AWS CloudWatch

Scanner supports AWS CloudWatch logs, which can contain may different kinds of logs, including application logs, database logs, and other logs related to AWS services.

In order for Scanner to see these logs, you can configure your CloudWatch log groups to forward data to a Kinesis Data Firehose, which can then write the logs into an S3 bucket that Scanner is linked to.

Step 1: Set up CloudWatch to push to Kinesis Data Firehose

You can follow the AWS documentation to configure a CloudWatch log group to push its logs to a Kinesis Data Firehose. See: Send CloudWatch Logs to Firehose.

Step 2: Configure the Kinesis Data Firehose to write logs to S3

A Kinesis Data Firehose can push logs to various destinations. We want to push to an S3 bucket that Scanner is linked to. You can follow the AWS documentation to configure the Firehose to write to an S3 bucket. See: Understand data delivery in Amazon Data Firehose.

Step 3: Link the S3 bucket to Scanner

If you haven't done so already, link the S3 bucket containing your CloudWatch logs to Scanner using the Linking AWS Accounts guide.

Step 4: Set up an S3 Import Rule in Scanner

  1. Within Scanner, navigate to Settings > S3 Import Rules.

  2. Click Create Rule.

  3. For Rule name, type a name like my_team_name_aws_cloudwatch_logs.

  4. For Destination Index, choose the index where you want these logs to be searchable in Scanner.

  5. For Status, set to Active if you want to start indexing the data immediately.

  6. For Source Type, many different values may be appropriate here depending on the service. For example, if the log group contains AWS ECS logs, we recommend aws:ecs. If it contains EKS logs, we recommend aws:eks, etc. You are free to choose any name.

  7. For AWS Account, choose the account that contains the S3 bucket containing the CloudWatch logs.

  8. For S3 Bucket, choose the S3 bucket containing the CloudWatch logs.

  9. For S3 Key Prefix, type the prefix (i.e. directory path) of the S3 objects that your Firehose is writing.

  10. For File type, choose CloudWatchLogStream with Gzip compression.

  11. For Timestamp extractors, under Column name, type timestamp. This is the field in each log event that contains the timestamp information.

  12. Click Preview rule to try it out. Check that the S3 keys you expect are appearing, and check that the log events inside are being parsed properly with the timestamp detected properly.

  13. When you're ready, click Create.

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