mon-put-metric-alarm - Amazon CloudWatch
DescriptionSyntaxOptionsCommon optionsOutputExamplesRelated topics

mon-put-metric-alarm

Description

Creates or updates an alarm and associates it with the specified CloudWatch metric. You can also use this command to associate one or more Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) resources with an alarm.

When this operation creates an alarm, the alarm state is immediately set to INSUFFICIENT_DATA. The alarm is evaluated and its StateValue is set appropriately. Any actions associated with the StateValue is then executed.

Note

When updating an existing alarm, StateValue is left unchanged.

Syntax

mon-put-metric-alarm AlarmName --comparison-operator value --evaluation-periods value --metric-name value --namespace value --period value [--statistic value] [--extendedstatistic value] --threshold value [--actions-enabled value] [--alarm-actions value[,value...] ] [--alarm-description value] [--dimensions "key1=value1,key2=value2..."] [--ok-actions value[,value...] ] [--unit value] [--insufficient-data-actions value[,value...]] [Common Options]

Options

Name Description

AlarmName

The name of the alarm to update or create. The name must be unique within your AWS account. You can also set this value using --alarm-name.

Type: Argument

Valid values: A UTF-8 string.

Default: n/a

Required: Yes

--actions-enabled VALUE

Indicates whether actions should be executed when the alarm changes state.

Type: Boolean

Valid values: True or False

Default: True

Required: No

--alarm-actions VALUE1,VALUE2,VALUE3...

The actions (up to five) to execute when this alarm transitions into an ALARM state from any other state. Each action is specified as an Amazon Resource Name (ARN). Using alarm actions, you can publish to an Amazon SNS topic, activate an Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling policy, or stop, terminate, or recover an Amazon EC2 instance.

Note

If you are using an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) account to create or modify an alarm, you must have the following Amazon EC2 permissions:

  • ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus and ec2:DescribeInstances for all alarms on Amazon EC2 instance status metrics.

  • ec2:StopInstances for alarms with stop actions.

  • ec2:TerminateInstances for alarms with terminate actions.

  • ec2:DescribeInstanceRecoveryAttribute, and ec2:RecoverInstances for alarms with recover actions.

If you have read/write permissions for Amazon CloudWatch but not for Amazon EC2, you can still create an alarm but the stop or terminate actions won’t be performed on the Amazon EC2 instance. However, if you are later granted permission to use the associated Amazon EC2 APIs, the alarm actions you created earlier will be performed. For more information about IAM permissions, see Permissions and Policies in IAM User Guide.

If you are using an IAM role (for example, an Amazon EC2 instance profile), you cannot stop or terminate the instance using alarm actions. However, you can still see the alarm state and perform any other actions such as Amazon SNS notifications or Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling policies.

If you are using temporary security credentials granted using the AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS), you cannot stop or terminate an Amazon EC2 instance using alarm actions.

Type: String

Valid values: An ARN for an Amazon SNS topic, an Auto Scaling policy, or an ARN to stop, terminate, or recover an Amazon EC2 instance.

Default: n/a

Required: No

--alarm-description VALUE

The description of the alarm.

Type: String

Valid values: Any Unicode string between 1 and 255 characters in length.

Default: n/a

Required: No

--comparison-operator VALUE

The comparison operator used to compare a data point to the threshold.

Type: Enumeration

Valid values: one of GreaterThanOrEqualToThreshold, GreaterThanThreshold, LessThanThreshold, or LessThanOrEqualToThreshold

Default: n/a

Required: Yes

--dimensions "key1=value1,key2=value2..."

The dimensions of the metric to create that you want to create an alarm for. You can specify dimensions two ways and the formats can be combined or used interchangeably:

  • One option per dimension: --dimensions "key1=value1" --dimensions "key2=value2"

  • All in one option: --dimensions "key1=value1,key2=value2"

Type: Map

Valid values: A string of the format name=value, where the key is the name of the dimension, and the value is the dimension's value. The dimension names, and values must be an ANSI string between 1 and 250 characters long. A maximum of 10 dimensions are allowed.

Default: n/a

Required: No

--evaluation-periods VALUE

The number of consecutive periods for which the value of the metric is compared to the threshold to determine alarm status.

Type: Integer

Valid values: A number greater than zero.

Default: n/a

Required: Yes

--metric-name VALUE

The name of the metric on which to alarm.

Type: Argument

Valid values: An ANSI string between 1 and 250 characters in length.

Default: n/a

Required: Yes

--namespace VALUE

The namespace of the metric on which to alarm. For more information about namespaces, see AWS Namespaces.

Type: String

Valid values: An ANSI string between 1 and 250 characters in length.

Default: n/a

Required: Yes

--ok-actions VALUE1,VALUE2,VALUE3...

The actions (up to five) to execute when this alarm transitions into an OK state from any other state. Each action is specified as an Amazon Resource Name (ARN).

Type: String

Valid values: A valid ARN identifier.

Default: n/a

Required: No

--period VALUE

The period of metric on which to alarm (in seconds).

Type: Argument

Valid values: A number, in seconds that is a multiple of 60 seconds.

Default: n/a

Required: Yes

--statistic VALUE

The statistic of the metric on which to alarm.

Type: Enumeration

Valid values: SampleCount, Average, Sum, Minimum, or Maximum

Default: n/a

Required: You must specify --statistic or --extendedstatistic.

--extendedstatistic VALUE

The percentile statistic of the metric on which to alarm.

Type: String

Valid values: Any percentile, with up to two decimal places (for example, p95.45).

Default: n/a

Required: You must specify --statistic or --extendedstatistic.

--threshold VALUE

The threshold that data points are compared with to determine the alarm state.

Type: Double

Valid values: A double value. All values must be a number between 1E-130 and 1E130.

Default: n/a

Required: Yes

--unit VALUE

The unit of the metric on which to alarm.

Type: Enumeration

Valid values: One of the following:

  • Seconds

  • Microseconds

  • Milliseconds

  • Bytes

  • Kilobytes

  • Megabytes

  • Gigabytes

  • Terabytes

  • Bits

  • Kilobits

  • Megabits

  • Gigabits

  • Terabits

  • Percent

  • Count

  • Bytes/Second

  • Kilobytes/Second

  • Megabytes/Second

  • Gigabytes/Second

  • Terabytes/Second

  • Bits/Second

  • Kilobits/Second

  • Megabits/Second

  • Gigabits/Second

  • Terabits/Second

  • Count/Second

  • None

Default: n/a

Required: No

--insufficient-data-actions VALUE1,VALUE2,VALUE3...

The actions (up to five) to execute when this alarm transitions into an INSUFFICIENT_DATA state from any other state. Each action is specified as an Amazon Resource Name (ARN).

Type: String

Valid values: A valid ARN identifier.

Default: n/a

Required: No

Common options

Name Description

--aws-credential-file VALUE

The location of the file with your AWS credentials. You can set this value using the environment variable AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE. If you define the environment variable or you provide the path to the credential file, the file must exist or the request fails. All CloudWatch requests must be signed using your access key ID and secret access key.

Type: String

Valid values: A valid path to a file containing your access key ID and secret access key.

Default: Uses the environment variable AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE, if set.

-C, --ec2-cert-file-path VALUE

The location of your EC2 certificate file for signing requests. You can use the environment variable EC2_CERT to specify this value.

Type: String

Valid values: A valid file path to the PEM file provided by Amazon EC2 or AWS Identity and Access Management.

Default: Uses the environment variable EC2_CERT, if set.

--connection-timeout VALUE

The connection timeout value, in seconds.

Type: Integer

Valid values: Any positive number.

Default: 30

--delimiter VALUE

The delimiter to use when displaying delimited (long) results.

Type: String

Valid values: Any string.

Default: Comma (,)

--headers

If you are displaying tabular or delimited results, include the column headers. If you are showing XML results, return the HTTP headers from the service request, if applicable.

Type: Flag

Valid values: When present, shows headers.

Default: The --headers option is off by default.

-I, --access-key-id VALUE

The access key ID that will be used, in conjunction with the secret key, to sign the request. This must be used in conjunction with --secret-key, otherwise the option is ignored. All requests to CloudWatch must be signed, otherwise the request is rejected.

Type: String

Valid values: A valid access key ID.

Default: None

-K, --ec2-private-key-file-path VALUE

The private key that will be used to sign the request. Using public/private keys causes the CLI to use SOAP. The request is signed with a public certificate and private key. This parameter must be used in conjunction with EC2_CERT, otherwise the value is ignored. The value of the environment variable EC2_PRIVATE_KEY will be used if it is set, and this option is not specified. This option is ignored if the environment variable AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE is set, or --aws-credentials-file is used. All requests to CloudWatch must be signed, otherwise the request is rejected.

Type: String

Valid values: The path to a valid ASN.1 private key.

Default: None

--region VALUE

The region requests are directed to. You can use the environment variable EC2_REGION to specify the value. The region is used to create the URL used to call CloudWatch, and must be a valid Amazon Web Services (AWS) region.

Type: String

Valid values: Any AWS region, for example, us-east-1.

Default: us-east-1, unless the EC2_REGION environment variable is set.

S, --secret-key VALUE

The secret access key that will be used to sign the request, in conjunction with an access key ID. This parameter must be used in conjunction with --access-key-id, otherwise this option is ignored.

Type: String

Valid values: Your access key ID.

Default: None

--show-empty-fields

Shows empty fields using (nil) as a placeholder to indicate that this data was not requested.

Type: Flag

Valid values: None

Default: Empty fields are not shown by default.

--show-request

Displays the URL the CLI uses to call AWS.

Type: Flag

Valid values: None

Default: false

--show-table, --show-long, --show-xml, --quiet

Specifies how the results are displayed: in a table, delimited (long), XML, or no output (quiet). The --show-table display shows a subset of the data in fixed column-width form; --show-long shows all of the returned values delimited by a character; --show-xml is the raw return from the service; and --quiet suppresses all standard output. All options are mutually exclusive, with the priority --show-table, --show-long, --show-xml, and --quiet.

Type: Flag

Valid values: None

Default: --show-table

-U, --url VALUE

The URL used to contact CloudWatch. You can set this value using the environment variable AWS_CLOUDWATCH_URL. This value is used in conjunction with --region to create the expected URL. This option overrides the URL for the service call.

Type: String

Valid values: A valid HTTP or HTTPS URL.

Default: Uses the value specified in AWS_CLOUDWATCH_URL, if set.

Output

This command creates or updates an alarm associated with the specified metric.

The Amazon CloudWatch CLI displays errors on stderr.

Examples

Example request

This example creates an alarm that publishes a message to a topic when CPU utilization of an EC2 instances exceeds 90 percent for three consecutive one minute periods.

mon-put-metric-alarm --alarm-name my-alarm --alarm-description "some desc" \
--metric-name CPUUtilization --namespace AWS/EC2 --statistic Average  --period 60 --threshold 90 \
--comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold  --dimensions InstanceId=i-abcdef --evaluation-periods 3  \
--unit Percent --alarm-actions arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:1234567890:my-topic

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