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Cloudwatch input plugin

For other versions, see the Versioned plugin docs.

Getting help

For questions about the plugin, open a topic in the Discuss forums. For bugs or feature requests, open an issue in Github. For the list of Elastic supported plugins, please consult the Elastic Support Matrix.

Description

Pull events from the Amazon Web Services CloudWatch API.

To use this plugin, you must have an AWS account, and the following policy

Typically, you should setup an IAM policy, create a user and apply the IAM policy to the user. A sample policy for EC2 metrics is as follows:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "Stmt1444715676000",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
                "cloudwatch:ListMetrics"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "Stmt1444716576170",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:DescribeInstances"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

See http://aws.amazon.com/iam/ for more details on setting up AWS identities.

Configuration examples

input {
  cloudwatch {
    namespace => "AWS/EC2"
    metrics => [ "CPUUtilization" ]
    filters => { "tag:Group" => "API-Production" }
    region => "us-east-1"
  }
}

input {
  cloudwatch {
    namespace => "AWS/EBS"
    metrics => ["VolumeQueueLength"]
    filters => { "tag:Monitoring" => "Yes" }
    region => "us-east-1"
  }
}

input {
  cloudwatch {
    namespace => "AWS/RDS"
    metrics => ["CPUUtilization", "CPUCreditUsage"]
    filters => { "EngineName" => "mysql" }1
    region => "us-east-1"
  }
}
  1. Only supports EngineName, DatabaseClass and DBInstanceIdentifier 
input {
  cloudwatch {
    namespace => "sqlserver_test2"
    metrics => [ "Memory Available Bytes"]
    filters =>  {
        InstanceId => "i-xxxxxxxxxxx"
        objectname => "Memory"
    }
    combined => true
    interval => 600
    period => 300
  }
}

This plugin supports the following configuration options plus the Common options described later.

Setting Input type Required
access_key_id string No
aws_credentials_file string No
combined boolean No
endpoint string No
filters array See note
interval number No
metrics array No
namespace string No
period number No
proxy_uri string No
region string No
role_arn string No
role_session_name string No
secret_access_key string No
session_token string No
statistics array No
use_aws_bundled_ca boolean No
use_ssl boolean No

Also see Common options for a list of options supported by all input plugins.

  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

This plugin uses the AWS SDK and supports several ways to get credentials, which will be tried in this order:

  1. Static configuration, using access_key_id and secret_access_key params in logstash plugin config
  2. External credentials file specified by aws_credentials_file
  3. Environment variables AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
  4. Environment variables AMAZON_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AMAZON_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
  5. IAM Instance Profile (available when running inside EC2)
  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Path to YAML file containing a hash of AWS credentials. This file will only be loaded if access_key_id and secret_access_key aren’t set. The contents of the file should look like this:

:access_key_id: "12345"
:secret_access_key: "54321"
  • Value type is boolean
  • Default value is false

Use this for namespaces that need to combine the dimensions like S3 and SNS.

  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The endpoint to connect to. By default it is constructed using the value of region. This is useful when connecting to S3 compatible services, but beware that these aren’t guaranteed to work correctly with the AWS SDK.

  • This setting can be required or optional. See note below.
  • Value type is array
  • There is no default value for this setting.
Note

This setting is optional when the namespace is AWS/EC2. Otherwise this is a required field.

Specify the filters to apply when fetching resources. Follow the AWS convention:

  • Instances: { instance-id ⇒ i-12344321 }
  • Tags: { "tag:Environment" ⇒ "Production" }
  • Volumes: { attachment.status ⇒ attached }

Each namespace uniquely support certain dimensions. Please consult the documentation to ensure you’re using valid filters.

  • Value type is number
  • Default value is 900

Set how frequently CloudWatch should be queried

The default, 900, means check every 15 minutes. Setting this value too low (generally less than 300) results in no metrics being returned from CloudWatch.

  • Value type is array
  • Default value is ["CPUUtilization", "DiskReadOps", "DiskWriteOps", "NetworkIn", "NetworkOut"]

Specify the metrics to fetch for the namespace. The defaults are AWS/EC2 specific. See http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/DeveloperGuide/aws-namespaces.html for the available metrics for other namespaces.

  • Value type is string
  • Default value is "AWS/EC2"

If undefined, LogStash will complain, even if codec is unused. The service namespace of the metrics to fetch.

The default is for the EC2 service. See http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/DeveloperGuide/aws-namespaces.html for valid values.

  • Value type is number
  • Default value is 300

Set the granularity of the returned datapoints.

Must be at least 60 seconds and in multiples of 60.

  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

URI to proxy server if required

  • Value type is string
  • Default value is "us-east-1"

The AWS Region

  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The AWS IAM Role to assume, if any. This is used to generate temporary credentials, typically for cross-account access. See the AssumeRole API documentation for more information.

  • Value type is string
  • Default value is "logstash"

Session name to use when assuming an IAM role.

  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The AWS Secret Access Key

  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The AWS Session token for temporary credential

  • Value type is array
  • Default value is ["SampleCount", "Average", "Minimum", "Maximum", "Sum"]

Specify the statistics to fetch for each namespace

  • Value type is boolean
  • Default value is false

Use bundled CA certificates that ship with AWS SDK to verify SSL peer certificates. For cases where the default certificates are unavailable, e.g. Windows, you can set this to true.

  • Value type is boolean
  • Default value is true

Make sure we require the V1 classes when including this module. require aws-sdk will load v2 classes. Should we require (true) or disable (false) using SSL for communicating with the AWS API The AWS SDK for Ruby defaults to SSL so we preserve that

These configuration options are supported by all input plugins:

Setting Input type Required
add_field hash No
codec codec No
enable_metric boolean No
id string No
tags array No
type string No
  • Value type is hash
  • Default value is {}

Add a field to an event

  • Value type is codec
  • Default value is "plain"

The codec used for input data. Input codecs are a convenient method for decoding your data before it enters the input, without needing a separate filter in your Logstash pipeline.

  • Value type is boolean
  • Default value is true

Disable or enable metric logging for this specific plugin instance by default we record all the metrics we can, but you can disable metrics collection for a specific plugin.

  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Add a unique ID to the plugin configuration. If no ID is specified, Logstash will generate one. It is strongly recommended to set this ID in your configuration. This is particularly useful when you have two or more plugins of the same type, for example, if you have 2 cloudwatch inputs. Adding a named ID in this case will help in monitoring Logstash when using the monitoring APIs.

input {
  cloudwatch {
    id => "my_plugin_id"
  }
}
Note

Variable substitution in the id field only supports environment variables and does not support the use of values from the secret store.

  • Value type is array
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Add any number of arbitrary tags to your event.

This can help with processing later.

  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Add a type field to all events handled by this input.

Types are used mainly for filter activation.

The type is stored as part of the event itself, so you can also use the type to search for it in Kibana.

If you try to set a type on an event that already has one (for example when you send an event from a shipper to an indexer) then a new input will not override the existing type. A type set at the shipper stays with that event for its life even when sent to another Logstash server.