Overview

When connecting your DigitalOcean Spaces to Cloney for data migration, it's essential to follow the principle of least privilege. This guide will walk you through creating Spaces access keys with only the permissions necessary for Cloney to read from or write to your Spaces, minimizing security risks.

Security Best Practice

DigitalOcean Spaces uses S3-compatible access keys. Create dedicated keys for Cloney rather than using your account-level API tokens.

Prerequisites

  • A DigitalOcean account with Spaces enabled
  • The name of the Space(s) you want to connect
  • Knowledge of whether you need read-only (source) or write (destination) access

Step 1: Access the API Settings

  1. Sign in to your DigitalOcean Control Panel
  2. Click on API in the left sidebar
  3. Navigate to the Spaces Keys tab
  4. Click Generate New Key
Note on Permissions

Unlike AWS IAM, DigitalOcean Spaces keys have full access to all Spaces in your account. Consider using a dedicated DigitalOcean project for migration purposes.

Step 2: Generate Spaces Access Keys

  1. Enter a descriptive name (e.g., cloney-migration-key)
  2. Click Generate Key
  3. Important: Copy both the Access Key and Secret Key immediately. The secret key will only be shown once and cannot be retrieved later.
Store Securely

Save your secret key in a secure password manager. If you lose it, you'll need to generate new keys.

Step 3: Note Your Space Details

You'll need these details to connect your Space to Cloney:

  • Space Name: The name of your Space (visible in the Spaces tab)
  • Region: The datacenter region (e.g., nyc3, sfo3, ams3, sgp1, fra1)
  • Endpoint: {region}.digitaloceanspaces.com (e.g., nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com)
Ready to Connect

You can now use these credentials in Cloney to connect your DigitalOcean Space securely.

DigitalOcean Spaces Regions

Available DigitalOcean Spaces regions:

Region CodeLocationEndpoint
nyc3New York City, USAnyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com
sfo3San Francisco, USAsfo3.digitaloceanspaces.com
ams3Amsterdam, Netherlandsams3.digitaloceanspaces.com
sgp1Singaporesgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com
fra1Frankfurt, Germanyfra1.digitaloceanspaces.com
syd1Sydney, Australiasyd1.digitaloceanspaces.com

Best Practices

  • Use Dedicated Keys: Create separate Spaces keys for each application or service to limit impact if a key is compromised.
  • Rotate Keys Regularly: Periodically generate new keys and update your applications to maintain security.
  • Use Projects: Organize Spaces into DigitalOcean Projects for better access control and team management.
  • Enable CDN: DigitalOcean Spaces includes a free CDN - enable it for public content to improve performance.