Using identity-based policies (IAM policies) for CloudWatch - Amazon CloudWatch
Permissions required to use the CloudWatch consoleAWS managed (predefined) policies for CloudWatchCustomer managed policy examplesPolicy updates

Using identity-based policies (IAM policies) for CloudWatch

This topic provides examples of identity-based policies that demonstrate how an account administrator can attach permissions policies to IAM identities (that is, users, groups, and roles) and thereby grant permissions to perform operations on CloudWatch resources.

Important

We recommend that you first review the introductory topics that explain the basic concepts and options available to manage access to your CloudWatch resources. For more information, see Access control.

The sections in this topic cover the following:

The following shows an example of a permissions policy.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement":[{
      "Effect":"Allow",
      "Action":["cloudwatch:GetMetricData","cloudwatch:ListMetrics"],
      "Resource":"*",
      "Condition":{
         "Bool":{
            "aws:SecureTransport":"true"
            }
         }
      }
   ]
}

This sample policy has one statement that grants permissions to a group for two CloudWatch actions (cloudwatch:GetMetricData, and cloudwatch:ListMetrics), but only if the group uses SSL with the request ("aws:SecureTransport":"true"). For more information about the elements within an IAM policy statement, see Specifying policy elements: Actions, effects, and principals and IAM Policy Elements Reference in IAM User Guide.

Permissions required to use the CloudWatch console

For a user to work with the CloudWatch console, that user must have a minimum set of permissions that allow the user to describe other AWS resources in their account. The CloudWatch console requires permissions from the following services:

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

  • CloudTrail

  • CloudWatch

  • CloudWatch Events

  • CloudWatch Logs

  • Amazon EC2

  • OpenSearch Service

  • IAM

  • Kinesis

  • Lambda

  • Amazon S3

  • Amazon SNS

  • Amazon SQS

  • Amazon SWF

  • X-Ray, if you are using the ServiceLens feature

If you create an IAM policy that is more restrictive than the minimum required permissions, the console won't function as intended for users with that IAM policy. To ensure that those users can still use the CloudWatch console, also attach the CloudWatchReadOnlyAccess managed policy to the user, as described in AWS managed (predefined) policies for CloudWatch.

You don't need to allow minimum console permissions for users that are making calls only to the AWS CLI or the CloudWatch API.

The full set of permissions required to work with the CloudWatch console are listed below:

  • application-autoscaling:DescribeScalingPolicies

  • autoscaling:DescribeAutoScalingGroups

  • autoscaling:DescribePolicies

  • cloudtrail:DescribeTrails

  • cloudwatch:DeleteAlarms

  • cloudwatch:DescribeAlarmHistory

  • cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms

  • cloudwatch:GetMetricData

  • cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics

  • cloudwatch:ListMetrics

  • cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm

  • cloudwatch:PutMetricData

  • ec2:DescribeInstances

  • ec2:DescribeTags

  • ec2:DescribeVolumes

  • es:DescribeElasticsearchDomain

  • es:ListDomainNames

  • events:DeleteRule

  • events:DescribeRule

  • events:DisableRule

  • events:EnableRule

  • events:ListRules

  • events:PutRule

  • iam:AttachRolePolicy

  • iam:CreateRole

  • iam:GetPolicy

  • iam:GetPolicyVersion

  • iam:GetRole

  • iam:ListAttachedRolePolicies

  • iam:ListRoles

  • kinesis:DescribeStream

  • kinesis:ListStreams

  • lambda:AddPermission

  • lambda:CreateFunction

  • lambda:GetFunctionConfiguration

  • lambda:ListAliases

  • lambda:ListFunctions

  • lambda:ListVersionsByFunction

  • lambda:RemovePermission

  • logs:CancelExportTask

  • logs:CreateExportTask

  • logs:CreateLogGroup

  • logs:CreateLogStream

  • logs:DeleteLogGroup

  • logs:DeleteLogStream

  • logs:DeleteMetricFilter

  • logs:DeleteRetentionPolicy

  • logs:DeleteSubscriptionFilter

  • logs:DescribeExportTasks

  • logs:DescribeLogGroups

  • logs:DescribeLogStreams

  • logs:DescribeMetricFilters

  • logs:DescribeQueries

  • logs:DescribeSubscriptionFilters

  • logs:FilterLogEvents

  • logs:GetLogGroupFields

  • logs:GetLogRecord

  • logs:GetLogEvents

  • logs:GetQueryResults

  • logs:PutMetricFilter

  • logs:PutRetentionPolicy

  • logs:PutSubscriptionFilter

  • logs:StartQuery

  • logs:StopQuery

  • logs:TestMetricFilter

  • s3:CreateBucket

  • s3:ListBucket

  • sns:CreateTopic

  • sns:GetTopicAttributes

  • sns:ListSubscriptions

  • sns:ListTopics

  • sns:SetTopicAttributes

  • sns:Subscribe

  • sns:Unsubscribe

  • sqs:GetQueueAttributes

  • sqs:GetQueueUrl

  • sqs:ListQueues

  • sqs:SetQueueAttributes

  • swf:CreateAction

  • swf:DescribeAction

  • swf:ListActionTemplates

  • swf:RegisterAction

  • swf:RegisterDomain

  • swf:UpdateAction

Additionally, to view the service map in ServiceLens, you need AWSXrayReadOnlyAccess

AWS managed (predefined) policies for CloudWatch

AWS addresses many common use cases by providing standalone IAM policies that are created and administered by AWS. These AWS managed policies grant necessary permissions for common use cases so that you can avoid having to investigate what permissions are needed. For more information, see AWS managed policies in the IAM User Guide.

The following AWS managed policies, which you can attach to users in your account, are specific to CloudWatch.

Note

You can review these permissions policies by signing in to the IAM console and searching for specific policies there.

You can also create your own custom IAM policies to allow permissions for CloudWatch actions and resources. You can attach these custom policies to the IAM users or groups that require those permissions.

CloudWatchFullAccess

The CloudWatchFullAccess policy grants full access to all CloudWatch actions and resources. Its contents are as follows: 

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Action": [
                "autoscaling:Describe*",
                "cloudwatch:*",
                "logs:*",
                "sns:*",
                "iam:GetPolicy",
                "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
                "iam:GetRole"
            ],
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/events.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForCloudWatchEvents*",
            "Condition": {
                "StringLike": {
                    "iam:AWSServiceName": "events.amazonaws.com"
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

CloudWatchActionsEC2Access

The CloudWatchActionsEC2Access policy grants read-only access to CloudWatch alarms and metrics in addition to Amazon EC2 metadata. It also grants access to the Stop, Terminate, and Reboot API actions for EC2 instances.

CloudWatchReadOnlyAccess

The CloudWatchReadOnlyAccess policy grants read-only access to CloudWatch.

CloudWatchAutomaticDashboardsAccess

The CloudWatch-CrossAccountAccess managed policy is used by the CloudWatch-CrossAccountSharingRole IAM role. This role and policy enable users of cross-account dashboards to view automatic dashboards in each account that is sharing dashboards.

The following is the content of CloudWatchAutomaticDashboardsAccess: 

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "autoscaling:DescribeAutoScalingGroups",
        "cloudfront:GetDistribution",
        "cloudfront:ListDistributions",
        "dynamodb:DescribeTable",
        "dynamodb:ListTables",
        "ec2:DescribeInstances",
        "ec2:DescribeVolumes",
        "ecs:DescribeClusters",
        "ecs:DescribeContainerInstances",
        "ecs:ListClusters",
        "ecs:ListContainerInstances",
        "ecs:ListServices",
        "elasticache:DescribeCacheClusters",
        "elasticbeanstalk:DescribeEnvironments",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeFileSystems",
        "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers",
        "kinesis:DescribeStream",
        "kinesis:ListStreams",
        "lambda:GetFunction",
        "lambda:ListFunctions",
        "rds:DescribeDBClusters",
        "rds:DescribeDBInstances",
        "resource-groups:ListGroupResources",
        "resource-groups:ListGroups",
        "route53:GetHealthCheck",
        "route53:ListHealthChecks",
        "s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
        "s3:ListBucket",
        "sns:ListTopics",
        "sqs:GetQueueAttributes",
        "sqs:GetQueueUrl",
        "sqs:ListQueues",
        "synthetics:DescribeCanariesLastRun",
        "tag:GetResources"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Action": [
        "apigateway:GET"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:apigateway:*::/restapis*"
      ]
    }
  ]

CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy

The CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy policy can be used in IAM roles that are attached to Amazon EC2 instances to allow the CloudWatch agent to read information from the instance and write it to CloudWatch. 

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:PutMetricData",
                "ec2:DescribeVolumes",
                "ec2:DescribeTags",
                "logs:PutLogEvents",
                "logs:DescribeLogStreams",
                "logs:DescribeLogGroups",
                "logs:CreateLogStream",
                "logs:CreateLogGroup"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:GetParameter"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:parameter/AmazonCloudWatch-*"
        }
    ]
}

CloudWatchAgentAdminPolicy

The CloudWatchAgentAdminPolicy policy can be used in IAM roles that are attached to Amazon EC2 instances. This policy allows the CloudWatch agent to read information from the instance and write it to CloudWatch, and also to write information to Parameter Store. 

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:PutMetricData",
                "ec2:DescribeTags",
                "logs:PutLogEvents",
                "logs:DescribeLogStreams",
                "logs:DescribeLogGroups",
                "logs:CreateLogStream",
                "logs:CreateLogGroup"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:GetParameter",
                "ssm:PutParameter"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:parameter/AmazonCloudWatch-*"
        }
    ]
}
Note

You can review these permissions policies by signing in to the IAM console and searching for specific policies there.

You can also create your own custom IAM policies to allow permissions for CloudWatch actions and resources. You can attach these custom policies to the IAM users or groups that require those permissions.

AWS managed (predefined) policies for CloudWatch Synthetics

The CloudWatchSyntheticsFullAccess and CloudWatchSyntheticsReadOnlyAccess AWS managed policies are available for you to assign to users who will manage or use CloudWatch Synthetics. The following additional policies are also relevant:

  • AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess and CloudWatchReadOnlyAccess – These are necessary to be able to read all Synthetics data in the CloudWatch console.

  • AWSLambdaReadOnlyAccess – To be able to view the source code used by canaries.

  • CloudWatchSyntheticsFullAccess enables you to create canaries, Additionally, to create a canary that will have a new IAM role created for it, you also need the following inline policy statement: 

    {
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:CreateRole",
                "iam:CreatePolicy",
                "iam:AttachRolePolicy"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:iam::*:role/service-role/CloudWatchSyntheticsRole*",
                "arn:aws:iam::*:policy/service-role/CloudWatchSyntheticsPolicy*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}
    Important

    Granting a user the iam:CreateRole, iam:CreatePolicy, and iam:AttachRolePolicy permissions gives that user full administrative access to your AWS account. For example, a user with these permissions can create a policy that has full permissions for all resources, and attach that policy to any role. Be very careful about who you grant these permissions to.

    For information about attaching policies and granting permissions to users, see Changing Permissions for an IAM User and To embed an inline policy for a user or role.

AWS managed (predefined) policies for Amazon CloudWatch RUM

The AmazonCloudWatchRUMFullAccess and AmazonCloudWatchRUMReadOnlyAccess AWS managed policies are available for you to assign to users who will manage or use CloudWatch RUM.

AmazonCloudWatchRUMFullAccess

The following are the contents of the AmazonCloudWatchRUMFullAccess policy. 

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "rum:*"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetRole",
                "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/rum.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForRealUserMonitoring"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:PassRole"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:iam::*:role/RUM-Monitor*"
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {
                    "iam:PassedToService": [
                        "cognito-identity.amazonaws.com"
                    ]
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
                "cloudwatch:ListMetrics"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:cloudwatch:*:*:alarm:*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cognito-identity:CreateIdentityPool",
                "cognito-identity:ListIdentityPools",
                "cognito-identity:DescribeIdentityPool",
                "cognito-identity:GetIdentityPoolRoles",
                "cognito-identity:SetIdentityPoolRoles"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:cognito-identity:*:*:identitypool/*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "logs:CreateLogGroup",
                "logs:DeleteLogGroup",
                "logs:PutRetentionPolicy",
                "logs:CreateLogStream"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:logs:*:*:log-group:*RUMService*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "logs:CreateLogDelivery",
                "logs:GetLogDelivery",
                "logs:UpdateLogDelivery",
                "logs:DeleteLogDelivery",
                "logs:ListLogDeliveries",
                "logs:DescribeResourcePolicies"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "logs:DescribeLogGroups"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:logs:*:*:log-group::log-stream:*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "synthetics:describeCanaries",
                "synthetics:describeCanariesLastRun"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:synthetics:*:*:canary:*"
        }
    ]
}

AmazonCloudWatchRUMReadOnlyAccess

The following are the contents of the AmazonCloudWatchRUMReadOnlyAccess policy. 

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "rum:Get*",
                "rum:List*"
            ],
           "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

AmazonCloudWatchRUMServiceRolePolicy

You can't attach AmazonCloudWatchRUMServiceRolePolicy to your IAM entities. This policy is attached to a service-linked role that allows CloudWatch RUM to publish monitoring data to other relevant AWS services. For more information about this service linked role, see Using service-linked roles for CloudWatch RUM.

AWS managed (predefined) policies for CloudWatch Evidently

The CloudWatchEvidentlyFullAccess and CloudWatchEvidentlyReadOnlyAccess AWS managed policies are available for you to assign to users who will manage or use CloudWatch Evidently.

CloudWatchEvidentlyFullAccess

The following are the contents of the CloudWatchEvidentlyFullAccess policy. 

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "evidently:*"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:ListRoles"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetRole"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:iam::*:role/service-role/CloudWatchRUMEvidentlyRole-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:GetBucketLocation",
                "s3:ListAllMyBuckets"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
                "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarmHistory",
                "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarmsForMetric",
                "cloudwatch:ListTagsForResource"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms",
                "cloudwatch:TagResource",
                "cloudwatch:UnTagResource"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:cloudwatch:*:*:alarm:*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudtrail:LookupEvents"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:cloudwatch:*:*:alarm:Evidently-Alarm-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "sns:ListTopics"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "sns:CreateTopic",
                "sns:Subscribe",
                "sns:ListSubscriptionsByTopic"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:*:sns:*:*:Evidently-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "logs:DescribeLogGroups"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

CloudWatchEvidentlyReadOnlyAccess

The following are the contents of the CloudWatchEvidentlyReadOnlyAccess policy. 

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "evidently:GetExperiment",
                "evidently:GetFeature",
                "evidently:GetLaunch",
                "evidently:GetProject",
                "evidently:ListExperiments",
                "evidently:ListFeatures",
                "evidently:ListLaunches",
                "evidently:ListProjects"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

AWS managed policy for AWS Systems Manager Incident Manager

The AWSCloudWatchAlarms_ActionSSMIncidentsServiceRolePolicy policy is attached to a service-linked role that allows CloudWatch to start incidents in AWS Systems Manager Incident Manager on your behalf. For more information, see Service-linked role permissions for CloudWatch alarms Systems Manager Incident Manager actions.

The policy has the following permission:

  • ssm-incidents:StartIncident

CloudWatchSyntheticsFullAccess

The following is the content of the CloudWatchSyntheticsFullAccess policy. 

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "synthetics:*"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:CreateBucket",
                "s3:PutEncryptionConfiguration"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:s3:::cw-syn-results-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:ListRoles",
                "s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
                "xray:GetTraceSummaries",
                "xray:BatchGetTraces",
                "apigateway:GET"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:GetBucketLocation"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:GetObject",
                "s3:ListBucket"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::cw-syn-*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:GetObjectVersion"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::aws-synthetics-library-*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:PassRole"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:iam::*:role/service-role/CloudWatchSyntheticsRole*"
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {
                    "iam:PassedToService": [
                        "lambda.amazonaws.com",
                        "synthetics.amazonaws.com"
                    ]
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetRole"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:iam::*:role/service-role/CloudWatchSyntheticsRole*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm",
                "cloudwatch:DeleteAlarms"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:cloudwatch:*:*:alarm:Synthetics-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:cloudwatch:*:*:alarm:*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "lambda:CreateFunction",
                "lambda:AddPermission",
                "lambda:PublishVersion",
                "lambda:UpdateFunctionCode",
                "lambda:UpdateFunctionConfiguration",
                "lambda:GetFunctionConfiguration"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:lambda:*:*:function:cwsyn-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "lambda:GetLayerVersion",
                "lambda:PublishLayerVersion"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:lambda:*:*:layer:cwsyn-*",
                "arn:aws:lambda:*:*:layer:Synthetics:*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:DescribeVpcs",
                "ec2:DescribeSubnets",
                "ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "sns:ListTopics"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "sns:CreateTopic",
                "sns:Subscribe",
                "sns:ListSubscriptionsByTopic"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:*:sns:*:*:Synthetics-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "kms:ListAliases"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "kms:DescribeKey"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:kms:*:*:key/*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "kms:Decrypt"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:kms:*:*:key/*",
            "Condition": {
                "StringLike": {
                    "kms:ViaService": [
                        "s3.*.amazonaws.com"
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

CloudWatchSyntheticsReadOnlyAccess

The following is the content of the CloudWatchSyntheticsReadOnlyAccess policy. 

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "synthetics:Describe*",
                "synthetics:Get*",
                "synthetics:List*"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

Customer managed policy examples

In this section, you can find example user policies that grant permissions for various CloudWatch actions. These policies work when you are using the CloudWatch API, AWS SDKs, or the AWS CLI.

Example 1: Allow user full access to CloudWatch

To grant a user full access to CloudWatch, you can use grant them the CloudWatchFullAccess managed policy instead of creating a customer-managed policy. The contents of the CloudWatchFullAccess are listed in CloudWatchFullAccess.

Example 2: Allow read-only access to CloudWatch

The following policy allows a user read-only access to CloudWatch and view Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling actions, CloudWatch metrics, CloudWatch Logs data, and alarm-related Amazon SNS data. 

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "autoscaling:Describe*",
        "cloudwatch:Describe*",
        "cloudwatch:Get*",
        "cloudwatch:List*",
        "logs:Get*",
        "logs:Describe*",
        "sns:Get*",
        "sns:List*"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

Example 3: Stop or terminate an Amazon EC2 instance

The following policy allows an CloudWatch alarm action to stop or terminate an EC2 instance. In the sample below, the GetMetricData, ListMetrics, and DescribeAlarms actions are optional. It is recommended that you include these actions to ensure that you have correctly stopped or terminated the instance. 

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm",
        "cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
        "cloudwatch:ListMetrics",
        "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow"
    },
    {
      "Action": [
        "ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus",
        "ec2:DescribeInstances",
        "ec2:StopInstances",
        "ec2:TerminateInstances"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow"
    }
  ]
}

CloudWatch updates to AWS managed policies

View details about updates to AWS managed policies for CloudWatch since this service began tracking these changes. For automatic alerts about changes to this page, subscribe to the RSS feed on the CloudWatch Document history page.

Change Description Date

AmazonCloudWatchRUMFullAccess – New policy

CloudWatch added a new policy to enable full management of CloudWatch RUM.

CloudWatch RUM allows you to perform real user monitoring of your web application. For more information, see Use CloudWatch RUM.

November 29, 2021

AmazonCloudWatchRUMReadOnlyAccess – New policy

CloudWatch added a new policy to enable read-only access to CloudWatch RUM.

CloudWatch RUM allows you to perform real user monitoring of your web application. For more information, see Use CloudWatch RUM.

November 29, 2021

CloudWatchEvidentlyFullAccess – New policy

CloudWatch added a new policy to enable full management of CloudWatch Evidently.

CloudWatch Evidently allows you to perform A/B experiments of your web applications, and to roll them out gradually. For more information, see Perform launches and A/B experiments with CloudWatch Evidently.

November 29, 2021

CloudWatchEvidentlyReadOnlyAccess – New policy

CloudWatch added a new policy to enable read-only access to CloudWatch Evidently.

CloudWatch Evidently allows you to perform A/B experiments of your web applications, and to roll them out gradually. For more information, see Perform launches and A/B experiments with CloudWatch Evidently.

November 29, 2021

AWSServiceRoleForCloudWatchRUM – New managed policy

CloudWatch added a policy for a new service-linked role to allow CloudWatch RUM to pubish monitoring data to other relevant AWS services.

November 29, 2021

CloudWatchSyntheticsFullAccess – Update to an existing policy

CloudWatch Synthetics added permissions to CloudWatchSyntheticsFullAccess, and also changed the scope of one permission.

The kms:ListAliases permission was added so that users can list available AWS KMS keys that can be used to encrypt canary artifacts. The kms:DescribeKey permission was added so that users can see the details of keys that will be used to encrypt for canary artifacts. And the kms:Decrypt permission was added to enable users to decrypt canary artifacts. This decryption ability is limited to use on resources within Amazon S3 buckets.

The Resource scope of the s3:GetBucketLocation permission was changed from * to arn:aws:s3:::*.

September 29, 2021

CloudWatchSyntheticsFullAccess – Update to an existing policy

CloudWatch Synthetics added a permission to CloudWatchSyntheticsFullAccess.

The lambda:UpdateFunctionCode permission was added so that users with this policy can change the runtime version of canaries.

July 20, 2021

AWSCloudWatchAlarms_ActionSSMIncidentsServiceRolePolicy – New managed policy

CloudWatch added a new managed IAM policy to allow CloudWatch to create incidents in AWS Systems Manager Incident Manager.

May 10, 2021

CloudWatchAutomaticDashboardsAccess – Update to an existing policy

CloudWatch added a permission to the CloudWatchAutomaticDashboardsAccess managed policy. The synthetics:DescribeCanariesLastRun permission was added to this policy to enable cross-account dashboard users to see details about CloudWatch Synthetics canary runs.

April 20, 2021

CloudWatch started tracking changes

CloudWatch started tracking changes for its AWS managed policies.

 April 14, 2021