Skip to content
Cloudflare Docs
Docs DirectoryAPIsSDKs

Buckets

Before you can begin a full packet capture, you must configure a cloud storage bucket where Cloudflare can write the captured traffic data. Setting up a bucket is not required for sample packet captures, which complete immediately and can be downloaded directly from the API.

You can configure an Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Platform bucket to use as a target. You can also use R2 as a target using the API.

Set up a bucket

Learn how to set up a bucket for use with full packet captures.

  1. In the Cloudflare One ↗ dashboard, go to Network visibility > Diagnostics.
  2. Select the Buckets tab > Add a bucket.
  3. Select a bucket service and select Next.
  4. Enter the information related to your bucket for your service provider.
  5. When you are done, select Next.

The Prove ownership step of the Bucket configuration displays.

Next, validate the bucket and confirm ownership.

Validate a bucket

After the initial bucket setup, you need to confirm you have access to the bucket via an ownership challenge. This verification prevents Cloudflare from writing capture data to a bucket you do not control. After you validate your bucket, you can begin using it to collect full packet captures.

  1. From the Prove ownership step of the Bucket configuration, locate the Ownership token field.
  2. Find the ownership challenge file that Cloudflare placed in your bucket, copy its contents, and enter them in the Ownership token field.
  3. When you are done, select Create. The Packet captures page displays.

The Buckets tab displays a list of the buckets associated with your account. Refer to the Status column to see the status of your bucket configuration.

The bucket status displays one of the following options:

  • Success: The bucket is fully verified and ready to use.
  • Pending: The challenge response was initiated but is pending verification. Bucket verification can take five to ten minutes to finish processing.
  • Failed: The bucket could not be validated. If this occurs, verify that Cloudflare has write access to your bucket and that you submitted the correct contents of the ownership challenge file.

List configured buckets

View a list of all buckets configured on your account.

  1. In the Cloudflare One ↗ dashboard, go to Insights > Network visibility > Diagnostics.
  2. Select the Buckets tab.

The list of buckets associated with your account displays.

To learn how to collect packet captures, refer to Collect packet captures.

R2

You can also use Cloudflare R2 as a storage destination for packet captures. R2 bucket configuration is available through the API only.

Create bucket and API token

  1. In the Cloudflare dashboard, go to the R2 page.

    Go to Overview

  2. Select Create bucket.

  3. Give your bucket a name > Create bucket.

  4. Go to the R2 Overview page, and select Manage R2 API Tokens.

  5. Select Create API Token.

  6. In Permissions, choose Object Read & Write. Make sure you also select Apply to specific buckets only, and select the bucket you have created for PCAPs from the drop-down menu.

  7. Select Create API Token.

  8. Make sure you copy the Secret Access Key and Access Key ID values, as you will need them for the next step.

Create initial request

Create your initial request to R2:

Terminal window
curl https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/pcaps/ownership \
--header "X-Auth-Email: <EMAIL>" \
--header "X-Auth-Key: <API_KEY>" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
--data '{
  "destination_conf": "r2://<BUCKET_NAME>?account-id=<ACCOUNT_ID>&access-key-id=<R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID>&secret-access-key=<R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY>"
}'

The response has a "filename" parameter with the name of a file that Cloudflare wrote to your R2 bucket. You need to download it for the next step. Example:

{
  "errors": [],
  "messages": [],
  "result": {
    "destination_conf": "<YOUR_R2_BUCKET>",
    "filename": "ownership-challenge-9883874ecac311ec8475433579a6bf5f.txt",
    "id": "9883874ecac311ec8475433579a6bf5f",
    "status": "success",
    "submitted": "2020-01-01T08:00:00Z",
    "validated": "2020-01-01T08:00:00Z"
  },
  "success": true
}

Validate bucket ownership

Refer to the Validate a bucket API instructions for more details on the entire process to validate your R2 bucket. When specifying the R2 destination for this validation, exclude the secret and access keys from the URL.