S3 repositoryedit

You can use AWS S3 as a repository for Snapshot/Restore.

If you are looking for a hosted solution of Elasticsearch on AWS, please visit https://www.elastic.co/cloud/.

Getting startededit

To register an S3 repository, specify the type as s3 when creating the repository. The repository defaults to using ECS IAM Role credentials for authentication. You can also use Using IAM roles for Kubernetes service accounts for authentication Kubernetes service accounts.

The only mandatory setting is the bucket name:

PUT _snapshot/my_s3_repository
{
  "type": "s3",
  "settings": {
    "bucket": "my-bucket"
  }
}

Client settingsedit

The client that you use to connect to S3 has a number of settings available. The settings have the form s3.client.CLIENT_NAME.SETTING_NAME. By default, s3 repositories use a client named default, but this can be modified using the repository setting client. For example:

PUT _snapshot/my_s3_repository
{
  "type": "s3",
  "settings": {
    "bucket": "my-bucket",
    "client": "my-alternate-client"
  }
}

Most client settings can be added to the elasticsearch.yml configuration file with the exception of the secure settings, which you add to the Elasticsearch keystore. For more information about creating and updating the Elasticsearch keystore, see Secure settings.

For example, if you want to use specific credentials to access S3 then run the following commands to add these credentials to the keystore:

bin/elasticsearch-keystore add s3.client.default.access_key
bin/elasticsearch-keystore add s3.client.default.secret_key
# a session token is optional so the following command may not be needed
bin/elasticsearch-keystore add s3.client.default.session_token

If instead you want to use the instance role or container role to access S3 then you should leave these settings unset. You can switch from using specific credentials back to the default of using the instance role or container role by removing these settings from the keystore as follows:

bin/elasticsearch-keystore remove s3.client.default.access_key
bin/elasticsearch-keystore remove s3.client.default.secret_key
# a session token is optional so the following command may not be needed
bin/elasticsearch-keystore remove s3.client.default.session_token

All client secure settings of this repository type are reloadable. After you reload the settings, the internal s3 clients, used to transfer the snapshot contents, will utilize the latest settings from the keystore. Any existing s3 repositories, as well as any newly created ones, will pick up the new values stored in the keystore.

In-progress snapshot/restore tasks will not be preempted by a reload of the client’s secure settings. The task will complete using the client as it was built when the operation started.

The following list contains the available client settings. Those that must be stored in the keystore are marked as "secure" and are reloadable; the other settings belong in the elasticsearch.yml file.

access_key (Secure, reloadable)
An S3 access key. If set, the secret_key setting must also be specified. If unset, the client will use the instance or container role instead.
secret_key (Secure, reloadable)
An S3 secret key. If set, the access_key setting must also be specified.
session_token (Secure, reloadable)
An S3 session token. If set, the access_key and secret_key settings must also be specified.
endpoint
The S3 service endpoint to connect to. This defaults to s3.amazonaws.com but the AWS documentation lists alternative S3 endpoints. If you are using an S3-compatible service then you should set this to the service’s endpoint.
protocol
The protocol to use to connect to S3. Valid values are either http or https. Defaults to https. When using HTTPS, this repository type validates the repository’s certificate chain using the JVM-wide truststore. Ensure that the root certificate authority is in this truststore using the JVM’s keytool tool.
proxy.host
The host name of a proxy to connect to S3 through.
proxy.port
The port of a proxy to connect to S3 through.
proxy.username (Secure, reloadable)
The username to connect to the proxy.host with.
proxy.password (Secure, reloadable)
The password to connect to the proxy.host with.
read_timeout
The socket timeout for connecting to S3. The value should specify the unit. For example, a value of 5s specifies a 5 second timeout. The default value is 50 seconds.
max_retries
The number of retries to use when an S3 request fails. The default value is 3.
use_throttle_retries
Whether retries should be throttled (i.e. should back off). Must be true or false. Defaults to true.
path_style_access
Whether to force the use of the path style access pattern. If true, the path style access pattern will be used. If false, the access pattern will be automatically determined by the AWS Java SDK (See AWS documentation for details). Defaults to false.

In versions 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 all bucket operations used the now-deprecated path style access pattern. If your deployment requires the path style access pattern then you should set this setting to true when upgrading.

disable_chunked_encoding
Whether chunked encoding should be disabled or not. If false, chunked encoding is enabled and will be used where appropriate. If true, chunked encoding is disabled and will not be used, which may mean that snapshot operations consume more resources and take longer to complete. It should only be set to true if you are using a storage service that does not support chunked encoding. See the AWS Java SDK documentation for details. Defaults to false.
region
Allows specifying the signing region to use. Specificing this setting manually should not be necessary for most use cases. Generally, the SDK will correctly guess the signing region to use. It should be considered an expert level setting to support S3-compatible APIs that require v4 signatures and use a region other than the default us-east-1. Defaults to empty string which means that the SDK will try to automatically determine the correct signing region.
signer_override
Allows specifying the name of the signature algorithm to use for signing requests by the S3 client. Specifying this setting should not be necessary for most use cases. It should be considered an expert level setting to support S3-compatible APIs that do not support the signing algorithm that the SDK automatically determines for them. See the AWS Java SDK documentation for details. Defaults to empty string which means that no signing algorithm override will be used.
S3-compatible servicesedit

There are a number of storage systems that provide an S3-compatible API, and the repository-s3 type allows you to use these systems in place of AWS S3. To do so, you should set the s3.client.CLIENT_NAME.endpoint setting to the system’s endpoint. This setting accepts IP addresses and hostnames and may include a port. For example, the endpoint may be 172.17.0.2 or 172.17.0.2:9000.

By default Elasticsearch communicates with your storage system using HTTPS, and validates the repository’s certificate chain using the JVM-wide truststore. Ensure that the JVM-wide truststore includes an entry for your repository. If you wish to use unsecured HTTP communication instead of HTTPS, set s3.client.CLIENT_NAME.protocol to http.

MinIO is an example of a storage system that provides an S3-compatible API. The repository-s3 type allows Elasticsearch to work with MinIO-backed repositories as well as repositories stored on AWS S3. Other S3-compatible storage systems may also work with Elasticsearch, but these are not covered by the Elasticsearch test suite.

Note that some storage systems claim to be S3-compatible but do not faithfully emulate S3’s behaviour in full. The repository-s3 type requires full compatibility with S3. In particular it must support the same set of API endpoints, return the same errors in case of failures, and offer consistency and performance at least as good as S3 even when accessed concurrently by multiple nodes. Incompatible error codes, consistency or performance may be particularly hard to track down since errors, consistency failures, and performance issues are usually rare and hard to reproduce.

You can perform some basic checks of the suitability of your storage system using the repository analysis API. If this API does not complete successfully, or indicates poor performance, then your storage system is not fully compatible with AWS S3 and therefore unsuitable for use as a snapshot repository. You will need to work with the supplier of your storage system to address any incompatibilities you encounter.

Repository settingsedit

The s3 repository type supports a number of settings to customize how data is stored in S3. These can be specified when creating the repository. For example:

PUT _snapshot/my_s3_repository
{
  "type": "s3",
  "settings": {
    "bucket": "my-bucket",
    "another_setting": "setting-value"
  }
}

The following settings are supported:

bucket

(Required) Name of the S3 bucket to use for snapshots.

The bucket name must adhere to Amazon’s S3 bucket naming rules.

client
The name of the S3 client to use to connect to S3. Defaults to default.
base_path

Specifies the path to the repository data within its bucket. Defaults to an empty string, meaning that the repository is at the root of the bucket. The value of this setting should not start or end with a /.

Don’t set base_path when configuring a snapshot repository for Elastic Cloud Enterprise. Elastic Cloud Enterprise automatically generates the base_path for each deployment so that multiple deployments may share the same bucket.

chunk_size
Big files can be broken down into chunks during snapshotting if needed. Specify the chunk size as a value and unit, for example: 1TB, 1GB, 10MB. Defaults to the maximum size of a blob in the S3 which is 5TB.
compress
When set to true metadata files are stored in compressed format. This setting doesn’t affect index files that are already compressed by default. Defaults to true.
max_restore_bytes_per_sec
(Optional, byte value) Maximum snapshot restore rate per node. Defaults to unlimited. Note that restores are also throttled through recovery settings.
max_snapshot_bytes_per_sec
(Optional, byte value) Maximum snapshot creation rate per node. Defaults to 40mb per second.
readonly

(Optional, Boolean) If true, the repository is read-only. The cluster can retrieve and restore snapshots from the repository but not write to the repository or create snapshots in it.

Only a cluster with write access can create snapshots in the repository. All other clusters connected to the repository should have the readonly parameter set to true.

If false, the cluster can write to the repository and create snapshots in it. Defaults to false.

If you register the same snapshot repository with multiple clusters, only one cluster should have write access to the repository. Having multiple clusters write to the repository at the same time risks corrupting the contents of the repository.

server_side_encryption
When set to true files are encrypted on server side using AES256 algorithm. Defaults to false.
buffer_size
Minimum threshold below which the chunk is uploaded using a single request. Beyond this threshold, the S3 repository will use the AWS Multipart Upload API to split the chunk into several parts, each of buffer_size length, and to upload each part in its own request. Note that setting a buffer size lower than 5mb is not allowed since it will prevent the use of the Multipart API and may result in upload errors. It is also not possible to set a buffer size greater than 5gb as it is the maximum upload size allowed by S3. Defaults to 100mb or 5% of JVM heap, whichever is smaller.
canned_acl
The S3 repository supports all S3 canned ACLs : private, public-read, public-read-write, authenticated-read, log-delivery-write, bucket-owner-read, bucket-owner-full-control. Defaults to private. You could specify a canned ACL using the canned_acl setting. When the S3 repository creates buckets and objects, it adds the canned ACL into the buckets and objects.
storage_class
Sets the S3 storage class for objects stored in the snapshot repository. Values may be standard, reduced_redundancy, standard_ia, onezone_ia and intelligent_tiering. Defaults to standard. Changing this setting on an existing repository only affects the storage class for newly created objects, resulting in a mixed usage of storage classes. Additionally, S3 Lifecycle Policies can be used to manage the storage class of existing objects. Due to the extra complexity with the Glacier class lifecycle, it is not currently supported by this repository type. For more information about the different classes, see AWS Storage Classes Guide

The option of defining client settings in the repository settings as documented below is considered deprecated, and will be removed in a future version.

In addition to the above settings, you may also specify all non-secure client settings in the repository settings. In this case, the client settings found in the repository settings will be merged with those of the named client used by the repository. Conflicts between client and repository settings are resolved by the repository settings taking precedence over client settings.

For example:

PUT _snapshot/my_s3_repository
{
  "type": "s3",
  "settings": {
    "client": "my-client",
    "bucket": "my-bucket",
    "endpoint": "my.s3.endpoint"
  }
}

This sets up a repository that uses all client settings from the client my_client_name except for the endpoint that is overridden to my.s3.endpoint by the repository settings.

Recommended S3 permissionsedit

In order to restrict the Elasticsearch snapshot process to the minimum required resources, we recommend using Amazon IAM in conjunction with pre-existing S3 buckets. Here is an example policy which will allow the snapshot access to an S3 bucket named "snaps.example.com". This may be configured through the AWS IAM console, by creating a Custom Policy, and using a Policy Document similar to this (changing snaps.example.com to your bucket name).

{
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "s3:ListBucket",
        "s3:GetBucketLocation",
        "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads",
        "s3:ListBucketVersions"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::snaps.example.com"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Action": [
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:DeleteObject",
        "s3:AbortMultipartUpload",
        "s3:ListMultipartUploadParts"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::snaps.example.com/*"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "Version": "2012-10-17"
}

You may further restrict the permissions by specifying a prefix within the bucket, in this example, named "foo".

{
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "s3:ListBucket",
        "s3:GetBucketLocation",
        "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads",
        "s3:ListBucketVersions"
      ],
      "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
          "s3:prefix": [
            "foo/*"
          ]
        }
      },
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::snaps.example.com"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Action": [
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:DeleteObject",
        "s3:AbortMultipartUpload",
        "s3:ListMultipartUploadParts"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::snaps.example.com/foo/*"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "Version": "2012-10-17"
}

The bucket needs to exist to register a repository for snapshots. If you did not create the bucket then the repository registration will fail.

Cleaning up multi-part uploadsedit

Elasticsearch uses S3’s multi-part upload process to upload larger blobs to the repository. The multi-part upload process works by dividing each blob into smaller parts, uploading each part independently, and then completing the upload in a separate step. This reduces the amount of data that Elasticsearch must re-send if an upload fails: Elasticsearch only needs to re-send the part that failed rather than starting from the beginning of the whole blob. The storage for each part is charged independently starting from the time at which the part was uploaded.

If a multi-part upload cannot be completed then it must be aborted in order to delete any parts that were successfully uploaded, preventing further storage charges from accumulating. Elasticsearch will automatically abort a multi-part upload on failure, but sometimes the abort request itself fails. For example, if the repository becomes inaccessible or the instance on which Elasticsearch is running is terminated abruptly then Elasticsearch cannot complete or abort any ongoing uploads.

You must make sure that failed uploads are eventually aborted to avoid unnecessary storage costs. You can use the List multipart uploads API to list the ongoing uploads and look for any which are unusually long-running, or you can configure a bucket lifecycle policy to automatically abort incomplete uploads once they reach a certain age.

AWS VPC bandwidth settingsedit

AWS instances resolve S3 endpoints to a public IP. If the Elasticsearch instances reside in a private subnet in an AWS VPC then all traffic to S3 will go through the VPC’s NAT instance. If your VPC’s NAT instance is a smaller instance size (e.g. a t2.micro) or is handling a high volume of network traffic your bandwidth to S3 may be limited by that NAT instance’s networking bandwidth limitations. Instead we recommend creating a VPC endpoint that enables connecting to S3 in instances that reside in a private subnet in an AWS VPC. This will eliminate any limitations imposed by the network bandwidth of your VPC’s NAT instance.

Instances residing in a public subnet in an AWS VPC will connect to S3 via the VPC’s internet gateway and not be bandwidth limited by the VPC’s NAT instance.

Using IAM roles for Kubernetes service accounts for authenticationedit

If you want to use Kubernetes service accounts for authentication, you need to add a symlink to the $AWS_WEB_IDENTITY_TOKEN_FILE environment variable (which should be automatically set by a Kubernetes pod) in the S3 repository config directory, so the repository can have the read access for the service account (a repository can’t read any files outside its config directory). For example:

mkdir -p "${ES_PATH_CONF}/repository-s3"
ln -s $AWS_WEB_IDENTITY_TOKEN_FILE "${ES_PATH_CONF}/repository-s3/aws-web-identity-token-file"

The symlink must be created on all data and master eligible nodes and be readable by the elasticsearch user. By default, Elasticsearch runs as user elasticsearch using uid:gid 1000:0.

If the symlink exists, it will be used by default by all S3 repositories that don’t have explicit client credentials.