Dataset Provider to the ID of a Google Cloud Storage Dataset Provider.

Set Up Paths and Partitioning

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Define at least one path, filter, and partitioning configuration:

1. Skip event time filter is optional. Toggle this on only if you’re sure you want to set the time range of your searches by partition time-boundaries rather than events’ timestamps
2. Bucket Path is the path to the Google Cloud Storage objects you’d like to search. Start the path with the bucket name, for example: my-bucket/data/*. Tokens and key-value pairs are supported. For details, see bucket path.
3. Path Filter is a JavaScript filter expression that is evaluated against the S3 bucket path. Defaults to true, which matches all data, but you can customize this value.
4. The Partitioning scheme defaults to Defined in Path. For Splunk-specific alternatives, see Partitioning Scheme.

Multiple Path Configs

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Select Add bucket/path to define as many other path configurations as you want for this Dataset. Each path can have its own filter and partitioning scheme.

As with parallel Datasets, each partitioning scheme applies per path. When searching a Dataset, Cribl Search will search all its configured paths. However: a failed search on any of a Dataset’s paths will fail the whole search.

Set Up Datatypes and Storage Classes

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On the Processing left tab, you specify Datatypes to break data down into discrete events and define fields so they’re ready to search.

Use the drop-down to set the first rule to AWS Datatypes. Optionally, click Add Datatype Ruleset to select more rulesets – each of which contains rules applied to the data searched in your Dataset. For details, see Datatypes.

On the Storage classes left tab, select the storage classes that you want this Dataset to search against. You can minimize retrieval costs by selecting only warmer classes. You must select at least one class. For details, see Storage Classes.

Save the Configuration

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Bypass the Usage left tabs for now, and select Save when your configuration is complete.

Path/Partitioning Considerations

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This section offers details and guidance on configuring search paths, filters, and partitioning schemes.

Bucket Paths

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The Bucket Path specifies the data that the Dataset consists of. It defines the scope of data, to narrow down what data is in the Dataset. This is a JavaScript expression that supports tokens and key-value pairs. For example,

• my-bucket/${data}/ – where data becomes a field for all events of that Dataset.
• my-bucket/${data}/${*} – equivalent, the wildcarded path is skipped.
• my-bucket/<key=value>/<someVarOfInterest> – see Hive‑Style Paths just below.

Hive-Style Paths

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To search paths of the form my-bucket/<key=value>/<someVarOfInterest>, your expression should place the wildcard {*} in the ordinal position, to ignore the hive (K-V) segment:

my-bucket/${*}/${someVarOfInterest}

This will allow Cribl Search to find the wildcarded subdirectory automatically.

Basic Tokens

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Basic tokens’ syntax follows that of JS template literals: ${token_name} – where token_name is the field (name) of interest.

For example, if the path was set to /var/log/${hostname}/${dataSource}/, you could use a filter such as hostname=='myHost' && dataSource=='mydataSource' to specify data only from the /var/log/myHost/mydataSource/ subdirectory.

Time-Based Tokens

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Paths with time notation can be referenced with tokens, having a direct effect on the earliest and latest boundaries. The supported time fields are:

• _time is the raw event’s timestamp.
• __earliest is the search start time.
• __latest is the search end time.

Time-based tokens are processed as follows:

• For each path, times must be notated in descending order. So Year/Month/Day order is supported, but Day/Month/Year is not.
• Paths may contain more than one time component. For example, /my/path/2020-04/20/.
• In a given path, each time component can be used only once. So /my/path/${_time:%Y}/${_time:%m}/${_time:%d}/... is a valid expression format, but /my/path/${_time:%Y}/${_time:%m}/${host}/${_time:%Y}/... (with a repeated Y) is not supported.
• For each path, all extracted dates/times are considered in UTC.

Cribl recommends that your path always include and tokenize the largest available time fields, proceeding down to the smallest desired time fields. Otherwise, your searches might yield unexpected results, because Cribl Search will default the omitted fields to their earliest allowed value.

The following strptime format components are allowed:

• Y, y for years
• m, B, b, e for months
• d, j for days
• H, I for hours
• M for minutes
• S for seconds
• s for Unix-style Epoch times (seconds since 1/1/1970)

Time-based token syntax follows that of a slightly modified JS template literal: ${_time: some_strptime_format_component}. Examples:

Set Query Time Range by Partition

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If your data is partitioned by time (so your paths probably use time-based tokens), you can tell Cribl Search to ignore events’ timestamps, and instead set the time range using the partition time-boundaries.

For example, an event with the timestamp of 2025-07-01T23:59:00.000 might be stored in the July 2 partition. Queries for July 1 or July 2 might not find it: the first due to wrong partition, the second due to wrong _time. Using partition time for the query range avoids this issue.

To search by partition time range, toggle on Skip event time filter when setting up your paths. Then, any time range you set (in the Cribl Search UI or with earliest/latest in the query text) will use partition time instead of event time.

If you toggle on the Skip event time filter option, Cribl Search will ignore the _time field in your events. Do not enable this option if your paths don’t use time-based tokens.

Path Filter

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Each Path filter is a JavaScript expression that Cribl Search evaluates against the corresponding Bucket path. The Path filter field’s value defaults to true, which matches all data. However, you can customize this value almost arbitrarily.

For example, with this Path filter:
source.endsWith('.log') || source.endsWith('.txt')
…this configuration will search only files/objects with .log or .txt extensions.

At each Path filter field’s right edge are a Copy button and an Expand button that opens a validation modal.

With DDSS or SmartStore partitioning, you can provide the index name as the Path filter, for example:
index=="index_y"

Partitioning Scheme

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Each Partitioning scheme drop-down offers alternative options for partitioning inbound data from Splunk. You can choose between Splunk DDSS and Splunk SmartStore.

With either option, in the corresponding Bucket path field, provide the path where indexes are stored (that is, your index’s parent folder).

For Splunk DDSS, the full path takes the form:
<parent_folder>/<indexName>/db/db_<latestTime>_<earliestTime>_<bucketId>/rawdata/journal.gz|lz4|zst …or:
<parent_folder>/<indexName>/db_<latestTime>_<earliestTime>_<bucketId>/rawdata/journal.gz|lz4|zst

For SmartStore, the full path takes the form:
<parent_folder>/<indexName>/db/<2-letter-hash>/<2-letter-hash>/<bucket_id_number-origin_guid>/<"guidSplunk"-uploader_guid>/

With either option, if you organize your bucket using this default file path, Cribl Search will automatically discover its content.

Search Google Cloud Storage

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Now that you have a Dataset Provider and Dataset, you’re ready to start searching.

Search results can start showing up within a second or two, but when the search completes depends on how much data there is in the account.

Data Transfer Charges

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Cribl Search uses both Class A and Class B operations in Google Cloud Storage. To understand the fees associated with these operations, refer to the Google Cloud Storage’s Operation charges.

Additionally, retrieval fees may apply depending on the storage class of the bucket. See the Retrieval Fees section for details.

Using Cribl Search to read data from US regions might also result in General network usage egress charges. These charges fall under the “Egress Worldwide Destinations (excluding Asia & Australia)” category. For detailed information, refer to the General network usage.