Amazon FSx - Amazon Kendra
Supported featuresPrerequisitesConnection instructionsLearn more

Amazon FSx

Amazon FSx is a fully managed, cloud based file server system that offers shared storage capabilities. If you are an Amazon FSx user, you can use Amazon Kendra to index your Amazon FSx data source.

Amazon Kendra currently only supports Amazon FSx for Windows File Server.

You can connect Amazon Kendra to your Amazon FSx data source using the Amazon Kendra console and the FsxConfiguration API.

For troubleshooting your Amazon Kendra Amazon FSx data source connector, see Troubleshooting data sources.

Supported features

Amazon Kendra Amazon FSx data source connector supports the following features:

  • Change log

  • Field mappings

  • User context filtering

  • Inclusion/exclusion filters

  • Virtual private cloud (VPC)

Prerequisites

Before you can use Amazon Kendra to index your Amazon FSx data source, make these changes in your Amazon FSx, and AWS account.

In Amazon FSx, make sure you have:

  • An Amazon FSx account with read and mounting permissions.

  • Noted your Amazon FSx authentication credentials for an Active Directory user account. This includes your Active Directory user name and your Domain Name System (DNS) domain name. For example, user@corp.example.com.

  • Copied your Amazon FSx file system ID.

  • Used an Amazon VPC (AWS VPC) where your Amazon FSx resides.

  • Checked each document is unique in Amazon FSx and across other data sources you plan to use for the same index. Each data source that you want to use for an index must not contain the same document across the data sources. Document IDs are global to an index and must be unique per index.

In your AWS account, make sure you have:

  • Created an Amazon Kendra index and, if using the API, noted the index ID.

  • Created an IAM role for your data source and, if using the API, noted the ARN of the IAM role.

    Note

    If you change your authentication type and credentials, you must update your IAM role to access the correct AWS Secrets Manager secret ID.

  • Stored your Amazon FSx authentication credentials in an AWS Secrets Manager secret and, if using the API, noted the ARN of the secret.

    Note

    It’s recommended that you regularly refresh or rotate your credentials and secret. Provide only the necessary access level for your own security. It’s not recommended to re-use credentials and secrets across data sources, and connector versions 1.0 and 2.0 (where applicable).

If you don’t have an existing IAM role or secret, you can use the console to create a new IAM role and Secrets Manager secret when you connect your Amazon FSx data source to Amazon Kendra. If you are using the API, you must provide the ARN of an existing IAM role and Secrets Manager secret, and an index ID.

Connection instructions

To connect Amazon Kendra to your Amazon FSx data source, you must provide the necessary details of your Amazon FSx data source so that Amazon Kendra can access your data. If you have not yet configured Amazon FSx for Amazon Kendra, see Prerequisites.

Console

To connect Amazon Kendra to Amazon FSx

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon Kendra console.

  2. From the left navigation pane, choose Indexes and then choose the index you want to use from the list of indexes.

    Note

    You can choose to configure or edit your User access control settings under Index settings.

  3. On the Getting started page, choose Add data source.

  4. On the Add data source page, choose Amazon FSx connector, and then choose Add data source.

  5. On the Specify data source details page, enter the following information:

    1. In Name and description, for Data source name—Enter a name for your data source. You can include hyphens but not spaces.

    2. (Optional) Description—Enter an optional description for your data source.

    3. In Language, for Default language—A language to filter your documents for the index. Unless you specify otherwise, the language defaults to English. Language specified in the document metadata overrides the selected language.

    4. In Tags, for Add new tag—Tags to search and filter your resources or track your AWS costs.

    5. Choose Next.

  6. On the Define access and security page, enter the following information:

    1. Source—Select Amazon FSx for Windows file server.

    2. Amazon FSx file system ID—Select your file system ID or create a new directory.

    3. AWS Secrets Manager secret—Choose an existing secret or create a new Secrets Manager secret to store your Amazon FSx authentication credentials. If you choose to create a new secret an AWS Secrets Manager secret window opens.

      1. Enter following information in the Create an AWS Secrets Manager secret window:

        1. Secret name—A name for your secret. The prefix ‘AmazonKendra-Amazon FSx-’ is automatically added to your secret name.

        2. For User name—Enter the user name for Amazon FSx Active Directory account.

        3. For Password—Enter the password for the Amazon FSx Active Directory account.

      2. Choose Save.

    4. Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)—You must use a VPC with your Amazon FSx data source.You must add Subnets and VPC security groups.

    5. IAM role—Choose an existing IAM role or create a new IAM role to access your repository credentials and index content.

      Note

      IAM roles used for indexes cannot be used for data sources. If you are unsure if an existing role is used for an index or FAQ, choose Create a new role to avoid errors.

    6. Choose Next.

  7. On the Configure sync settings page, enter the following information:

    1. Change log—Select to update your index instead of syncing all your files.

    2. Regex patterns—Add regular expression patterns to include or exclude certain content. You can add up to 100 patterns.

    3. In Sync run schedule, for Frequency—Choose how often Amazon Kendra should sync with your data source.

    4. Choose Next.

  8. On the Set field mappings page, enter the following information:

    1. Amazon FSx Windows field mappings—Select from the Amazon Kendra generated default data source fields you want to map to your index.

    2. Add field—To add custom data source fields to create an index field name to map to and the field data type.

    3. Choose Next.

  9. On the Review and create page, check that the information you have entered is correct and then select Add data source. You can also choose to edit your information from this page. Your data source will appear on the Data sources page after it’s added successfully.

API

To connect Amazon Kendra to Amazon FSx

You must specify the following using the FsxConfiguration API:

  • Secret Amazon Resource Name (ARN)—Provide the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of a Secrets Manager secret that contains the authentication credentials for your Amazon FSx account. The secret is stored in a JSON structure with the following keys:

    {
    "username": "user@corp.example.com",
    "password": "password"
}
    Note

    It’s recommended that you regularly refresh or rotate your credentials and secret. Provide only the necessary access level for your own security. It’s not recommended to re-use credentials and secrets across data sources, and connector versions 1.0 and 2.0 (where applicable).

  • IAM role—Specify RoleArn when you call CreateDataSource to provide an IAM role with permissions to access your Secrets Manager secret and to call the required public APIs for the Amazon FSx connector and Amazon Kendra. For more information, see IAM roles for Amazon FSx data sources.

You can also add the following optional features:

  • Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)—Specify VpcConfiguration as part of the data source configuration. See Configuring Amazon Kendra to use a VPC.

  • Change log—Whether Amazon Kendra should use the Amazon FSx data source change log mechanism to determine if a document must be added, updated, or deleted in the index.

    Note

    Use the change log if you don’t want Amazon Kendra to scan all of the documents. If your change log is large, it might take Amazon Kendra less time to scan the documents in the Amazon FSx data source than to process the change log. If you are syncing your Amazon FSx data source with your index for the first time, all documents are scanned.

  • Inclusion and exclusion filters—You can specify whether to include or exclude certain content and types of content.

    Note

    Most data sources use regular expression patterns, which are inclusion or exclusion patterns referred to as filters. If you specify an inclusion filter, only content that matches the inclusion filter is indexed. Any document that doesn’t match the inclusion filter isn’t indexed. If you specify an inclusion and exclusion filter, documents that match the exclusion filter are not indexed, even if they match the inclusion filter.

  • Field mappings—Choose to map your Amazon FSx data source fields to your Amazon Kendra index fields. For more information, see Mapping data source fields.

  • User context filtering—Amazon Kendra crawls the Access Control List (ACL) for your data source by default. The ACL information is used to filter a user’s results based on the user or group access to documents.

    Note

    To test user context filtering on a user, you must include the DNS domain name as part of the user name when you issue the query. You must have administrative permissions of the Active Directory domain. You can also test user context filtering on a group name. For more information, see User context filtering for Amazon FSx data sources.

Learn more

To learn more about integrating Amazon Kendra with your Amazon FSx data source, see: