CreateFlowLogs - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Request ParametersResponse ElementsErrorsExamplesSee Also
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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

DeliverCrossAccountRole

The ARN of the IAM role that allows Amazon EC2 to publish flow logs across accounts.

Type: String

Required: No

DeliverLogsPermissionArn

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

This parameter is required if the destination type is cloud-watch-logs and unsupported otherwise.

Type: String

Required: No

DestinationOptions

The destination options.

Type: DestinationOptionsRequest object

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

The destination for the flow log data. The meaning of this parameter depends on the destination type.

  • If the destination type is cloud-watch-logs, specify the ARN of a CloudWatch Logs log group. For example:

    arn:aws:logs:region:account_id:log-group:my_group

    Alternatively, use the LogGroupName parameter.

  • If the destination type is s3, specify the ARN of an S3 bucket. For example:

    arn:aws:s3:::my_bucket/my_subfolder/

    The subfolder is optional. Note that you can't use AWSLogs as a subfolder name.

  • If the destination type is kinesis-data-firehose, specify the ARN of a Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream. For example:

    arn:aws:firehose:region:account_id:deliverystream:my_stream

Type: String

Required: No

LogDestinationType

The type of destination for the flow log data.

Default: cloud-watch-logs

Type: String

Valid Values: cloud-watch-logs | s3 | kinesis-data-firehose

Required: No

LogFormat

The fields to include in the flow log record. List the fields in the order in which they should appear. For more information about the 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 include at least one field.

Specify the fields using the ${field-id} format, separated by spaces. For the Amazon CLI, surround this parameter value with single quotes on Linux or double quotes on Windows.

Type: String

Required: No

LogGroupName

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

This parameter is valid only if the destination type is cloud-watch-logs.

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 IDs of the resources to monitor. For example, if the resource type is VPC, specify the IDs of the VPCs.

Constraints: Maximum of 1000 resources

Type: Array of strings

Required: Yes

ResourceType

The type of resource to monitor.

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 monitor (accepted traffic, rejected traffic, 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

See Also

For more information about using this API in one of the language-specific Amazon SDKs, see the following: