CreateFlowLogs - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Request ParametersResponse ElementsErrorsExamples
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CreateFlowLogs

Creates one or more flow logs to capture information about IP traffic for a specific network interface, subnet, or VPC.

Flow log data for a monitored network interface is recorded as flow log records, which are log events consisting of fields that describe the traffic flow. For more information, see Flow log records in the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud User Guide.

When publishing to CloudWatch Logs, flow log records are published to a log group, and each network interface has a unique log stream in the log group. When publishing to Amazon S3, flow log records for all of the monitored network interfaces are published to a single log file object that is stored in the specified bucket.

For more information, see VPC Flow Logs in the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud User Guide.

Request Parameters

The following parameters are for this specific action. For more information about required and optional parameters that are common to all actions, see Common Query Parameters.

ClientToken

Unique, case-sensitive identifier that you provide to ensure the idempotency of the request. For more information, see How to ensure idempotency.

Type: String

Required: No

DeliverLogsPermissionArn

The ARN for the IAM role that permits Amazon EC2 to publish flow logs to a CloudWatch Logs log group in your account.

If you specify LogDestinationType as s3, do not specify DeliverLogsPermissionArn or LogGroupName.

Type: String

Required: No

DryRun

Checks whether you have the required permissions for the action, without actually making the request, and provides an error response. If you have the required permissions, the error response is DryRunOperation. Otherwise, it is UnauthorizedOperation.

Type: Boolean

Required: No

LogDestination

Specifies the destination to which the flow log data is to be published. Flow log data can be published to a CloudWatch Logs log group or an Amazon S3 bucket. The value specified for this parameter depends on the value specified for LogDestinationType.

If LogDestinationType is not specified or cloud-watch-logs, specify the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the CloudWatch Logs log group. For example, to publish to a log group called my-logs, specify arn:aws:logs:us-east-1:123456789012:log-group:my-logs. Alternatively, use LogGroupName instead.

If LogDestinationType is s3, specify the ARN of the Amazon S3 bucket. You can also specify a subfolder in the bucket. To specify a subfolder in the bucket, use the following ARN format: bucket_ARN/subfolder_name/. For example, to specify a subfolder named my-logs in a bucket named my-bucket, use the following ARN: arn:aws:s3:::my-bucket/my-logs/. You cannot use AWSLogs as a subfolder name. This is a reserved term.

Type: String

Required: No

LogDestinationType

Specifies the type of destination to which the flow log data is to be published. Flow log data can be published to CloudWatch Logs or Amazon S3. To publish flow log data to CloudWatch Logs, specify cloud-watch-logs. To publish flow log data to Amazon S3, specify s3.

If you specify LogDestinationType as s3, do not specify DeliverLogsPermissionArn or LogGroupName.

Default: cloud-watch-logs

Type: String

Valid Values: cloud-watch-logs | s3

Required: No

LogFormat

The fields to include in the flow log record, in the order in which they should appear. For a list of available fields, see Flow log records. If you omit this parameter, the flow log is created using the default format. If you specify this parameter, you must specify at least one field.

Specify the fields using the ${field-id} format, separated by spaces. For the Amazon CLI, use single quotation marks (' ') to surround the parameter value.

Type: String

Required: No

LogGroupName

The name of a new or existing CloudWatch Logs log group where Amazon EC2 publishes your flow logs.

If you specify LogDestinationType as s3, do not specify DeliverLogsPermissionArn or LogGroupName.

Type: String

Required: No

MaxAggregationInterval

The maximum interval of time during which a flow of packets is captured and aggregated into a flow log record. You can specify 60 seconds (1 minute) or 600 seconds (10 minutes).

When a network interface is attached to a Nitro-based instance, the aggregation interval is always 60 seconds or less, regardless of the value that you specify.

Default: 600

Type: Integer

Required: No

ResourceId.N

The ID of the subnet, network interface, or VPC for which you want to create a flow log.

Constraints: Maximum of 1000 resources

Type: Array of strings

Required: Yes

ResourceType

The type of resource for which to create the flow log. For example, if you specified a VPC ID for the ResourceId property, specify VPC for this property.

Type: String

Valid Values: VPC | Subnet | NetworkInterface

Required: Yes

TagSpecification.N

The tags to apply to the flow logs.

Type: Array of TagSpecification objects

Required: No

TrafficType

The type of traffic to log. You can log traffic that the resource accepts or rejects, or all traffic.

Type: String

Valid Values: ACCEPT | REJECT | ALL

Required: Yes

Response Elements

The following elements are returned by the service.

clientToken

Unique, case-sensitive identifier that you provide to ensure the idempotency of the request.

Type: String

flowLogIdSet

The IDs of the flow logs.

Type: Array of strings

requestId

The ID of the request.

Type: String

unsuccessful

Information about the flow logs that could not be created successfully.

Type: Array of UnsuccessfulItem objects

Errors

For information about the errors that are common to all actions, see Common client error codes.

Examples

Example 1

(CloudWatch Logs) This example creates a flow log that captures all rejected traffic for network interface eni-aa22bb33 and publishes the data to an CloudWatch Logs log group named my-flow-logs in account 123456789101, using the IAM role publishFlowLogs.

Sample Request

https://ec2.amazonaws.com/?Action=CreateFlowLogs
&ResourceType=NetworkInterface
&TrafficType=REJECT
&ResourceId.1=eni-aa22bb33
&DeliverLogsPermissionArn=arn:aws:iam::123456789101:role/publishFlowLogs
&LogDestinationType=cloud-watch-logs
&LogDestination=arn:aws:logs:us-east-1:123456789101:log-group:my-flow-logs
&AUTHPARAMS

Sample Response

<CreateFlowLogsResponse xmlns="http://ec2.amazonaws.com/doc/2016-11-15/">
    <requestId>2d96dae3-504b-4fc4-bf50-266EXAMPLE</requestId>
    <unsuccessful/>
    <flowLogIdSet>
        <item>fl-1a2b3c4d</item>
    </flowLogIdSet>
</CreateFlowLogsResponse>

Example 2

(Amazon S3) This example creates a flow log that captures all traffic for network interface eni-aa22bb33 and publishes the data to an Amazon S3 bucket named my-bucket in account 123456789101.

Sample Request

https://ec2.amazonaws.com/?Action=CreateFlowLogs
&ResourceType=NetworkInterface
&TrafficType=ALL
&ResourceId.1=eni-aa22bb33
&LogDestinationType=s3
&LogDestination=arn:aws:s3:::my-flow-log-bucket
&AUTHPARAMS

Example 3

(Amazon S3) This example creates a flow log with a custom flow log format that captures the version, instance ID, network interface ID, type, packet source address, packet destination address, protocol, bytes, the start time, the end time, and the action of the traffic, in that order. The flow log is published to an Amazon S3 bucket named my-bucket.

Sample Request

https://ec2.amazonaws.com/?Action=CreateFlowLogs
&ResourceType=NetworkInterface
&TrafficType=ALL
&ResourceId.1=eni-1235b8ca123456789
&LogDestinationType=s3
&LogDestination=arn:aws:s3:::my-bucket
&LogFormat='${version} ${instance-id} ${interface-id} ${type} ${pkt-srcaddr} ${pkt-dstaddr} ${protocol} ${bytes} ${start} ${end} ${action}'
&AUTHPARAMS