IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

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Elastic Dropbox connector reference

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Elastic Dropbox connector reference

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The Elastic Dropbox connector is a connector for Dropbox.

Availability and prerequisites

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This connector is available as a native connector in Elastic versions 8.10.0 and later. To use this connector natively in Elastic Cloud, satisfy all native connector requirements.

This connector is available as a connector client from the Elastic connector framework.

This connector client is compatible with Elastic versions 8.9.0+.

To use this connector, satisfy all connector client requirements.

This connector is in beta and is subject to change. The design and code is less mature than official GA features and is being provided as-is with no warranties. Beta features are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.

Usage

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To use this connector as a connector client, use the Dropbox tile from the connectors list or Customized connector workflow.

For additional operations, see Using connectors.

Before you can configure your connector, you’ll need to:

Dropbox API Authorization

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Create Dropbox OAuth App

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You’ll need to create an OAuth app in the Dropbox platform by following these steps:

Register a new app in the Dropbox App Console. Select Full Dropbox API app and choose the following required permissions:
- files.content.read
- sharing.read
Once the app is created, make note of the app key and app secret values which you’ll need to configure the Dropbox connector on your Elastic deployment.

Generate a refresh Token

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To generate a refresh token, follow these steps:

Go to the following URL, replacing <APP_KEY> with the app key value saved earlier: https://www.dropbox.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=<APP_KEY>&response_type=code&token_access_type=offline

The HTTP response should contain an authorization code that you’ll use to generate a refresh token. An authorization code can only be used once to create a refresh token.
In your terminal, run the following cURL command, replacing <AUTHORIZATION_CODE>, <APP_KEY>:<APP_SECRET> with the values you saved earlier:
```
curl -X POST "https://api.dropboxapi.com/oauth2/token?code=<AUTHORIZATION_CODE>&grant_type=authorization_code" -u "<APP_KEY>:<APP_SECRET>"
```
Store the refresh token from the response to be used in the connector configuration.

Make sure the response has a list of the following scopes:
- account_info.read
- files.content.read
- files.metadata.read
- sharing.read

Configuration

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The following configuration fields are required to set up the connector:

path: The folder path to fetch files/folders from Dropbox. Default value is /.
app_key (required): The App Key to authenticate your Dropbox application.
app_secret (required): The App Secret to authenticate your Dropbox application.
refresh_token (required): The refresh token to authenticate your Dropbox application.
retry_count: The number of retry attempts after a failed request to Dropbox. Default value is 3.
concurrent_downloads: The number of concurrent downloads for fetching attachment content. This can help speed up content extraction of attachments. Defaults to 100.

Deployment using Docker

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You can deploy the Dropbox connector as a self-managed connector client using Docker. Follow these instructions.

Step 1: Download sample configuration file

Download the sample configuration file. You can either download it manually or run the following command:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elastic/connectors/main/config.yml.example --output ~/connectors-config/config.yml

Remember to update the --output argument value if your directory name is different, or you want to use a different config file name.

Step 2: Update the configuration file for your self-managed connector

Update the configuration file with the following settings to match your environment:

elasticsearch.host
elasticsearch.api_key
connectors

If you’re running the connector service against a Dockerized version of Elasticsearch and Kibana, your config file will look like this:

# When connecting to your cloud deployment you should edit the host value
elasticsearch.host: http://host.docker.internal:9200
elasticsearch.api_key: <ELASTICSEARCH_API_KEY>

connectors:
  -
    connector_id: <CONNECTOR_ID_FROM_KIBANA>
    service_type: dropbox
    api_key: <CONNECTOR_API_KEY_FROM_KIBANA>

Using the elasticsearch.api_key is the recommended authentication method. However, you can also use elasticsearch.username and elasticsearch.password to authenticate with your Elasticsearch instance.

Note: You can change other default configurations by simply uncommenting specific settings in the configuration file and modifying their values.

Step 3: Run the Docker image

Run the Docker image with the Connector Service using the following command:

docker run \
-v ~/connectors-config:/config \
--network "elastic" \
--tty \
--rm \
docker.elastic.co/enterprise-search/elastic-connectors:8.10.4.0 \
/app/bin/elastic-ingest \
-c /config/config.yml

Refer to DOCKER.md in the elastic/connectors repo for more details.

Find all available Docker images in the official registry.

Documents and syncs

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The connector syncs the following objects and entities:

Files
- Includes metadata such as file name, path, size, content, etc.
Folders

Due to a Dropbox issue, metadata updates to Paper files from Dropbox Paper are not immediately reflected in the Dropbox UI. This delays the availability of updated results for the connector. Once the metadata changes are visible in the Dropbox UI, the updates are available.

Files bigger than 10 MB won’t be extracted.
Currently, the connector doesn’t retrieve files from shared Team folders.
Permissions are not synced. All documents indexed to an Elastic deployment will be visible to all users with access to that Elastic Deployment.

Sync rules

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Basic sync rules are identical for all connectors and are available by default.

Advanced sync rules

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A full sync is required for advanced sync rules to take effect.

The following section describes advanced sync rules for this connector.

Advanced sync rules for Dropbox allow you to sync Dropbox files based on a query that matches strings in the filename. You can optionally filter the results of the query by file_extensions or file_categories. When both are provided, priority is given to file_categories. We have some examples below for illustration.

Example: Query only

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[
  {
    "query": "confidential"
  },
  {
    "query": "dropbox"
  }
]

Example: Query with file extension filter

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[
  {
    "query": "dropbox",
    "options": {
      "file_extensions": [
        "txt",
        "pdf"
      ]
    }
  }
]

Example: Query with file category filter

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[
  {
    "query": "test",
    "options": {
      "file_categories": [
        {
          ".tag": "paper"
        },
        {
          ".tag": "png"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
]