Logging Application Discovery Service API calls with AWS CloudTrail - AWS Application Discovery Service
Application Discovery Service information in CloudTrailUnderstanding Application Discovery Service log file entries

Logging Application Discovery Service API calls with AWS CloudTrail

AWS Application Discovery Service is integrated with AWS CloudTrail, a service that provides a record of actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service in Application Discovery Service. You can use CloudTrail to log, continuously monitor, and retain account activity for troubleshooting and auditing purposes. CloudTrail provides an event history of your AWS account activity, including actions taken through the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, and command line tools.

CloudTrail captures all API calls for Application Discovery Service as events. The calls captured include calls from the Application Discovery Service console and code calls to the Application Discovery Service API operations.

If you create a trail, you can enable continuous delivery of CloudTrail events to an Amazon S3 bucket, including events for Application Discovery Service. If you don't configure a trail, you can still view the most recent events in the CloudTrail console in Event history. Using the information collected by CloudTrail, you can determine the request that was made to Application Discovery Service, the IP address from which the request was made, who made the request, when it was made, and additional details.

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

Application Discovery Service information in CloudTrail

CloudTrail is enabled on your AWS account when you create the account. When activity occurs in Application Discovery Service, that activity is recorded in a CloudTrail event along with other AWS service events in Event history. You can view, search, and download recent events in your AWS account. For more information, see Viewing Events with CloudTrail Event History.

For an ongoing record of events in your AWS account, including events for Application Discovery Service, 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 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 that's collected in CloudTrail logs. For more information, see the following:

All Application Discovery Service actions are logged by CloudTrail and are documented in the Application Discovery Service API Reference. For example, calls to the CreateTags, DescribeTags, and GetDiscoverySummary actions 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 AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) 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.

Understanding Application Discovery Service 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.

The following example shows a CloudTrail log entry that demonstrates the DescribeTags action.

{
    "eventVersion": "1.05",
    "userIdentity": {
        "type": "AssumedRole",
        "principalId": "AROAJBHMC4H6EKEXAMPLE:sample-user",
        "arn": "arn:aws:sts::444455556666:assumed-role/ReadOnly/sample-user",
        "accountId": "123456789012",
        "accessKeyId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
        "sessionContext": {
            "sessionIssuer": {
                "type": "Role",
                "principalId": "AIDAJQABLZS4A3QDU576Q",
                "arn": "arn:aws:iam::444455556666:role/ReadOnly",
                "accountId": "444455556666",
                "userName": "sampleAdmin"
            },
            "webIdFederationData": {},
            "attributes": {
                "mfaAuthenticated": "false",
                "creationDate": "2020-05-05T15:19:03Z"
            }
        }
    },
    "eventTime": "2020-05-05T17:02:40Z",
    "eventSource": "discovery.amazonaws.com",
    "eventName": "DescribeTags",
    "awsRegion": "us-west-2",
    "sourceIPAddress": "20.22.33.44",
    "userAgent": "Coral/Netty4",
    "requestParameters": {
        "maxResults": 0,
        "filters": [
            {
                "values": [
                    "d-server-0315rfdjreyqsq"
                ],
                "name": "configurationId"
            }
        ]
    },
    "responseElements": null,
    "requestID": "mgh-console-eb1cf315-e2b4-4696-93e5-b3a3b9346b4b",
    "eventID": "7b32b778-91c9-4c75-9cb0-6c852791b2eb",
    "eventType": "AwsApiCall",
    "recipientAccountId": "111122223333"
}