Viewing CloudTrail Insights events for trails with the AWS CLI - AWS CloudTrail
PrerequisitesGetting command line helpLooking up Insights eventsSpecifying the number of Insights events to returnLooking up Insights events by time rangeLooking up Insights events by attributeSpecifying the next page of resultsGetting JSON input from a fileLookup output fields

Viewing CloudTrail Insights events for trails with the AWS CLI

You can look up CloudTrail Insights events for the last 90 days by running the aws cloudtrail lookup-events command. The lookup-events command has the following options:

  • --end-time

  • --event-category

  • --max-results

  • --start-time

  • --lookup-attributes

  • --next-token

  • --generate-cli-skeleton

  • --cli-input-json

For general information about using the AWS Command Line Interface, see the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

Prerequisites

  • To run AWS CLI commands, you must install the AWS CLI. For more information, see Get started with the AWS CLI.

  • Make sure your AWS CLI version is greater than 1.6.6. To verify the CLI version, run aws --version on the command line.

  • To set the account, Region, and default output format for an AWS CLI session, use the aws configure command. For more information, see Configuring the AWS Command Line Interface.

  • To log Insights events on API call volume, the trail must log write management events. To log Insights events on API error rate, the trail must log read or write management events.

Note

The CloudTrail AWS CLI commands are case-sensitive.

Getting command line help

To see the command line help for lookup-events, type the following command.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events help

Looking up Insights events

To see the ten latest Insights events, type the following command.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight

A returned event looks similar to the following example,

{
    "NextToken": "kbOt5LlZe++mErCebpy2TgaMgmDvF1kYGFcH64JSjIbZFjsuvrSqg66b5YGssKutDYIyII4lrP4IDbeQdiObkp9YAlju3oXd12juEXAMPLE=", 
    "Events": [
        {
            "eventVersion": "1.07",
            "eventTime": "2019-10-15T21:13:00Z",
            "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
            "eventID": "EXAMPLE-9b6f-45f8-bc6b-9b41c052ebc7",
            "eventType": "AwsCloudTrailInsight",
            "recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
            "sharedEventID": "EXAMPLE8-02b2-4e93-9aab-08ed47ea5fd3",
            "insightDetails": {
            "state": "Start",
            "eventSource": "autoscaling.amazonaws.com",
            "eventName": "CompleteLifecycleAction",
            "insightType": "ApiCallRateInsight",
            "insightContext": {
              "statistics": {
                "baseline": {
                  "average": 0.0000882145
                },
                "insight": {
                  "average": 0.6
                },
                "insightDuration": 5,
                "baselineDuration": 11336
              },
              "attributions": [
                {
                  "attribute": "userIdentityArn",
                  "insight": [
                    {
                      "value": "arn:aws:sts::012345678901:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole1",
                      "average": 0.2
                    },
                    {
                      "value": "arn:aws:sts::012345678901:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole2",
                      "average": 0.2
                    },
                    {
                      "value": "arn:aws:sts::012345678901:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole3",
                      "average": 0.2
                    }
                  ],
                  "baseline": [
                    {
                      "value": "arn:aws:sts::012345678901:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole1",
                      "average": 0.0000882145
                    }
                  ]
                },
                {
                  "attribute": "userAgent",
                  "insight": [
                    {
                      "value": "codedeploy.amazonaws.com",
                      "average": 0.6
                    }
                  ],
                  "baseline": [
                    {
                      "value": "codedeploy.amazonaws.com",
                      "average": 0.0000882145
                    }
                  ]
                },
                {
                  "attribute": "errorCode",
                  "insight": [
                    {
                      "value": "null",
                      "average": 0.6
                    }
                  ],
                  "baseline": [
                    {
                      "value": "null",
                      "average": 0.0000882145
                    }
                  ]
                }
              ]
            }
          },
            "eventCategory": "Insight"
        },
        {
            "eventVersion": "1.07",
            "eventTime": "2019-10-15T21:14:00Z",
            "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
            "eventID": "EXAMPLEc-9eac-4af6-8e07-26a5ae8786a5",
            "eventType": "AwsCloudTrailInsight",
            "recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
            "sharedEventID": "EXAMPLE8-02b2-4e93-9aab-08ed47ea5fd3",
            "insightDetails": {
            "state": "End",
            "eventSource": "autoscaling.amazonaws.com",
            "eventName": "CompleteLifecycleAction",
            "insightType": "ApiCallRateInsight",
            "insightContext": {
              "statistics": {
                "baseline": {
                  "average": 0.0000882145
                },
                "insight": {
                  "average": 0.6
                },
                "insightDuration": 5,
                "baselineDuration": 11336
              },
              "attributions": [
                {
                  "attribute": "userIdentityArn",
                  "insight": [
                    {
                      "value": "arn:aws:sts::012345678901:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole1",
                      "average": 0.2
                    },
                    {
                      "value": "arn:aws:sts::012345678901:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole2",
                      "average": 0.2
                    },
                    {
                      "value": "arn:aws:sts::012345678901:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole3",
                      "average": 0.2
                    }
                  ],
                  "baseline": [
                    {
                      "value": "arn:aws:sts::012345678901:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole1",
                      "average": 0.0000882145
                    }
                  ]
                },
                {
                  "attribute": "userAgent",
                  "insight": [
                    {
                      "value": "codedeploy.amazonaws.com",
                      "average": 0.6
                    }
                  ],
                  "baseline": [
                    {
                      "value": "codedeploy.amazonaws.com",
                      "average": 0.0000882145
                    }
                  ]
                },
                {
                  "attribute": "errorCode",
                  "insight": [
                    {
                      "value": "null",
                      "average": 0.6
                    }
                  ],
                  "baseline": [
                    {
                      "value": "null",
                      "average": 0.0000882145
                    }
                  ]
                }
              ]
            }
          },
            "eventCategory": "Insight"
        }
    ]
}

For an explanation of the lookup-related fields in the output, see Lookup output fields in this topic. For an explanation of fields in the Insights event, see CloudTrail record contents.

Specifying the number of Insights events to return

To specify the number of events to return, type the following command.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --max-results <integer>

The default value for <integer>, if it is not specified, is 10. Possible values are 1 through 50. The following example returns one result.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --max-results 1

Looking up Insights events by time range

Insights events from the past 90 days are available for lookup. To specify a time range, type the following command.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --start-time <timestamp> --end-time <timestamp>

--start-time <timestamp> specifies, in UTC, that only Insights events that occur after or at the specified time are returned. If the specified start time is after the specified end time, an error is returned.

--end-time <timestamp> specifies, in UTC, that only Insights events that occur before or at the specified time are returned. If the specified end time is before the specified start time, an error is returned.

The default start time is the earliest date that data is available within the last 90 days. The default end time is the time of the event that occurred closest to the current time.

All timestamps are shown in UTC.

Looking up Insights events by attribute

To filter by an attribute, type the following command.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=<attribute>,AttributeValue=<string>

You can specify only one attribute key-value pair for each lookup-events command. The following are valid Insights event values for AttributeKey. Value names are case sensitive.

  • EventId

  • EventName

  • EventSource

The maximum length for the AttributeValue is 2000 characters. The following characters ('_', ' ', ',', '\\n') count as two characters towards the 2000 character limit.

Attribute lookup examples

The following example command returns Insights events in which the value of EventName is PutRule.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventName, AttributeValue=PutRule

The following example command returns Insights events in which the value of EventId is b5cc8c40-12ba-4d08-a8d9-2bceb9a3e002.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventId, AttributeValue=b5cc8c40-12ba-4d08-a8d9-2bceb9a3e002

The following example command returns Insights events in which the value of EventSource is iam.amazonaws.com.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventSource, AttributeValue=iam.amazonaws.com

Specifying the next page of results

To get the next page of results from a lookup-events command, type the following command.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight <same parameters as previous command> --next-token=<token>

In this command, the value for <token> is taken from the first field of the output of the previous command.

When you use --next-token in a command, you must use the same parameters as in the previous command. For example, suppose you run the following command.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventName, AttributeValue=PutRule

To get the next page of results, your next command would look like the following.

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventName,AttributeValue=PutRule --next-token=EXAMPLEZe++mErCebpy2TgaMgmDvF1kYGFcH64JSjIbZFjsuvrSqg66b5YGssKutDYIyII4lrP4IDbeQdiObkp9YAlju3oXd12juEXAMPLE=

Getting JSON input from a file

The AWS CLI for some AWS services has two parameters, --generate-cli-skeleton and --cli-input-json, that you can use to generate a JSON template, which you can modify and use as input to the --cli-input-json parameter. This section describes how to use these parameters with aws cloudtrail lookup-events. For more information, see AWS CLI skeletons and input files.

To look up Insights events by getting JSON input from a file

  1. Create an input template for use with lookup-events by redirecting the --generate-cli-skeleton output to a file, as in the following example.

    aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --generate-cli-skeleton > LookupEvents.txt

    The template file generated (in this case, LookupEvents.txt) looks like the following.

    
{
    "LookupAttributes": [
        {
            "AttributeKey": "",
            "AttributeValue": ""
        }
    ],
    "StartTime": null,
    "EndTime": null,
    "MaxResults": 0,
    "NextToken": ""
}

  2. Use a text editor to modify the JSON as needed. The JSON input must contain only values that are specified.

    Important

    All empty or null values must be removed from the template before you can use it.

    The following example specifies a time range and maximum number of results to return.

    {
    "StartTime": "2023-11-01",
    "EndTime": "2023-12-12",
    "MaxResults": 10
}

  3. To use the edited file as input, use the syntax --cli-input-json file://<filename>, as in the following example.

    aws cloudtrail lookup-events --event-category insight --cli-input-json file://LookupEvents.txt
Note

You can use other arguments on the same command line as --cli-input-json.

Lookup output fields

Events

A list of lookup events based on the lookup attribute and time range that were specified. The events list is sorted by time, with the latest event listed first. Each entry contains information about the lookup request and includes a string representation of the CloudTrail event that was retrieved.

The following entries describe the fields in each lookup event.

CloudTrailEvent

A JSON string that contains an object representation of the event returned. For information about each of the elements returned, see Record Body Contents.

EventId

A string that contains the GUID of the event returned.

EventName

A string that contains the name of the event returned.

EventSource

The AWS service that the request was made to.

EventTime

The date and time, in UNIX time format, of the event.

Resources

A list of resources referenced by the event that was returned. Each resource entry specifies a resource type and a resource name.

ResourceName

A string that contains the name of the resource referenced by the event.

ResourceType

A string that contains the type of a resource referenced by the event. When the resource type cannot be determined, null is returned.

Username

A string that contains the user name of the account for the event returned.

NextToken

A string to get the next page of results from a previous lookup-events command. To use the token, the parameters must be the same as those in the original command. If no NextToken entry appears in the output, there are no more results to return.

For more information about CloudTrail Insights events, see Logging Insights events in this guide.