Viewing CloudWatch logs for Lambda functions

You can view Amazon CloudWatch logs for your Lambda function using the Lambda console, the CloudWatch console, or the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI). Follow the instructions in the following sections to access your function's logs.

Stream function logs with CloudWatch Logs Live Tail

Amazon CloudWatch Logs Live Tail helps you quickly troubleshoot your functions by displaying a streaming list of new log events directly in the Lambda console. You can view and filter ingested logs from your Lambda functions in real time, helping you to detect and resolve issues quickly.

Note

Live Tail sessions incur costs by session usage time, per minute. For more information about pricing, see Amazon CloudWatch Pricing.

Comparing Live Tail and --log-type Tail

There are several differences between CloudWatch Logs Live Tail and the LogType: Tail option in the Lambda API (--log-type Tail in the Amazon CLI):

--log-type Tail returns only the first 4 KB of the invocation logs. Live Tail does not share this limit, and can receive up to 500 log events per second.
--log-type Tail captures and sends the logs with the response, which can impact the function's response latency. Live Tail does not affect function response latency.
--log-type Tail supports synchronous invocations only. Live Tail works for both synchronous and asynchronous invocations.

Permissions

The following permissions are required to start and stop CloudWatch Logs Live Tail sessions:

logs:DescribeLogGroups
logs:StartLiveTail
logs:StopLiveTail

Start a Live Tail session in the Lambda console

Open the Functions page of the Lambda console.
Choose the name of the function.
Choose the Test tab.
In the Test event pane, choose CloudWatch Logs Live Tail.
For Select log groups, the function's log group is selected by default. You can select up to five log groups at a time.
(Optional) To display only log events that contain certain words or other strings, enter the word or string in the Add filter pattern box. The filters field is case-sensitive. You can include multiple terms and pattern operators in this field, including regular expressions (regex). For more information about pattern syntax, see Filter pattern syntax. in the Amazon CloudWatch Logs User Guide.
Choose Start. Matching log events begin appearing in the window.
To stop the Live Tail session, choose Stop.

Note
The Live Tail session automatically stops after 15 minutes of inactivity or when the Lambda console session times out.

Access function logs using the console

Open the Functions page of the Lambda console.
Select a function.
Choose the Monitor tab.
Choose View CloudWatch logs to open the CloudWatch console.
Scroll down and choose the Log stream for the function invocations you want to look at.

Access logs with the Amazon CLI

The Amazon CLI is an open-source tool that enables you to interact with Amazon services using commands in your command line shell. To complete the steps in this section, you must have the Amazon CLI version 2.

You can use the Amazon CLI to retrieve logs for an invocation using the --log-type command option. The response contains a LogResult field that contains up to 4 KB of base64-encoded logs from the invocation.

Example retrieve a log ID

The following example shows how to retrieve a log ID from the LogResult field for a function named my-function.


aws lambda invoke --function-name my-function out --log-type Tail

You should see the following output:


{
    "StatusCode": 200,
    "LogResult": "U1RBUlQgUmVxdWVzdElkOiA4N2QwNDRiOC1mMTU0LTExZTgtOGNkYS0yOTc0YzVlNGZiMjEgVmVyc2lvb...",
    "ExecutedVersion": "$LATEST"
}

Example decode the logs

In the same command prompt, use the base64 utility to decode the logs. The following example shows how to retrieve base64-encoded logs for my-function.


aws lambda invoke --function-name my-function out --log-type Tail \
--query 'LogResult' --output text --cli-binary-format raw-in-base64-out | base64 --decode

The cli-binary-format option is required if you're using Amazon CLI version 2. To make this the default setting, run aws configure set cli-binary-format raw-in-base64-out. For more information, see Amazon CLI supported global command line options in the Amazon Command Line Interface User Guide for Version 2.

You should see the following output:


START RequestId: 57f231fb-1730-4395-85cb-4f71bd2b87b8 Version: $LATEST
"AWS_SESSION_TOKEN": "AgoJb3JpZ2luX2VjELj...", "_X_AMZN_TRACE_ID": "Root=1-5d02e5ca-f5792818b6fe8368e5b51d50;Parent=191db58857df8395;Sampled=0"",ask/lib:/opt/lib",
END RequestId: 57f231fb-1730-4395-85cb-4f71bd2b87b8
REPORT RequestId: 57f231fb-1730-4395-85cb-4f71bd2b87b8  Duration: 79.67 ms      Billed Duration: 80 ms         Memory Size: 128 MB     Max Memory Used: 73 MB

The base64 utility is available on Linux, macOS, and Ubuntu on Windows. macOS users may need to use base64 -D.

Example get-logs.sh script

In the same command prompt, use the following script to download the last five log events. The script uses sed to remove quotes from the output file, and sleeps for 15 seconds to allow time for the logs to become available. The output includes the response from Lambda and the output from the get-log-events command.

Copy the contents of the following code sample and save in your Lambda project directory as get-logs.sh.


#!/bin/bash
aws lambda invoke --function-name my-function --cli-binary-format raw-in-base64-out --payload '{"key": "value"}' out
sed -i'' -e 's/"//g' out
sleep 15
aws logs get-log-events --log-group-name /aws/lambda/my-function --log-stream-name stream1 --limit 5

Example macOS and Linux (only)

In the same command prompt, macOS and Linux users may need to run the following command to ensure the script is executable.


chmod -R 755 get-logs.sh

Example retrieve the last five log events

In the same command prompt, run the following script to get the last five log events.


./get-logs.sh

You should see the following output:


{
    "StatusCode": 200,
    "ExecutedVersion": "$LATEST"
}
{
    "events": [
        {
            "timestamp": 1559763003171,
            "message": "START RequestId: 4ce9340a-b765-490f-ad8a-02ab3415e2bf Version: $LATEST\n",
            "ingestionTime": 1559763003309
        },
        {
            "timestamp": 1559763003173,
            "message": "2019-06-05T19:30:03.173Z\t4ce9340a-b765-490f-ad8a-02ab3415e2bf\tINFO\tENVIRONMENT VARIABLES\r{\r  \"AWS_LAMBDA_FUNCTION_VERSION\": \"$LATEST\",\r ...",
            "ingestionTime": 1559763018353
        },
        {
            "timestamp": 1559763003173,
            "message": "2019-06-05T19:30:03.173Z\t4ce9340a-b765-490f-ad8a-02ab3415e2bf\tINFO\tEVENT\r{\r  \"key\": \"value\"\r}\n",
            "ingestionTime": 1559763018353
        },
        {
            "timestamp": 1559763003218,
            "message": "END RequestId: 4ce9340a-b765-490f-ad8a-02ab3415e2bf\n",
            "ingestionTime": 1559763018353
        },
        {
            "timestamp": 1559763003218,
            "message": "REPORT RequestId: 4ce9340a-b765-490f-ad8a-02ab3415e2bf\tDuration: 26.73 ms\tBilled Duration: 27 ms \tMemory Size: 128 MB\tMax Memory Used: 75 MB\t\n",
            "ingestionTime": 1559763018353
        }
    ],
    "nextForwardToken": "f/34783877304859518393868359594929986069206639495374241795",
    "nextBackwardToken": "b/34783877303811383369537420289090800615709599058929582080"
}

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Configure function logs

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