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Logging Amazon Private Certificate Authority API calls using Amazon CloudTrail - Amazon Private Certificate Authority
Amazon Private CA information in CloudTrailAmazon Private CA management eventsIdentifying the original requesterExample Amazon Private CA events
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Logging Amazon Private Certificate Authority API calls using Amazon CloudTrail

Amazon Private Certificate Authority is integrated with Amazon CloudTrail, a service that provides a record of actions taken by a user, role, or an Amazon service in Amazon Private CA. CloudTrail captures API calls and signing operations for Amazon Private CA as events. The calls captured include calls from the Amazon Private CA console and code calls to the Amazon Private CA API operations. If you create a trail, you can enable continuous delivery of CloudTrail events to an Amazon S3 bucket, including events for Amazon Private CA. If you don't configure a trail, you can still view the most recent events in the CloudTrail console in Event history. Using the information collected by CloudTrail, you can determine the request that was made to Amazon Private CA, the IP address from which the request was made, who made the request, when it was made, and additional details.

To learn more about CloudTrail, see the Amazon CloudTrail User Guide.

Amazon Private CA information in CloudTrail

CloudTrail is enabled on your Amazon Web Services account when you create the account. When activity occurs in Amazon Private CA, that activity is recorded in a CloudTrail event along with other Amazon service events in Event history. You can view, search, and download recent events in your Amazon Web Services account. For more information, see Viewing events with CloudTrail Event history.

For an ongoing record of events in your Amazon Web Services account, including events for Amazon Private CA, create a trail. A trail enables CloudTrail to deliver log files to an Amazon S3 bucket. By default, when you create a trail in the console, the trail applies to all Amazon Web Services Regions. The trail logs events from all Regions in the Amazon partition and delivers the log files to the Amazon S3 bucket that you specify. Additionally, you can configure other Amazon services to further analyze and act upon the event data collected in CloudTrail logs. For more information, see the following:

All Amazon Private CA actions are logged by CloudTrail and are documented in the Amazon Private CA API reference. For example, calls to the ImportCACertificate, IssueCertificate and CreateAuditReport actions generate entries in the CloudTrail log files.

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 or Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM) user credentials.

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

  • Whether the request was made by another Amazon service.

For more information, see the CloudTrail userIdentity element.

Note

You can configure your CloudTrail trail to deliver events to Amazon CloudWatch Logs in addition to Amazon S3. When configured, CloudWatch Logs receives the same Amazon Private CA events that are delivered to your S3 bucket. Amazon Private CA does not publish events directly to CloudWatch Logs. For more information, see Sending events to CloudWatch Logs in the Amazon CloudTrail User Guide.

For information about how CloudTrail delivers events — including delivery timing, durability, and integration with other Amazon services — see Getting and viewing your CloudTrail log files and the Amazon CloudTrail Service Level Agreement.

Amazon Private CA management events

Amazon Private CA integrates with CloudTrail to record API actions made by a user, a role, or an Amazon service in Amazon Private CA. You can use CloudTrail to monitor Amazon Private CA API requests in real time and store logs in Amazon Simple Storage Service, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, and Amazon CloudWatch Events. Amazon Private CA supports logging the following actions and operations as events in CloudTrail log files:

Note

CloudTrail provides a real-time event stream of API calls and signing operations. For a complete point-in-time inventory of all certificates that your private CA has issued or revoked, including validity dates and revocation status, see Use audit reports with your private CA.

Identifying the original requester

When an intermediate service calls IssueCertificate on behalf of end-users or workloads, the CloudTrail event records the intermediate service's IAM identity in the userIdentity field — not the original requester.

To trace certificate issuance back to the original requester, the intermediate service can propagate identity information using standard IAM mechanisms:

  • Session tags — The intermediate service passes identifying information (such as the original requester's ID) as session tags when assuming its IAM role via Amazon STS. These tags appear in the CloudTrail event's userIdentity block under sessionContext. For more information, see Passing session tags in Amazon STS.

  • Source identity — The intermediate service sets a source identity when assuming its role. Source identity is immutable across role chains and appears in CloudTrail as sourceIdentity. For more information, see Monitoring and controlling actions taken with assumed roles.

  • IAM Roles Anywhere — If the calling workload authenticates with an X.509 certificate via IAM Roles Anywhere, the certificate's Subject, Issuer, and Subject Alternative Name (SAN) fields are automatically mapped to session principal tags. For example, a SPIFFE ID in the SAN appears as aws:PrincipalTag/x509SAN/URI. For more information, see The IAM Roles Anywhere trust model.

These identity attributes are recorded in CloudTrail events for all Amazon service calls, including Amazon Private CA API operations.

Example Amazon Private CA events

A trail is a configuration that enables delivery of events as log files to an Amazon S3 bucket that you specify. CloudTrail log files contain one or more log entries. An event represents a single request from any source and includes information about the requested action, the date and time of the action, request parameters, and so on. CloudTrail log files aren't an ordered stack trace of the public API calls, so they don't appear in any specific order.

The following are examples of Amazon Private CA CloudTrail events.

Example 1: Management event, IssueCertificate

The following example shows a CloudTrail log entry that demonstrates the IssueCertificate action.

{
   "version":"0",
   "id":"event_ID",
   "detail-type":"ACM Private CA Certificate Issuance",
   "source":"aws.acm-pca",
   "account":"account",
   "time":"2019-11-04T19:57:46Z",
   "region":"region",
   "resources":[
      "arn:aws:acm-pca:us-east-1:111122223333:certificate-authority/11223344-1234-1122-2233-112233445566",
      "arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID/certificate/certificate_ID"
   ],
   "detail":{
      "result":"success"
   }
}
Example 2: Management event, ImportCertificateAuthorityCertificate

The following example shows a CloudTrail log entry that demonstrates the ImportCertificateAuthorityCertificate action.

{
   "eventVersion":"1.05",
   "userIdentity":{
      "type":"IAMUser",
      "principalId":"account",
      "arn":"arn:aws:iam::account:user/name",
      "accountId":"account",
      "accessKeyId":"key_ID"
   },
   "eventTime":"2018-01-26T21:53:28Z",
   "eventSource":"acm-pca.amazonaws.com",
   "eventName":"ImportCertificateAuthorityCertificate",
   "awsRegion":"region",
   "sourceIPAddress":"IP_address",
   "userAgent":"agent",
   "requestParameters":{
      "certificateAuthorityArn":"arn:aws:acm-pca:us-east-1:111122223333:certificate-authority/11223344-1234-1122-2233-112233445566",
      "certificate":{
         "hb":[
            45,
            45,
            ...10
         ],
         "offset":0,
         "isReadOnly":false,
         "bigEndian":true,
         "nativeByteOrder":false,
         "mark":-1,
         "position":1257,
         "limit":1257,
         "capacity":1257,
         "address":0
      },
      "certificateChain":{
         "hb":[
            45,
            45,
            ...10
         ],
         "offset":0,
         "isReadOnly":false,
         "bigEndian":true,
         "nativeByteOrder":false,
         "mark":-1,
         "position":1139,
         "limit":1139,
         "capacity":1139,
         "address":0
      }
   },
   "responseElements":null,
   "requestID":"request_ID",
   "eventID":"event_ID",
   "eventType":"AwsApiCall",
   "recipientAccountId":"account"
}