FAQ

How do I use BucketBridge?

BucketBridge is available as an AMI (Amazon Machine Image) from the AWS Marketplace. A CloudFormation template is provided which will configure an EC2 instance to run from the AMI, and an S3 Bucket for it to use.

How much does BucketBridge cost?

An hourly fee is charged whenever a BucketBridge instance is running in your AWS account. This fee is made up of both AWS charges for the instance and associated resources, and a fee for the BucketBridge software itself.

If you only need FTP to S3 connectivity for a portion of the day, you can save significant cost by running the instance only when required.

Pricing varies by AWS region and instance type, and can be viewed on the AWS Marketplace page.

How do I cancel?

BucketBridge is charged by the hour. You can cancel at any time simply by terminating the BucketBridge instance.

Can I use BucketBridge to access multiple S3 buckets?

Yes, each user account can have an S3 bucket to use specified. For more details, see Using BucketBridge with multiple S3 buckets

Can I run multiple BucketBridge instances?

Yes, you can run multiple BucketBridge instances, both for high availability, and to provide access for multiple VPCs that are not interconnected. Each running BucketBridge instance is charged at the normal rate.

Is it safe to interact with the S3 bucket being used by the BucketBridge instance directly?

Absolutely - you can use the BucketBridge S3 bucket just like any other, including triggering Lambda functions on upload, archiving old files to Glacier, using cross-region replication and bucket versioning.

How reliable is BucketBridge? Is there any risk of data loss?

Unlike some alternative solutions, BucketBridge connects to S3 in real-time, translating FTP commands to S3. This means that an FTP transfer is only closed with a success response when S3 has confirmed the file has been received.

Alternative solutions copy to S3 after the transfer has finished. This means data may be lost without any mechanism for letting the user know that their transfer failed - because the FTP portion succeeded. BucketBridge is the best solution for ensuring data integrity.

What consistency guarantees does BucketBridge provide?

Because BucketBridge is translating FTP commands to S3 in realtime, it provides exactly the same guarantees as AWS S3. For more details, see Amazon S3 Data Consistency Model in the AWS S3 documentation.

Can I delete files from the bucket via FTP?

Yes, absolutely - all FTP commands are proxied to S3 equivalents in real time.

Is there a delay in seeing bucket updates?

All updates are seen as soon as they would be if you were using S3 directly, in line with the Amazon S3 Data Consistency Model.

Are there any limitations on file or directory names?

All filenames and directory names are standard UTF8. The root of the FTP server presented is the root of the S3 bucket, so you can make the path structure fit whatever your application expects.

What is the largest file size BucketBridge supports?

Transfers via BucketBridge are partially buffered in RAM; this means that in order to transfer very large files you must use a larger instance size.

Largest file size by instance type:

• t2.micro, t3.micro: 50GB
• t3.medium, c4.large, c5.large: 100GB
• t3.large: 1TB
• c4.2xlarge, c5.2xlarge: 2TB
• c5.9xlarge: 5TB

How many concurrent users does BucketBridge support?

The number of concurrent users varies by instance type as follows:

• t2.micro, t3.micro: 10
• t3.medium: 25
• t3.large: 50
• c4.large, c5.large: 50
• c4.2xlarge, c5.2xlarge: 200
• c5.9xlarge: 10000

Is any data stored on the EC2 instance?

No data is written to the disk of the EC2 instance BucketBridge runs on. BucketBridge buffers transfers in RAM on the instance only.

No state is stored on the instance; everything is stored in AWS Systems Manager Parameter store.

Is FTP secure?

As a protocol from the 1970s, FTP does not provide many of the protections provided by newer protocols. As such, it is strongly recommended to use BucketBridge only within your VPC, over a VPN, or Amazon Direct Connect when using unencrypted FTP. For more details please see our security guide. Wherever possible, you should utilise FTPS (FTP+TLS), which is fully supported by BucketBridge vesion 20181114 and greater.

Does BucketBridge support passive and active mode transfers?

Yes, BucketBridge supports both passive and active mode transfers.

Does BucketBridge support appending uploads?

Yes. Appended uploads are presented as a new version of the existing file.