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 Gmail connector reference

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Elastic Gmail connector reference

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The Elastic GMail connector is a connector for GMail.

Availability and prerequisites

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

This connector client is compatible with Elastic versions 8.10.0+.

To use this connector, satisfy all connector client requirements.

This connector is in technical preview 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. Technical preview 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 Connector workflow in the Kibana UI.

For additional operations, see Using connectors.

Connector authentication prerequisites

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Before syncing any data from GMail, you need to create a service account with appropriate access to the GMail and the Google Directory API, which is part of the Google Admin SDK API. You also need to enable domain-wide delegation to impersonate the users you’re fetching messages from.

To get started, log into Google Cloud Platform and go to the Console.

  1. Create a Google Cloud Project. Give your project a name, change the project ID and click the Create button.
  2. Enable Google APIs. Choose APIs & Services from the left menu and click on Enable APIs and Services. You need to enable GMail API and the Google Admin SDK API.

  3. Create a Service Account. In the APIs & Services section, click on Credentials and click on Create credentials to create a service account. Give your service account a name and a service account ID. This is like an email address and will be used to identify your service account in the future. Click Done to finish creating the service account.

    Your service account needs to have access to at least the following scope:

    • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly

  4. Create a Key File.

    • In the Cloud Console, go to IAM and Admin > Service accounts page.
    • Click the email address of the service account that you want to create a key for.
    • Click the Keys tab. Click the Add key drop-down menu, then select Create new key.
    • Select JSON as the Key type and then click Create. This will download a JSON file that will contain the service account credentials.

  5. Google Workspace domain-wide delegation of authority.

    To access user data like messages on a Google Workspace domain, the service account that you created needs to be granted access by a super administrator for the domain. You can follow the official documentation to perform Google Workspace domain-wide delegation of authority.

    You need to grant the following OAuth Scopes to your service account:

    • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user.readonly

    This step allows the connector to access user data and their group memberships in your Google Workspace organization.

Configuration

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When using the connector client workflow, initially these fields will use the default configuration set in the connector source code. These are set in the get_default_configuration function definition.

These configurable fields will be rendered with their respective labels in the Kibana UI. Once connected, you’ll be able to update these values in Kibana.

The following configuration fields are required:

GMail service account JSON
The service account credentials generated from Google Cloud Platform (JSON string). Refer to the Google Cloud documentation for more information.
Google Workspace admin email
Google Workspace admin email. Required to enable document level security (DLS). A service account with delegated authority can impersonate an admin user with permissions to access Google Workspace user data and their group memberships. Refer to the Google Cloud documentation for more information.
Google customer id
Google customer id. Required to fetch messages and to enable document level security (DLS). Go to Google Workspace Admin Console → Account and copy the value under Customer Id.
Include spam and trash emails
Toggle to fetch spam and trash emails. Also works with DLS.
Enable document level security

Toggle to enable document level security (DLS). DLS is supported for the GMail connector. When enabled:

  • Full syncs will fetch access control lists for each document and store them in the _allow_access_control field.
  • Access control syncs will fetch users' access control lists and store them in a separate index.

Deployment using Docker

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You can deploy the Gmail 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: gmail
    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:8.11.4.0 \
/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 will fetch all messages of all users the service account has access to.

Sync rules

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

Advanced sync rules are available for this connector. The connector supports the GMail advanced search syntax under the messages field.

For example:

{
  "messages": [
    "before:2021/10/10",
    "from:amy"
  ]
}

Document level security

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Document level security (DLS) enables you to restrict access to documents based on a user’s permissions. Refer to configuration on this page for how to enable DLS for this connector.

Refer to DLS in Search Applications to learn how to ingest data from a connector with DLS enabled, when building a search application. The example uses SharePoint Online as the data source, but the same steps apply to every connector.

Known issues

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There are currently no known issues for this connector.

Troubleshooting

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See Troubleshooting.

Security

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See Security.

Framework and source

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This connector is included in the Elastic connector framework.

View the source code for this connector (branch 8.11, compatible with Elastic 8.11).

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