Configure crawl settings for an Amazon S3 external content connector

Define inclusion and exclusion filters to specify the buckets and file types you want your Amazon S3 external content connector to retrieve when running content crawls.

Before you begin

A connector administrator must have already created the Amazon S3 external content connector that you want to configure crawl settings for. To learn about this procedure, see Create an Amazon S3 external content connector.

Role required: sn_ext_conn.xcc_admin

About this task

This task is optional. By default, the Amazon S3 external content connector crawls all buckets and file types from its specified source system and sends files with all supported extensions to AI Search for indexing. Only perform this task if you want the connector to use any of the following non-default settings:

• Inclusion or exclusion filters for the buckets to crawl when running content crawls
• Inclusion or exclusion filters for the file extensions to retrieve when running content crawls

Content is only retrieved from the source system if it passes all of your configured crawl setting filters. If any crawl setting filter excludes a content item, the external content connector doesn't retrieve it.

Important:

By default, an external content connector can index up to one million (1,000,000) documents from its source system. When a connector exceeds this limit, it continues to crawl the source system, but only sends document deletions and updates to AI Search for indexing, ignoring new documents. The connector logs an error message for every 10,000 documents it crawls beyond the indexing limit.

When a connector's indexed document count exceeds 800,000, a warning message appears in the connector's UI to indicate that it's approaching the indexing limit. If the connector reaches the indexing limit, an error message appears in its UI.

If one of your connectors reaches the indexing limit, you can update its crawl settings and file inclusion/exclusion filters to reduce the number of documents it retrieves. Alternately, if you need to index more than 1,000,000 documents, you can create a Customer Service and Support case at https://support.servicenow.com/now to request a limit increase for the connector.

Procedure

1. Navigate to All > External Content Connectors > External Content Admin Home.
2. In the Connectors list, select the record for the Amazon S3 external content connector whose settings you want to modify.
3. In the connector editor's Settings tab, select Crawl settings.
4. Select one of the following Content filtering options:
   • To crawl all buckets from the source system, select Crawl all content.

   • To crawl only a specified set of buckets from the source system, select Include only these buckets, then use the Add S3 bucket URLs to include field and Add button to enter URLs for buckets you want the connector to include when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter https://s3.amazonaws.com/published to only include searchable content from a bucket with name published.

   • To crawl all but a specified set of buckets from the source system, select Exclude only these user boxes, then use the Add S3 bucket URLs to exclude field and Add button to enter URLs for buckets you want the connector to exclude when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter https://s3.amazonaws.com/legacy_bucket to exclude searchable content from a bucket with name legacy_bucket.

5. Select one of the following Filetype filtering options:
   • To retrieve all attachments with supported file extensions from the source system, select Crawl all attachments.

   • To retrieve only attachments with specified file extensions from the source system, select Include only these file extensions, then use the File extensions to include field to enter attachment file extensions you want the connector to include when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter .docx to retrieve only attachments with the Microsoft Word file format.

   • To retrieve all attachments except those with specified file extensions from the source system, select Exclude only these file extensions, then use the File extensions to exclude field to enter attachment file extensions you want the connector to exclude when crawling.

     As an example, you might enter .csv to exclude attachments with the Comma-Separated Values (CSV) file format.

   For details on the supported attachment file extensions, see Binary file extensions supported in External Content Connectors.
6. Select Save and validate.

Result

The Amazon S3 external content connector is updated with your modified crawl settings.

Important:

All content the connector retrieves from your Amazon S3 buckets is treated as public content, searchable by everyone who has access to your configured AI Search experience.

What to do next

To retrieve content from your Amazon S3 source system using your modified crawl settings, create and run a one-time content crawl for your Amazon S3 external content connector. To learn about creating and running one-time content crawls, see Create a content crawl for an external content connector.