Logging RDS Data API calls with AWS CloudTrail

RDS Data API (Data API) is integrated with AWS CloudTrail, a service that provides a record of actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service in Data API. CloudTrail captures all API calls for Data API as events, including calls from the Amazon RDS console and from code calls to Data API operations. If you create a trail, you can enable continuous delivery of CloudTrail events to an Amazon S3 bucket, including events for Data API. Using the data collected by CloudTrail, you can determine a lot of information. This information includes the request that was made to Data API, the IP address the request was made from, who made the request, when it was made, and additional details.

To learn more about CloudTrail, see the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

Working with Data API information in CloudTrail

CloudTrail is enabled on your AWS account when you create the account. When supported activity (management events) occurs in Data API, that activity is recorded in a CloudTrail event along with other AWS service events in Event history. You can view, search, and download recent management events in your AWS account. For more information, see Working with CloudTrail Event history in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

For an ongoing record of events in your AWS account, including events for Data API, create a trail. A trail enables CloudTrail to deliver log files to an Amazon S3 bucket. By default, when you create a trail in the console, the trail applies to all AWS Regions. The trail logs events from all AWS Regions in the AWS partition and delivers the log files to the Amazon S3 bucket that you specify. Additionally, you can configure other AWS services to further analyze and act upon the event data collected in CloudTrail logs. For more information, see the following topics in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide:

• Overview for creating a trail

• CloudTrail supported services and integrations

• Configuring Amazon SNS notifications for CloudTrail

• Receiving CloudTrail log files from multiple Regions and Receiving CloudTrail log files from multiple accounts

All Data API operations are logged by CloudTrail and documented in the Amazon RDS data service API reference. For example, calls to the BatchExecuteStatement, BeginTransaction, CommitTransaction, and ExecuteStatement operations generate entries in the CloudTrail log files.

Every event or log entry contains information about who generated the request. The identity information helps you determine the following:

• Whether the request was made with root or user credentials.

• Whether the request was made with temporary security credentials for a role or federated user.

• Whether the request was made by another AWS service.

For more information, see the CloudTrail userIdentity element.

Including and excluding Data API events from an AWS CloudTrail trail

Most Data API users rely on the events in an AWS CloudTrail trail to provide a record of Data API operations. Event data doesn't reveal the database name, schema name, or SQL statements in requests to the Data API. However, knowing which user made a type of call against a specific DB cluster at a given time can help to detect anomalous access patterns.

Including Data API events in an AWS CloudTrail trail

For Aurora PostgreSQL Serverless v2 and provisioned databases, the following Data API operations are logged to AWS CloudTrail as data events. Data events are high-volume data-plane API operations that CloudTrail doesn't log by default. Additional charges apply for data events. For information about CloudTrail pricing, see AWS CloudTrail Pricing.

• BatchExecuteStatement

• BeginTransaction

• CommitTransaction

• ExecuteStatement

• RollbackTransaction

You can use the CloudTrail console,AWS CLI, or CloudTrail API operations to log these Data API operations. In the CloudTrail console, choose RDS Data API - DB Cluster for the Data event type. For more information, see Logging data events with the AWS Management Console in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

Using the AWS CLI, run the aws cloudtrail put-event-selectors command to log these Data API operations for your trail. To log all Data API events on DB clusters, specify AWS::RDS::DBCluster for the resource type. The following example logs all Data API events on DB clusters. For more information, see Logging data events with the AWS Command Line Interface in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

aws cloudtrail put-event-selectors --trail-name trail_name --advanced-event-selectors \
'{
   "Name": "RDS Data API Selector",
   "FieldSelectors": [
      {
         "Field": "eventCategory",
         "Equals": [
            "Data"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Field": "resources.type",
         "Equals": [
            "AWS::RDS::DBCluster"
         ]
      }
   ]
}'

You can configure advanced event selectors to additionally filter on the readOnly, eventName, and resources.ARN fields. For more information on these fields, see AdvancedFieldSelector.

Excluding Data API events from an AWS CloudTrail trail (Aurora Serverless v1 only)

For Aurora Serverless v1, Data API events are management events. By default, all Data API events are included in an AWS CloudTrail trail. However, because Data API can generate a large number of events, you might want to exclude these events from your CloudTrail trail. The Exclude Amazon RDS Data API events setting excludes all Data API events from the trail. You can't exclude specific Data API events.

To exclude Data API events from a trail, do the following:

• In the CloudTrail console, choose the Exclude Amazon RDS Data API events setting when you create a trail or update a trail.

• In the CloudTrail API, use the PutEventSelectors operation. If you're using advanced event selectors, you can exclude Data API events by setting the eventSource field not equal to rdsdata.amazonaws.com. If you're using basic event selectors, you can exclude Data API events by setting the value of the ExcludeManagementEventSources attribute to rdsdata.amazonaws.com. For more information, see Logging events with the AWS Command Line Interface in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

Warning

Excluding Data API events from a CloudTrail log can obscure Data API actions. Be cautious when giving principals the cloudtrail:PutEventSelectors permission that is required to perform this operation.

You can turn off this exclusion at any time by changing the console setting or the event selectors for a trail. The trail will then start recording Data API events. However, it can't recover Data API events that occurred while the exclusion was effective.

When you exclude Data API events by using the console or API, the resulting CloudTrail PutEventSelectors API operation is also logged in your CloudTrail logs. If Data API events don't appear in your CloudTrail logs, look for a PutEventSelectors event with the ExcludeManagementEventSources attribute set to rdsdata.amazonaws.com.

For more information, see Logging management events for trails in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

Understanding Data API log file entries

A trail is a configuration that enables delivery of events as log files to an Amazon S3 bucket that you specify. CloudTrail log files contain one or more log entries. An event represents a single request from any source and includes information about the requested action, the date and time of the action, request parameters, and so on. CloudTrail log files aren't an ordered stack trace of the public API calls, so they don't appear in any specific order.

Aurora PostgreSQL Serverless v2 and provisioned

The following example shows a CloudTrail log entry that demonstrates the ExecuteStatement operation for Aurora PostgreSQL Serverless v2 and provisioned databases. For these databases, all Data API events are data events where the event source is rdsdataapi.amazonaws.com and the event type is Rds Data Service.

{
    "eventVersion": "1.05",
    "userIdentity": {
        "type": "IAMUser",
        "principalId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
        "arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/johndoe",
        "accountId": "123456789012",
        "accessKeyId": "AKIAI44QH8DHBEXAMPLE",
        "userName": "johndoe"
    },
    "eventTime": "2019-12-18T00:49:34Z",
    "eventSource": "rdsdataapi.amazonaws.com",
    "eventName": "ExecuteStatement",
    "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
    "sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.0",
    "userAgent": "aws-cli/1.16.102 Python/3.7.2 Windows/10 botocore/1.12.92",
    "requestParameters": {
        "continueAfterTimeout": false,
        "database": "**********",
        "includeResultMetadata": false,
        "parameters": [],
        "resourceArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster:my-database-1",
        "schema": "**********",
        "secretArn": "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-east-1:123456789012:secret:dataapisecret-ABC123",
        "sql": "**********"
    },
    "responseElements": null,
    "requestID": "6ba9a36e-b3aa-4ca8-9a2e-15a9eada988e",
    "eventID": "a2c7a357-ee8e-4755-a0d0-aed11ed4253a",
    "eventType": "Rds Data Service",
    "recipientAccountId": "123456789012"
}

Aurora Serverless v1

The following example shows how the preceding example CloudTrail log entry appears for Aurora Serverless v1. For Aurora Serverless v1, all events are management events where the event source is rdsdata.amazonaws.com and the event type is AwsApiCall.

{
    "eventVersion": "1.05",
    "userIdentity": {
        "type": "IAMUser",
        "principalId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
        "arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/johndoe",
        "accountId": "123456789012",
        "accessKeyId": "AKIAI44QH8DHBEXAMPLE",
        "userName": "johndoe"
    },
    "eventTime": "2019-12-18T00:49:34Z",
    "eventSource": "rdsdata.amazonaws.com",
    "eventName": "ExecuteStatement",
    "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
    "sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.0",
    "userAgent": "aws-cli/1.16.102 Python/3.7.2 Windows/10 botocore/1.12.92",
    "requestParameters": {
        "continueAfterTimeout": false,
        "database": "**********",
        "includeResultMetadata": false,
        "parameters": [],
        "resourceArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster:my-database-1",
        "schema": "**********",
        "secretArn": "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-east-1:123456789012:secret:dataapisecret-ABC123",
        "sql": "**********"
    },
    "responseElements": null,
    "requestID": "6ba9a36e-b3aa-4ca8-9a2e-15a9eada988e",
    "eventID": "a2c7a357-ee8e-4755-a0d0-aed11ed4253a",
    "eventType": "AwsApiCall",
    "recipientAccountId": "123456789012"
}