Copy files from S3 bucket to local machine using file index - amazon-web-services

I need to copy a files from many subdirectories in an S3 bucket to my local machine. The file name is auto generated and would be difficult to obtain without first using ls, but I do know that the target file is always the 2nd file in the subfolder by date creation order.
Is there a way to reference a file the in the s3 bucket subfolder file by index?
I am envisioning doing this with aws cli, though I'm open to other suggestions.

I'm not aware of any way within S3 to list the second oldest object without listing all objects at a given prefix and then explicitly sorting that list by date. If you need to do this then here are a few ideas:
if objects are only ever added (never deleted), then you could perhaps use a key naming convention when objects are uploaded that allows you to easily locate the 2nd oldest object e.g 0001-xxx, 0002-xxx. Then you can find the 2nd oldest object by listing objects with prefix 0002.
maintain an independent index of the objects in an RDBMS or KV database that allows you to easily locate the S3 key of the 2nd oldest object in any part of your S3 hierarchy. Possibly the DB is maintained via a Lambda function called when objects are put or deleted.
use a Lambda function triggered on object PUT that enumerates all of the objects in the relevant 'folder' and writes the key of the 2nd oldest object back to a kind of index object in that same folder (or as metadata on a known index object). Then you can find the 2nd oldest by getting the contents of the index object (or its metadata).
Option #2 might be the best as it's simple, fast, and flexible (what if, as your app changes over time, you find that you also need to know the 4th oldest object, or the 2nd newest object).

You could use this method to obtain the name of the second file in a given bucket/path:
aws s3api list-objects-v2 --bucket BUCKET-NAME --query 'Contents[1].Key' --output text
This would also work with BUCKET-NAME/PATH.
However, you mention that you have many subdirectories, so you would have to know the names of all those subdirectories if you are wanting to avoid doing a full bucket listing.

Related

Copy ~200.000 of s3 files to new prefixes

I have ~200.000 s3 files that I need to partition, and have made an Athena query to produce a target s3 key for each of the original s3 keys. I can clearly create a script out of this, but how to make the process robust/reliable?
I need to partition csv files using info inside each csv so that each file is moved to a new prefix in the same bucket. The files are mapped 1-to-1, but the new prefix depends on the data inside the file
The copy command for each would be something like:
aws s3 cp s3://bucket/top_prefix/file.csv s3://bucket/top_prefix/var1=X/var2=Y/file.csv
And I can make a single big script to copy all through Athena and bit of SQL, but I am concerned about doing this reliably so that I can be sure that all are copied across, and not have the script fail, timeout etc. Should I "just run the script"? From my machine or better to put it in an ec2 1st? These kinds of questions
This is a one-off, as the application code producing the files in s3 will start outputting directly to partitions.
If each file contains data for only one partition, then you can simply move the files as you have shown. This is quite efficient because the content of the files do not need to be processed.
If, however, lines within the files each belong to different partitions, then you can use Amazon Athena to 'select' lines from an input table and output the lines to a destination table that resides in a different path, with partitioning configured. However, Athena does not "move" the files -- it simply reads them and then stores the output. If you were to do this for new data each time, you would need to use an INSERT statement to copy the new data into an existing output table, then delete the input files from S3.
Since it is one-off, and each file belongs in only one partition, I would recommend you simply "run the script". It will go slightly faster from an EC2 instance, but the data is not uploaded/downloaded -- it all stays within S3.
I often create an Excel spreadsheet with a list of input locations and output locations. I create a formula to build the aws s3 cp <input> <output_path> commands, copy them to a text file and execute it as a batch. Works fine!
You mention that the destination depends on the data inside the object, so it would probably work well as a Python script that would loop through each object, 'peek' inside the object to see where it belongs, then issue a copy_object() command to send it to the right destination. (smart-open ยท PyPI is a great library for reading from an S3 object without having to download it first.)

Automating folder creation in S3

I have an S3 bucket into which clients drop data files (CSV files) each month. I was wondering there was a way that I could automatically create a new "folder" (object) every time the files are dropped each month and put the newest files into that "folder". I need the CSV files separated by month so that AWS Glue can create new partitions when I run incremental crawlers on this bucket.
For example, let's say I have a S3 bucket called "client." On December 1st, a new CSV file ("DecClientData") will be dropped into that "client" bucket. I want to know if there is a way to automate the following two processes:
Create a "folder" (let's call it "dec") within "client".
Place the "DecClientData" file in the "dec" "folder".
Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide!
S3 doesn't have the notion of folders commonly found in file systems but instead has a flat structure, more details can be found here.
Instead, the full path of an object is stored in its Key (filename). For example, an object can be stored in Amazon S3 with a Key of files/2020-12/data.txt regardless of the existence of files and 2020-12 directories (they are not really directories but zero-length objects).
In your case, to solve both points you are mentioning, you should leverage S3 event notifications and use them as a Lambda Trigger. When the Lambda function is triggered, it is passed the name of the object (Key) as an argument, at that point you can simply change its Key.
I.e. Object is uploaded in s3://my_bucket/uploads/file.txt, this creates an event notification that triggers a Lambda function. The functions gets the object and re-uploads it to s3://my_bucket/files/dec/file.txt (and deletes the original one).
Write an AWS Lambda function to create a folder in the client bucket and move the most recent .csv file (or files) in the new folder.
Then, configure the client S3 bucket to trigger the AWS Lambda function on new uploads through the event notification settings.

Store list of Strings in S3

I am new to Amazon AWS S3.
One of my applications processes 40000 updates an hour with a unique identifier for each update.
This identifier is basically a string.
At runtime, I want to store the ID in an S3 bucket for all updates.
But, as far as I understood, we need to store files in s3.
Is there anyway around this?
Should I store a file.. Then read that file each time..append the name and store it again?
Any direction would be very helpful.
Thanks in advance.
I want it to be stored like:
Id1
Id2
Id3
.
.
,
.
Edit: Thanks for the responses, I have added what is asked..
I want to be able to just fetch all these IDs if and when a problem occurs in our system.
I am open to using anything other than s3 as well. I was also looking into DynamoDB. With the ID as the primary key. But, these ID's might be repetitive in 1-2% cases.
In S3, you do not have concept of files and folders. All you have is a bucket and objects inside the bucket. However, the UI of AWS groups objects with common prefixes such that they appear to be in the same folder.
Also, there is nothing like appending to a file in S3. Since S3 has objects, what essentially happens is that the so called append deletes the previous object and creates a new object with the previous object's data appended with some more data.
So, one way to do what I think you're trying is :
Suppose you have all the IDs written at 10:00 in an S3 object called data_corresponding_to_10_00_00. For the next hour(and 40000 updates), if they have all new IDs, you can write them to another S3 object with the name data_corresponding_to_11_00_00.
However, if you do not want multiple entries in both the files, and you need to update the previous file itself, using S3 is not a great idea. Rather use a database indexed on ID so that the performance becomes faster.

AWS S3 Listing API - How to list everything inside S3 Bucket with specific prefix

I am trying to list all items with specific prefix in S3 bucket. Here is directory structure that I have:
Item1/
Item2/
Item3/
Item4/
image_1.jpg
Item5/
image_1.jpg
image_2.jpg
When I set prefex to be Item1/Item2, I get as a result following keys:
Item1/Item2/
Item1/Item2/Item3/Item4/image_1.jpg
Item1/Item2/Item3/Item5/image_1.jpg
Item1/Item2/Item3/Item5/image_2.jpg
What I would like to get is:
Item1/Item2/
Item1/Item2/Item3
Item1/Item2/Item3/Item4
Item1/Item2/Item3/Item5
Item1/Item2/Item3/Item4/image_1.jpg
Item1/Item2/Item3/Item5/image_1.jpg
Item1/Item2/Item3/Item5/image_2.jpg
Is there anyway to achieve this in golang?
Folders do not actually exist in Amazon S3. It is a flat object storage system.
For example, using the AWS Command-Line Interface (CLI) I could copy a command to an Amazon S3 bucket:
aws s3 cp foo.txt s3://my-bucket/folder1/folder2/foo.txt
This work just fine, even though folder1 and folder2 do not exist. This is because objects are stored with a Key (filename) that includes the full path of the object. So, the above object actually has a Key (filename) of:
folder1/folder2/foo.txt
However, to make things easier for humans, the Amazon S3 management console makes it appear as though there are folders. In S3, these are called Common Prefixes rather than folders.
So, when you make an API call to list the contents of the bucket while specifying a Prefix, it simply says "List all objects whose Key starts with this string".
Your listing doesn't show any folders because they don't actually exist.
Now, just to contradict myself, it actually is possible to create a folder (eg by clicking Create folder in the management console). This actually creates a zero-length object with the same name as the folder. The folder will then appear in listings because it is actually listing the zero-length object rather than the folder.
This is probably why Item1/Item2/ appears in your listing, but Item1/Item2/Item3 does not. Somebody, at some stage, must have "created a folder" called Item1/Item2/, which actually created a zero-length object with that Key.

Copy all objects to another S3 bucket in different region with different structure

I have an S3 bucket in Region A structured like this:
ProviderA-1-1
31423423.jpg
ProviderB-1-1
32423432.jpg
The top level folder is a unique image identifier. The filename is the version of the image.
i want to copy the images to a bucket in Region B, structured like this:
ProviderA-1-1.jpg
ProviderB-1-1.jpg
E.g i don't care about the version. I just want the folder name (which is unique) to be the filename.
The reason i'm doing this is to have a flat structure to make use of image services like Imgix / ImageKit. (they provide on the fly image transformation for images, given a flat source origin)
So, my requirements are:
I need to copy lots (millions of images, ~10TB) of images
The destination bucket is in another region
I need to 'flatten' the structure, and change the name of the images to be the name of the folder they are in (folder names isn't fixed)
I've seen a few answers here suggesting the aws cli is the best approach, but not sure how i can achieve 3. with that?
Sounds like i need to loop through the images one by one, changing the name before i copy. If a script is suggested, i'm most comfortable with .NET - so perhaps the AWS .NET SDK?
This is a once off job, where i need to move the images as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Advice please?
Thanks :)
Yes, a script is required because you are moving and renaming the files.
If you're comfortable with .NET, then use that!
The basic program would be:
Create two S3 clients -- one for source bucket (to obtain the listing) and one for the destination bucket (because copy commands are sent to the destination bucket, which pulls the file from the source bucket) because you are using a different region
Use ListObjects() to obtain a list of the source bucket. Note that it will return 1000 files at a time, so use NextMarker to request the subsequent batch.
Loop through each file and use CopyObject() to simultaneously copy and rename the file. Use your own logic to take the folder name and convert it to a filename. Each file will be copied directly between the buckets, without needing to download/upload
Continue, looping through the list of 1000 files and then get the next 1000 files, etc.
The process could be sped up by using multi-threading but the logic gets a bit hard. It might be easier to simply run a few copies of the program at the same time, each handling a different Prefix range (effectively, folder names).
It's a one-off job, so optimization isn't important.
If you are adding more files in future, the best method would be to create an AWS Lambda function that is triggered whenever a new file is created in S3. The Lambda function would then copy the file to the destination, then exit.
Assuming you have no location constraints set up for your buckets, flattening would simply be:
aws s3 cp --recursive s3://source_bucket/foo/ s3://target_bucket/
assumes you have the CLI installed and required credentials setup correctly. Or you can pass them on command line:
aws --profile profile_A2B --region XXX s3 cp --recursive s3://source_bucket/foo/ s3://target_bucket/ --acl yyy
You don't mention any performance requirements. There are many ways of making transfer faster, depends on many factors. Few blind hints I can give are:
See if transfer acceleration can help you.
In general S3 to S3 transfer is faster than S3 to/from non-S3 location.
See if you can create parallel batches by prefix like:
.
for prefix in {a..z}
do
aws s3 cp --recursive s3://source_bucket/foo/${prefix}* s3://target_bucket/ &
done
If this is not a one time transfer and the transfer acceleration isn't cutting it for you, consider:
download from S3 (in region A) to a local HDD residing in region A.
transfer from local HDD in region A to a local HDD in region B using other methods like Aspera or FileCatalyst or whatever else you can find.
upload from local HDD in region B to S3 (in region B).
I have no practical data to share except that Aspera blows things like FTP out of water, it's not even a competition. YMMV.
John already covered the pseudo code. I'll just make one change to it. Write two separate programs, one to fetch the list of filenames and second to copy. It takes a lot of time to list files if you have millions of them.
Once you've listed the file names in a file, say one per line, it would be pretty easy to parallelize given you can split the file (say split -l 1000 file_list splits).
Use xargs -P or gun parallel to run multiple aws s3 cp commands at once. If you're using shell instead of .NET.
Finally don't forget to set the ACL (and other attributes like TTL etc) on target files during the copy. Doing that after the copy will take a long time.