How to Use S3 Storage for Session Recording

  Version 6.0

Applies to Platform: Switchboard 6.9.x 
Last update: 27 Oct 2026
 

A new major feature for the Endian Switchboard in 6.9.x is a session management and recording feature was S3-compatible object storage for session recordings. Recordings can be locked against changes and deletion, so customers have trustworthy evidence for audits and regulatory reviews. Storage grows with the business and cleans itself up automatically under the customer’s retention policy, so costs stay predictable and nobody has to manage it by hand.

Requirements

Before you begin you will need the following in order to complete this process:

1. An Endian Switchboard instance (on-premises or cloud) with administrator/superadmin access
    
2. At least one Endian gateway registered on the Switchboard
    
3. An S3 or S3-compatible storage bucket already created, with a valid Access Key ID and Secret Access Key
    
4. Access to the organization's GUI settings page (via Manage Organization or Superuser permissions)

Setup the Session Recording

Before you setup the S3 storage, you must have a session policy created with recording enabled which is mapped using ACAP (Advanced Action Policies) to the appropriate users, gateways, and applications.

Setup the S3 Provider

Login to your S3 or S3-compatible provider console and follow the relevant instructions to setup a new bucket. Some examples are listed below but you can easily find a guide by searching your provider documentation.

Amazon AWS S3 - Create your first S3 bucket

Hetzner Object Storage - Creating a bucket

Setup the Organization and Settings

Login to your Switchboard web portal (HTTPS) using it's fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address as provided to you by your organization.

Once logged in, click the Organizations menu and select an existing organization (or optionally create a new one). In the Organization detail page, select the Cloud Storage tab to configure the S3-compatible settings.

1. Use global settings:  Uncheck this box to set the organization specific settings.
2. Bucket Name *:  Enter the S3 storage bucket name setup on your S3 object storage provider.
3. Access Key ID *:  Enter the S3 access key ID for this bucket on your S3 object storage provider.
4. Secret Access Key *:  Enter the S3 secret access key for this bucket on your S3 object storage provider.
5. Endpoint URL:  Enter the base endpoint of the S3 storage provider. This must include the https:// scheme when entering the URL. 
6. Region:  Enter the logical region used for the S3 storage provider.
7. Signature version:  Enter the signature algorithm used by the S3 storage provider (typically s3v4). 
8. Addressing mode:  Enter the S3 bucket addressing style (path or virtual)

* Fields are required for any S3 provider and are the only fields needed for AWS S3 while the other fields are only required for non-AWS S3 storage providers.

Verify the Configuration

Once you have the session recording policies in place with the proper ACAP policies you can test the storage by initiating a session that will trigger a recording. Once the session is completely closed, you should be able to view the recording files uploaded by the Switchboard. The time this takes would depend on the type and length of the recording and the Internet upload speeds.

General steps to view the recordings:

1. Open the S3 storage provider web interface and access the bucket used by the Switchboard configuration.
2. After a recording is uploaded, a new folder will be created with a session UUID
3. Inside the folder, there should be three files which confirm a successful sync
   • recording - the proprietary binary recording
   • typescript - text transcript of the session (SSH sessions)
   • typescript.timing - timing data for transcript playback