Transferring files using the Amazon S3 adapter for data migration to or from Snow Family devices - AWS Snowball Edge Developer Guide

Transferring files using the Amazon S3 adapter for data migration to or from Snow Family devices

Following is an overview of the Amazon S3 adapter, which you can use to transfer data programmatically to and from S3 buckets already on the AWS Snowball Edge device using Amazon S3 REST API actions. This Amazon S3 REST API support is limited to a subset of actions. You can use this subset of actions with one of the AWS SDKs to transfer data programmatically. You can also use the subset of supported AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) commands for Amazon S3 to transfer data programmatically.

If your solution uses the AWS SDK for Java version 1.11.0 or newer, you must use the following S3ClientOptions:

  • disableChunkedEncoding() – Indicates that chunked encoding is not supported with the interface.

  • setPathStyleAccess(true) – Configures the interface to use path-style access for all requests.

For more information, see Class S3ClientOptions.Builder in the Amazon AppStream SDK for Java.

Important

We recommend that you use only one method at a time to read and write data to a local bucket on an AWS Snowball Edge device. Using both the file interface and the Amazon S3 adapter on the same bucket at the same time can result in read/write conflicts.

AWS Snowball Edge quotas details the limits.

For AWS services to work properly on a Snowball Edge, you must allow the ports for the services. For details, see Port requirements for AWS services on a Snow Family device.

Downloading and installing the AWS CLI version 1.16.14 for use with the Amazon S3 adapter

Currently, Snowball Edge devices support only version 1.16.14 and earlier of the AWS CLI for use with the Amazon S3 adapter. Newer versions of the AWS CLI are not compatible with the Amazon S3 adapter because they do not support all of the functionality of the S3 adapter.

Note

If you are using Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snow Family devices, you can use the latest version of the AWS CLI. To download and use the latest version, see AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

Install the AWS CLI on Linux operating systems

Run this chained command:

curl "https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-cli/awscli-bundle-1.16.14.zip" -o "awscli-bundle.zip";unzip awscli-bundle.zip;sudo ./awscli-bundle/install -i /usr/local/aws -b /usr/local/bin/aws;/usr/local/bin/aws --version;

Install the AWS CLI on Windows operating systems

Download and run the installer file for your operating system:

Using the AWS CLI and API operations on Snowball Edge devices

When using the AWS CLI or API operations to issue IAM, Amazon S3, and Amazon EC2 commands on Snowball Edge, you must specify the Region as "snow." You can do this using AWS configure or within the command itself, as in the following examples.

aws configure --profile abc AWS Access Key ID [None]: AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE AWS Secret Access Key [None]: 1234567 Default region name [None]: snow Default output format [None]: json

Or

aws s3 ls --profile snowballEdge --endpoint http://192.0.2.0:8080 --region snow

Authorization with the Amazon S3 API interface for AWS Snowball

When you use the Amazon S3 adapter, every interaction is signed with the AWS Signature Version 4 algorithm by default. This authorization is used only to verify the data traveling from its source to the interface. All encryption and decryption happens on the device. Unencrypted data is never stored on the device.

When using the interface, keep the following in mind:

  • To get the local Amazon S3 credentials to sign your requests to the AWS Snowball Edge device, run the snowballEdge list-access-keys and snowballEdge get-secret-access-keys Snowball Edge client commands. For more information, see Configuring and using the Snowball Edge Client. These local Amazon S3 credentials include a pair of keys: an access key and a secret key. These keys are only valid for the devices associated with your job. They can't be used in the AWS Cloud because they have no AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) counterpart.

  • The encryption key is not changed by what AWS credentials you use. Signing with the Signature Version 4 algorithm is only used to verify the data traveling from its source to the interface. Thus, this signing never factors into the encryption keys used to encrypt your data on the Snowball.

Getting and using local Amazon S3 credentials on Snow Family devices

Every interaction with a Snowball Edge is signed with the AWS Signature Version 4 algorithm. For more information about the algorithm, see Signature Version 4 Signing Process in the AWS General Reference.

You can get the local Amazon S3 credentials to sign your requests to the Snowball Edge client Edge device by running the snowballEdge list-access-keys and snowballEdge get-secret-access-key Snowball Edge client information, see Getting credentials for a Snow Family device. These local Amazon S3 credentials include a pair of keys: an access key ID and a secret key. These credentials are only valid for the devices that are associated with your job. They can't be used in the AWS Cloud because they have no IAM counterpart.

You can add these credentials to the AWS credentials file on your server. The default credential profiles file is typically located at ~/.aws/credentials, but the location can vary per platform. This file is shared by many of the AWS SDKs and by the AWS CLI. You can save local credentials with a profile name as in the following example.

[snowballEdge] aws_access_key_id = AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE aws_secret_access_key = wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

Configuring the AWS CLI to use the S3 adapter on a Snow Family device as the endpoint

When you use the AWS CLI to issue a command to the AWS Snowball Edge device, you specify that the endpoint is the Amazon S3 adapter. You have the choice of using the HTTPS endpoint, or an unsecured HTTP endpoint, as shown following.

HTTPS secured endpoint

aws s3 ls --profile snowballEdge --endpoint https://192.0.2.0:8443 --ca-bundle path/to/certificate

HTTP unsecured endpoint

aws s3 ls --profile snowballEdge --endpoint http://192.0.2.0:8080

If you use the HTTPS endpoint of 8443, your data is securely transferred from your server to the Snowball Edge. This encryption is ensured with a certificate that's generated by the Snowball Edge when it gets a new IP address. After you have your certificate, you can save it to a local ca-bundle.pem file. Then you can configure your AWS CLI profile to include the path to your certificate, as described following.

To associate your certificate with the interface endpoint
  1. Connect the Snowball Edge to power and the network, and turn it on.

  2. After the device has finished booting up, make a note of its IP address on your local network.

  3. From a terminal on your network, make sure you can ping the Snowball Edge.

  4. Run the snowballEdge get-certificate command in your terminal. For more information on this command, see Managing public key certificates on Snow Family devices.

  5. Save the output of the snowballEdge get-certificate command to a file, for example ca-bundle.pem.

  6. Run the following command from your terminal.

    aws configure set profile.snowballEdge.ca_bundle /path/to/ca-bundle.pem

After you complete the procedure, you can run CLI commands with these local credentials, your certificate, and your specified endpoint, as in the following example.

aws s3 ls --profile snowballEdge --endpoint https://192.0.2.0:8443

Unsupported Amazon S3 features for the Amazon S3 adapter on Snow Family devices

Using the Amazon S3 adapter, you can programmatically transfer data to and from a Snowball Edge with Amazon S3 API actions. However, not all Amazon S3 transfer features and API actions are supported for use with a Snowball Edge device when using the Amazon S3 adapter. For example, the following features and actions are not supported for use with Snowball Edge:

  • TransferManager – This utility transfers files from a local environment to Amazon S3 with the SDK for Java. Consider using the supported API actions or AWS CLI commands with the interface instead.

  • GET Bucket (List Objects) Version 2 – This implementation of the GET action returns some or all (up to 1,000) of the objects in a bucket. Consider using the GET Bucket (List Objects) Version 1 action or the ls AWS CLI command.

  • ListBuckets – The ListBuckets with the object endpoint is not supported. The following command does not work with Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snow Family devices:

    aws s3 ls --endpoint https://192.0.2.0 --profile profile