Viewing SSM Agent logs - AWS Systems Manager
Allowing SSM Agent debug logging

Viewing SSM Agent logs

AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) writes information about executions, commands, scheduled actions, errors, and health statuses to log files on each managed node. You can view log files by manually connecting to a managed node, or you can automatically send logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs. For more information about sending logs to CloudWatch Logs, see Monitoring AWS Systems Manager.

You can view SSM Agent logs on managed nodes in the following locations.

Linux and macOS

/var/log/amazon/ssm/

Windows

%PROGRAMDATA%\Amazon\SSM\Logs\

For Linux managed nodes, the SSM Agent stderr and stdout files are written to the following directory: /var/lib/amazon/ssm/.

For Windows managed nodes, the SSM Agent stderr and stdout files are written to the following directory: %PROGRAMDATA%\Amazon\SSM\InstanceData\.

For information about allowing SSM Agent debug logging, see Allowing SSM Agent debug logging.

For more information about cihub/seelog configuration, see the Seelog Wiki on GitHub. For examples of cihub/seelog configurations, see the cihub/seelog examples repository on GitHub.

Allowing SSM Agent debug logging

Use the following procedure to allow SSM Agent debug logging on your managed nodes.

Linux and macOS
To allow SSM Agent debug logging on Linux and macOS managed nodes

  1. Either use Session Manager, a capability of AWS Systems Manager, to connect to the managed node where you want to allow debug logging, or log on to the managed node. For more information, see Working with Session Manager.

  2. Locate the seelog.xml.template file.

    Linux:

    On most Linux managed node types, the file is located in the directory /etc/amazon/ssm/seelog.xml.template.

    On Ubuntu Server 20.10 STR & 20.04, 18.04, and 16.04 LTS, the file is located in the directory /snap/amazon-ssm-agent/current/seelog.xml.template. Copy this file from the /snap/amazon-ssm-agent/current/ directory to the /etc/amazon/ssm/ directory before making any changes.

    macOS:

    On macOS instance types, the file is located in the directory /opt/aws/ssm/seelog.xml.template.

  3. Change the file name from seelog.xml.template to seelog.xml.

    Note

    On Ubuntu Server 20.10 STR & 20.04, 18.04, and 16.04 LTS, the file seelog.xml must be created in the directory /etc/amazon/ssm/. You can create this directory and file by running the following commands. 

    sudo mkdir -p /etc/amazon/ssm
    sudo cp -p /snap/amazon-ssm-agent/current/seelog.xml.template /etc/amazon/ssm/seelog.xml

  4. Edit the seelog.xml file to change the default logging behavior. Change the value of minlevel from info to debug, as shown in the following example.

    <seelog type="adaptive" mininterval="2000000" maxinterval="100000000" critmsgcount="500" minlevel="debug">

  5. (Optional) Restart SSM Agent using the following command.

    Linux:

    sudo service amazon-ssm-agent restart

    macOS:

    sudo /opt/aws/ssm/bin/amazon-ssm-agent restart
Windows
To allow SSM Agent debug logging on Windows Server managed nodes

  1. Either use Session Manager to connect to the managed node where you want to allow debug logging, or log on to the managed nodes. For more information, see Working with Session Manager.

  2. Make a copy of the seelog.xml.template file. Change the name of the copy to seelog.xml. The file is located in the following directory.

    %PROGRAMFILES%\Amazon\SSM\seelog.xml.template

  3. Edit the seelog.xml file to change the default logging behavior. Change the value of minlevel from info to debug, as shown in the following example.

    <seelog type="adaptive" mininterval="2000000" maxinterval="100000000" critmsgcount="500" minlevel="debug">

  4. Locate the following entry.

    filename="{{LOCALAPPDATA}}\Amazon\SSM\Logs\{{EXECUTABLENAME}}.log"

    Change this entry to use the following path.

    filename="C:\ProgramData\Amazon\SSM\Logs\{{EXECUTABLENAME}}.log"

  5. Locate the following entry.

    filename="{{LOCALAPPDATA}}\Amazon\SSM\Logs\errors.log"

    Change this entry to use the following path.

    filename="C:\ProgramData\Amazon\SSM\Logs\errors.log"

  6. Restart SSM Agent using the following PowerShell command in Administrator mode.

    Restart-Service AmazonSSMAgent