Log Amazon EC2 API calls using AWS CloudTrail

The Amazon EC2 API is integrated with AWS CloudTrail, a service that provides a record of actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service. CloudTrail captures all Amazon EC2 API calls as events. The calls captured include calls made by the console. Using the information collected by CloudTrail, you can determine the request that was made to the Amazon EC2 API, the IP address from which the request was made, and when it was made.

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

CloudTrail is active in your AWS 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 AWS Region. For more information, see Working with CloudTrail Event history in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide. There are no CloudTrail charges for viewing the Event history.

For an ongoing record of events in your AWS account past 90 days, create a trail or a CloudTrail Lake event data store.

Amazon EC2 API management events in CloudTrail

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

All Amazon EC2 API actions are logged as management events. For a list of the API actions that are logged to CloudTrail, see the Amazon EC2 API Reference. For example, calls to the RunInstances, DescribeInstances, and StopInstances actions are logged as management events.

Amazon EC2 API 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 log file record shows that a user terminated an instance.

{
   "Records":[
      {
         "eventVersion":"1.03",
         "userIdentity":{
            "type":"Root",
            "principalId":"123456789012",
            "arn":"arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root",
            "accountId":"123456789012",
            "accessKeyId":"AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
            "userName":"user"
         },
         "eventTime":"2016-05-20T08:27:45Z",
         "eventSource":"ec2.amazonaws.com",
         "eventName":"TerminateInstances",
         "awsRegion":"us-west-2",
         "sourceIPAddress":"198.51.100.1",
         "userAgent":"aws-cli/1.10.10 Python/2.7.9 Windows/7botocore/1.4.1",
         "requestParameters":{
            "instancesSet":{
               "items":[{
                  "instanceId":"i-1a2b3c4d"
               }]
            }
         },
         "responseElements":{
            "instancesSet":{
               "items":[{
                  "instanceId":"i-1a2b3c4d",
                  "currentState":{
                     "code":32,
                     "name":"shutting-down"
                  },
                  "previousState":{
                     "code":16,
                     "name":"running"
                  }
               }]
            }
         },
         "requestID":"be112233-1ba5-4ae0-8e2b-1c302EXAMPLE",
         "eventID":"6e12345-2a4e-417c-aa78-7594fEXAMPLE",
         "eventType":"AwsApiCall",
         "recipientAccountId":"123456789012"
     }
   ]
}

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

Audit connections made using EC2 Instance Connect

You can use AWS CloudTrail to audit the users that connect to your instances using EC2 Instance Connect.