Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Prerequisites

To use Amazon CloudWatch Logs you need an Amazon account. Your Amazon account allows you to use services (for example, Amazon EC2) to generate logs that you can view in the CloudWatch console, a web-based interface. In addition, you can install and configure the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI).

Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account

If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.

Amazon sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choosing My Account.

Secure IAM users

After you sign up for an Amazon Web Services account, safeguard your administrative user by turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA). For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for an IAM user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

To give other users access to your Amazon Web Services account resources, create IAM users. To secure your IAM users, turn on MFA and only give the IAM users the permissions needed to perform their tasks.

For more information about creating and securing IAM users, see the following topics in the IAM User Guide:

Set up the Command Line Interface

You can use the Amazon CLI to perform CloudWatch Logs operations.

For information about how to install and configure the Amazon CLI, see Getting Set Up with the Amazon Command Line Interface in the Amazon Command Line Interface User Guide.