nrp-s3

name	nrp-s3
description	Manage S3 object storage on the NRP (National Research Platform) Nautilus cluster, which uses Ceph S3 (not AWS). Covers public vs internal endpoints, rclone usage, bucket creation, public-read policies, CORS configuration, DuckDB S3 access, credential handling, and syncing to external S3 providers like source.coop. Use when working with S3 buckets on NRP Nautilus, uploading or downloading data, configuring bucket access, reading data from Ceph S3 storage, or syncing datasets to source.coop or other AWS S3 destinations.
license	Apache-2.0
compatibility	Requires kubectl configured for the NRP Nautilus cluster, rclone with an "nrp" remote, and optionally the AWS CLI. Works with any agent that can run shell commands.
metadata	{"author":"boettiger-lab","version":"1.0"}

NRP S3 Storage

The NRP Nautilus cluster provides S3-compatible object storage powered by Ceph (Rook). This is not AWS S3 — it has its own endpoints, credential system, and quirks.

Two Endpoints

There are two S3 endpoints. Getting these right is critical.

Endpoint	URL	Use
Public	s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io	External access (browsers, local machines, HTTPS)
Internal	rook-ceph-rgw-nautiluss3.rook	Inside k8s pods (faster, high-concurrency, no TLS overhead)

When to use which

• Local machine / CI / external tools: Always use the public endpoint
• Inside k8s pods: Use the internal endpoint for S3 read/write operations
• Public data URLs for end users: Always use the public endpoint

Concurrency

The internal endpoint handles high-concurrency workloads well — many parallel threads reading S3 simultaneously (e.g., DuckDB with high thread counts, parallel pod reads). The public endpoint does not handle high concurrency gracefully and will throttle with 503 SlowDown errors under load. Always use the internal endpoint for heavy parallel reads inside the cluster.

Public URL format

Public data is accessible via HTTPS using path-style URLs (not virtual-hosted):

https://s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io/<bucket>/<path>

Example:

https://s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io/public-padus/padus-4-1/fee.parquet

Never use virtual-hosted-style URLs like <bucket>.s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io — they won't work.

Credentials

Kubernetes secrets

Two secrets are pre-configured in the biodiversity namespace:

1. aws — Contains AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
2. rclone-config — Contains a complete rclone configuration file (includes remotes for both nrp and source for source.coop)

In k8s job YAML, reference them like this:

env:
  - name: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
    valueFrom:
      secretKeyRef:
        name: aws
        key: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
  - name: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
    valueFrom:
      secretKeyRef:
        name: aws
        key: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
volumes:
  - name: rclone-config
    secret:
      secretName: rclone-config
volumeMounts:
  - name: rclone-config
    mountPath: /root/.config/rclone
    readOnly: true

Local credentials

Locally, rclone is already configured with a remote named nrp. AWS credentials should be set as environment variables (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY) when using the AWS CLI directly.

Environment Variables for K8s Pods

When running inside the cluster, pods need these environment variables:

env:
  - name: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
    valueFrom:
      secretKeyRef: { name: aws, key: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }
  - name: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
    valueFrom:
      secretKeyRef: { name: aws, key: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }
  - name: AWS_S3_ENDPOINT
    value: "rook-ceph-rgw-nautiluss3.rook"      # Internal endpoint
  - name: AWS_PUBLIC_ENDPOINT
    value: "s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io"             # For public URL generation
  - name: AWS_HTTPS
    value: "false"                                # Internal endpoint is HTTP
  - name: AWS_VIRTUAL_HOSTING
    value: "FALSE"                                # Path-style URLs required

Note: AWS_HTTPS is "false" for the internal endpoint (plain HTTP inside the cluster). The public endpoint always uses HTTPS.

Rclone

Rclone is the primary tool for file transfers. The remote is named nrp.

Common operations

# List bucket contents
rclone ls nrp:<bucket>/

# Upload a file
rclone copy local-file.parquet nrp:<bucket>/path/ -P

# Upload a directory
rclone copy ./local-dir/ nrp:<bucket>/remote-dir/ -P

# Download a file
rclone copy nrp:<bucket>/path/file.parquet ./local/ -P

# Sync (mirror source to destination, deletes extras)
rclone sync nrp:<bucket>/source/ nrp:<bucket>/dest/ -P

Inside k8s pods

The rclone config is mounted from the rclone-config secret. No additional configuration is needed — just use rclone copy ... nrp:<bucket>/....

Bucket Management

Creating a bucket

rclone mkdir nrp:<bucket-name>

Setting public read access

Use the AWS CLI with the public endpoint:

aws s3api put-bucket-policy \
  --bucket <bucket-name> \
  --endpoint-url https://s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io \
  --policy '{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
      {
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Principal": {"AWS": ["*"]},
        "Action": ["s3:GetBucketLocation", "s3:ListBucket"],
        "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::<bucket-name>"]
      },
      {
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Principal": {"AWS": ["*"]},
        "Action": ["s3:GetObject"],
        "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::<bucket-name>/*"]
      }
    ]
  }'

Setting CORS (required for browser access to PMTiles, etc.)

aws s3api put-bucket-cors \
  --bucket <bucket-name> \
  --endpoint-url https://s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io \
  --cors-configuration '{
    "CORSRules": [{
      "AllowedOrigins": ["*"],
      "AllowedMethods": ["GET", "HEAD"],
      "AllowedHeaders": ["*"],
      "ExposeHeaders": ["ETag", "Content-Length", "Content-Type", "Accept-Ranges", "Content-Range"],
      "MaxAgeSeconds": 3600
    }]
  }'

Verifying configuration

# Check bucket policy
aws s3api get-bucket-policy \
  --bucket <bucket-name> \
  --endpoint-url https://s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io

# Check CORS
aws s3api get-bucket-cors \
  --bucket <bucket-name> \
  --endpoint-url https://s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io

DuckDB S3 Access

To read from NRP S3 in DuckDB (locally or in pods):

INSTALL httpfs;
LOAD httpfs;

CREATE OR REPLACE SECRET s3_secret (
    TYPE S3,
    KEY_ID '',
    SECRET '',
    USE_SSL 'TRUE',
    ENDPOINT 's3-west.nrp-nautilus.io',
    URL_STYLE 'path',
    REGION 'us-east-1'
);

-- Now you can query directly
SELECT * FROM 's3://public-padus/padus-4-1/fee.parquet' LIMIT 10;

For public (anonymous) access, empty KEY_ID and SECRET work. For write access, provide real credentials.

Inside k8s pods, use the internal endpoint and set USE_SSL to 'FALSE'. The internal endpoint handles high thread counts well, so DuckDB can use its full parallelism:

CREATE OR REPLACE SECRET s3_secret (
    TYPE S3,
    KEY_ID '${AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID}',
    SECRET '${AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY}',
    USE_SSL 'FALSE',
    ENDPOINT 'rook-ceph-rgw-nautiluss3.rook',
    URL_STYLE 'path',
    REGION 'us-east-1'
);

GDAL / OGR with Remote Files

Use /vsicurl/ prefix to read remote files without downloading:

# Inspect a remote geodatabase
ogrinfo /vsicurl/https://s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io/<bucket>/raw/data.gdb

# Convert a remote file to local parquet
ogr2ogr -f Parquet output.parquet /vsicurl/https://s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io/<bucket>/raw/data.gdb "LayerName"

Standard Bucket Layout

<bucket>/
├── raw/                              # Source/original data (uploaded once)
├── <dataset>.parquet                 # Cloud-optimized GeoParquet
├── <dataset>.pmtiles                 # Vector tiles for web maps
├── <dataset>/
│   └── hex/
│       └── h0={cell}/data_0.parquet  # H3 hex-indexed, hive-partitioned
├── README.md                         # Data dictionary and usage docs
└── stac-collection.json              # STAC metadata

Syncing to Source.coop

Source.coop is a public geospatial data hosting service backed by real AWS S3. It was created by the former lead of AWS's Open Data program. We mirror our processed datasets to source.coop for broader public access.

Why run as a k8s job

Large dataset syncs must be run as a Kubernetes job on the cluster, not from your local machine. Syncing locally means the data egresses from NRP to your machine, then re-uploads to AWS — this is slow, unreliable for large datasets, and prone to network timeouts. Running the sync as a pod means the data flows directly from NRP's internal network to AWS.

Generate a sync job

cng-datasets sync-job \
  --job-name sync-to-source-coop \
  --source nrp:public-mappinginequality \
  --destination source:us-west-2.opendata.source.coop/cboettig/mappinginequality \
  --output sync-job.yaml

Then apply:

kubectl apply -f sync-job.yaml
kubectl logs -f job/sync-to-source-coop

How it works

• The rclone-config secret mounted in the pod contains a [source] remote configured with AWS credentials that have write access to the source.coop bucket.
• The destination format is source:<region>.opendata.source.coop/<org>/<repo> — you must first create the repository via the source.coop web interface.
• The job runs rclone sync inside the pod, transferring data directly from NRP Ceph to AWS S3.

Reading from source.coop in DuckDB

Source.coop data is public on standard AWS S3:

CREATE OR REPLACE SECRET source_secret (
    TYPE S3,
    KEY_ID '',
    SECRET '',
    ENDPOINT 's3.amazonaws.com',
    REGION 'us-west-2',
    URL_STYLE 'path'
);

SELECT * FROM 's3://us-west-2.opendata.source.coop/cboettig/social-vulnerability/2022/SVI2022_US_tract.parquet' LIMIT 10;

Or via HTTPS: https://data.source.coop/cboettig/<repo>/<file>

Common Pitfalls

1. Using virtual-hosted URLs — Always use path-style: https://s3-west.nrp-nautilus.io/<bucket>/...
2. Using the public endpoint inside pods — Use the internal endpoint rook-ceph-rgw-nautiluss3.rook for all S3 operations inside the cluster
3. High-concurrency reads on the public endpoint — The public endpoint throttles under concurrent load. Use the internal endpoint for parallel reads (DuckDB, many pods, etc.)
4. Forgetting CORS — PMTiles and other browser-based tools require CORS to be set on the bucket
5. HTTPS inside pods — The internal endpoint is HTTP, not HTTPS. Set AWS_HTTPS=false
6. Hardcoding credentials — Always use k8s secrets, never hardcode in YAML files
7. Forgetting to set public policy — New buckets are private by default; you must explicitly set the public read policy
8. Syncing large data locally — Always sync large datasets to external S3 (e.g., source.coop) via a k8s job, not from your local machine