Log Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling API calls with Amazon CloudTrail - Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
Auto Scaling management events in CloudTrailAuto Scaling event examples
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Log Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling API calls with Amazon CloudTrail

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is integrated with Amazon CloudTrail, a service that provides a record of actions taken by a user, role, or an Amazon Web Services service. CloudTrail captures API calls for Auto Scaling as events. The calls captured include calls from the Amazon Web Services Management Console and code calls to the Auto Scaling API operations. Using the information collected by CloudTrail, you can determine the request that was made to Auto Scaling, the IP address from which the request was made, when it was made, and additional details.

Every event or log entry contains information about who generated the request. The identity information helps you determine the following:

  • Whether the request was made with root user or user credentials.

  • Whether the request was made on behalf of an IAM Identity Center user.

  • Whether the request was made with temporary security credentials for a role or federated user.

  • Whether the request was made by another Amazon Web Services service.

CloudTrail is active in your Amazon Web Services account when you create the account and you automatically have access to the CloudTrail Event history. The CloudTrail Event history provides a viewable, searchable, downloadable, and immutable record of the past 90 days of recorded management events in an Amazon Web Services Region. For more information, see Working with CloudTrail Event history in the Amazon CloudTrail User Guide. There are no CloudTrail charges for viewing the Event history.

For an ongoing record of events in your Amazon Web Services account past 90 days, create a trail.

CloudTrail trails

A trail enables CloudTrail to deliver log files to an Amazon S3 bucket. All trails created using the Amazon Web Services Management Console are multi-Region. You can create a single-Region or a multi-Region trail by using the Amazon CLI. Creating a multi-Region trail is recommended because you capture activity in all Amazon Web Services Regions in your account. If you create a single-Region trail, you can view only the events logged in the trail's Amazon Web Services Region. For more information about trails, see Creating a trail for your Amazon Web Services account and Creating a trail for an organization in the Amazon CloudTrail User Guide.

You can deliver one copy of your ongoing management events to your Amazon S3 bucket at no charge from CloudTrail by creating a trail, however, there are Amazon S3 storage charges. For more information about CloudTrail pricing, see Amazon CloudTrail Pricing. For information about Amazon S3 pricing, see Amazon S3 Pricing.

Auto Scaling management events in CloudTrail

Management events provide information about management operations that are performed on resources in your Amazon Web Services account. These are also known as control plane operations. By default, CloudTrail logs management events.

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling logs all Auto Scaling control plane operations as management events. For a list of the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling control plane operations that Auto Scaling logs to CloudTrail, see the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling API Reference.

Auto Scaling event examples

An event represents a single request from any source and includes information about the requested API operation, the date and time of the operation, request parameters, and so on. CloudTrail log files aren't an ordered stack trace of the public API calls, so events don't appear in any specific order.

The following example shows a CloudTrail event that demonstrates the CreateLaunchConfiguration operation.

{
    "eventVersion": "1.05",
    "userIdentity": {
        "type": "Root",
        "principalId": "123456789012",
        "arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root",
        "accountId": "123456789012",
        "accessKeyId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
        "sessionContext": {
            "attributes": {
                "mfaAuthenticated": "false",
                "creationDate": "2018-08-21T17:05:42Z"
            }
        }
    },
    "eventTime": "2018-08-21T17:07:49Z",
    "eventSource": "autoscaling.amazonaws.com",
    "eventName": "CreateLaunchConfiguration",
    "awsRegion": "us-west-2",
    "sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.0",
    "userAgent": "Coral/Jakarta",
    "requestParameters": {
        "ebsOptimized": false,
        "instanceMonitoring": {
            "enabled": false
        },
        "instanceType": "t2.micro",
        "keyName": "EC2-key-pair-oregon",
        "blockDeviceMappings": [
            {
                "deviceName": "/dev/xvda",
                "ebs": {
                    "deleteOnTermination": true,
                    "volumeSize": 8,
                    "snapshotId": "snap-01676e0a2c3c7de9e",
                    "volumeType": "gp2"
                }
            }
        ],
        "launchConfigurationName": "launch_configuration_1",
        "imageId": "ami-6cd6f714d79675a5",
        "securityGroups": [
            "sg-00c429965fd921483"
        ]
    },
    "responseElements": null,
    "requestID": "0737e2ea-fb2d-11e3-bfd8-99133058e7bb",
    "eventID": "3fcfb182-98f8-4744-bd45-b38835ab61cb",
    "eventType": "AwsApiCall",
    "recipientAccountId": "123456789012"
}

For information about CloudTrail record contents, see CloudTrail record contents in the Amazon CloudTrail User Guide.