Manage crawlers

A crawler is an automated script that ingests data from Amazon S3 to Data Catalog.

You can create, edit, and delete crawlers in Collibra Platform. When you synchronize Amazon S3, the crawlers are created in AWS Glue and executed. Each crawler crawls a location in Amazon S3 based on its include path. The results are stored in one AWS Glue database per domain assigned to one or more crawlers. Those databases are ingested in Data Catalog in the form of assets, attributes, and relations. The databases are stored in AWS Glue until the next synchronization. At that moment, they are deleted and recreated. The crawlers in AWS Glue are deleted immediately after the synchronization is finished.

Common prerequisites

• You have registered an Amazon S3 file system.
• You have connected an S3 File System asset to Amazon S3.
• You have a resource role with the Configure external system resource permission, for example, Owner.
• You have a global role with the Catalog global permission, for example, Catalog Author.
• You have a global role with the View Edge connections and capabilities global permission, for example, Edge integration engineer.

Create a crawler

You can create a crawler for an S3 File System asset in Data Catalog.

Steps

1. Open an S3 File System asset page.
2. In the tab panebar, click Configuration. In the tab panebar, click Configuration.
3. In the Crawlers section, click Edit Configuration.
4. Click Add Crawler.
5. In the Crawlers section, click Create crawler.
   The Create crawler dialog box appears.
6. Enter the required information.
   

   Field	Description
   Domain	The domain in which the assets of the S3 file system are created. Read more about linking domains to crawlers. A specific Storage Catalog domain is created automatically when the S3 File System asset is created. That domain is selected by default. However, you can manually create a new Storage Catalog domain and select it. If multiple crawlers point to the same domain, then all assets are created in the same domain. If multiple crawlers point to different domains, then all assets are created in their respective domains. If multiple crawlers from the same S3 File System asset overlap and point to different domains, then overlapping assets are created in each domain. If multiple crawlers from the same S3 File System asset overlap and point to the same domain, then overlapping assets are created once in that domain. If crawlers from multiple S3 File System assets overlap and point to different domains, then overlapping assets are created in each domain. If crawlers from multiple S3 File System assets overlap and point to the same domain, then overlapping assets are created once in the domain and the S3 Bucket asset has a relation to both S3 File System assets.
   Name	The name of the crawler in Collibra. Read more about crawler names. You cannot use the same name for two crawlers in the same S3 File System asset. The name of the corresponding crawler in AWS Glue will contain this name. Its name will follow the following convention: collibra_catalog_<s3fs asset id>_<name_of_the_crawler_in_Collibra>. The crawler name must be compliant with the AWS Glue limitations: It has to match the single-line string pattern: [\u0020-\uD7FF\uE000-\uFFFD\uD800\uDC00-\uDBFF\uDFFF\t]*. The length should be between 1 and 255 bytes long, including the fixed prefix that Collibra adds. That means that you can use roughly 65 characters, depending on the characters that were used. Warning This restriction is imposed by Amazon S3, which allows up to 255 bytes, including the prefix added by Collibra. If you enter too many characters and exceed the byte limit, synchronization fails.
   Table Level	Specify the level from which tables have to be created during the integration. By default, tables are created from the top level, level 1. Only specify a number if you want to create tables starting from another level, such as 2 or 3. For more information, go to the AWS documentation.
   File Group Pattern	Add a regular expression to group files with similar file names into a File Group asset during the S3 synchronization. Multiple regular expression grammar variants exist. We use the Java variant. A regular expression, also referred to as regex or regexp, is a sequence of characters that specifies a match pattern in text. Example If you add the (\w*)_\d\d\d\d\.csv regex, the integration automatically detects files matching this pattern and groups them into a File Group asset. You can define one regex per crawler. Tip  Multiple websites provide guidelines and examples of regular expressions, for example, Regexlib and RegexBuddy, or even ChatGPT. You can also test your regular expression on various websites, for example, Regex101 (Select the Java 8 option in the Flavor panel). The referenced websites serve only as examples. The use of ChatGPT or other generative AI products and services is at your own risk. Collibra is not responsible for the privacy, confidentiality, or protection of the data you submit to such products or services, and has no liability for such use.
   Include path	The case-sensitive path to a directory of a bucket in Amazon S3. All objects and subdirectories of this path are crawled. For more information and examples, go to the AWS Glue documentation.
   Exclude patterns	Glob pattern that represents the objects that are in the include path, but that you want to exclude. For more information and examples, go to the AWS Glue documentation.
   Add pattern	Button to add additional exclude patterns.
   Custom Classifier	If you want the AWS crawler created by the S3 integration to use a specified custom classifier, add the name of the classifier in this field. The custom classifier should be created in the AWS Glue console. For more information, go to the AWS Glue documentation. You can add multiple classifiers by clicking Add Custom Classifier.

7. Click Create.

What's next

You can now synchronize Amazon S3 manually or define a synchronization schedule.

Edit a crawler

You can edit a crawler of an S3 File System asset in Data Catalog. For example, you can do this if you want to edit the exclude pattern.

Steps

1. Open an S3 File System asset page.
2. In the tab panebar, click Configuration. In the tab panebar, click Configuration.
3. In the Crawlers section, click Edit Configuration.
4. In the Crawlers section, in the row of the crawler that you want to edit, click .
   The Edit crawler dialog box appears.
5. Enter the required information.
   

   Field	Description
   Domain	The domain in which the assets of the S3 file system are created. Read more about linking domains to crawlers. A specific Storage Catalog domain is created automatically when the S3 File System asset is created. That domain is selected by default. However, you can manually create a new Storage Catalog domain and select it. If multiple crawlers point to the same domain, then all assets are created in the same domain. If multiple crawlers point to different domains, then all assets are created in their respective domains. If multiple crawlers from the same S3 File System asset overlap and point to different domains, then overlapping assets are created in each domain. If multiple crawlers from the same S3 File System asset overlap and point to the same domain, then overlapping assets are created once in that domain. If crawlers from multiple S3 File System assets overlap and point to different domains, then overlapping assets are created in each domain. If crawlers from multiple S3 File System assets overlap and point to the same domain, then overlapping assets are created once in the domain and the S3 Bucket asset has a relation to both S3 File System assets.
   Name	The name of the crawler in Collibra. Read more about crawler names. You cannot use the same name for two crawlers in the same S3 File System asset. The name of the corresponding crawler in AWS Glue will contain this name. Its name will follow the following convention: collibra_catalog_<s3fs asset id>_<name_of_the_crawler_in_Collibra>. The crawler name must be compliant with the AWS Glue limitations: It has to match the single-line string pattern: [\u0020-\uD7FF\uE000-\uFFFD\uD800\uDC00-\uDBFF\uDFFF\t]*. The length should be between 1 and 255 bytes long, including the fixed prefix that Collibra adds. That means that you can use roughly 65 characters, depending on the characters that were used. Warning This restriction is imposed by Amazon S3, which allows up to 255 bytes, including the prefix added by Collibra. If you enter too many characters and exceed the byte limit, synchronization fails.
   Table Level	Specify the level from which tables have to be created during the integration. By default, tables are created from the top level, level 1. Only specify a number if you want to create tables starting from another level, such as 2 or 3. For more information, go to the AWS documentation.
   File Group Pattern	Add a regular expression to group files with similar file names into a File Group asset during the S3 synchronization. Multiple regular expression grammar variants exist. We use the Java variant. A regular expression, also referred to as regex or regexp, is a sequence of characters that specifies a match pattern in text. Example If you add the (\w*)_\d\d\d\d\.csv regex, the integration automatically detects files matching this pattern and groups them into a File Group asset. You can define one regex per crawler. Tip  Multiple websites provide guidelines and examples of regular expressions, for example, Regexlib and RegexBuddy, or even ChatGPT. You can also test your regular expression on various websites, for example, Regex101 (Select the Java 8 option in the Flavor panel). The referenced websites serve only as examples. The use of ChatGPT or other generative AI products and services is at your own risk. Collibra is not responsible for the privacy, confidentiality, or protection of the data you submit to such products or services, and has no liability for such use.
   Include path	The case-sensitive path to a directory of a bucket in Amazon S3. All objects and subdirectories of this path are crawled. For more information and examples, go to the AWS Glue documentation.
   Exclude patterns	Glob pattern that represents the objects that are in the include path, but that you want to exclude. For more information and examples, go to the AWS Glue documentation.
   Add pattern	Button to add additional exclude patterns.
   Custom Classifier	If you want the AWS crawler created by the S3 integration to use a specified custom classifier, add the name of the classifier in this field. The custom classifier should be created in the AWS Glue console. For more information, go to the AWS Glue documentation. You can add multiple classifiers by clicking Add Custom Classifier.

6. Click Save.

Delete a crawler

You can delete a crawler from an S3 File System asset.

Note If you delete an S3 File System asset that contains one or more crawlers, the crawlers are also deleted.

Steps

1. Open an S3 File System asset page.
2. In the tab panebar, click Configuration. In the tab panebar, click Configuration.
3. In the Crawlers section, in the row of the crawler that you want to delete, click .
   The Delete Crawler confirmation message appears.
4. Click Delete crawler.