Using update-trail

Important

As of November 22, 2021, AWS CloudTrail changed how trails capture global service events. Now, events created by Amazon CloudFront, AWS Identity and Access Management, and AWS STS are recorded in the Region in which they were created, the US East (N. Virginia) Region, us-east-1. This makes how CloudTrail treats these services consistent with that of other AWS global services. To continue receiving global service events outside of US East (N. Virginia), be sure to convert single-Region trails using global service events outside of US East (N. Virginia) into multi-Region trails. For more information about capturing global service events, see Enabling and disabling global service event logging later in this section.

In contrast, the Event history in the CloudTrail console and the aws cloudtrail lookup-events command will show these events in the AWS Region where they occurred.

You can use the update-trail command to change the configuration settings for a trail. You can also use the add-tags and remove-tags commands to add and remove tags for a trail. You can only update trails from the AWS Region where the trail was created (its Home Region). When using the AWS CLI, remember that your commands run in the AWS Region configured for your profile. If you want to run the commands in a different Region, either change the default Region for your profile, or use the --region parameter with the command.

If you've enabled CloudTrail management events in Amazon Security Lake, you are required to maintain at least one organizational trail that is multi-Region and logs both read and write management events. You cannot update a qualifying trail in such a way that it fails to meet the Security Lake requirement. For example, by changing the trail to single-Region, or by turning off the logging of read or write management events.

Note

If you use the AWS CLI or one of the AWS SDKs to modify a trail, be sure that the trail's bucket policy is up-to-date. In order for your bucket to automatically receive events from a new AWS Region, the policy must contain the full service name, cloudtrail.amazonaws.com. For more information, see Amazon S3 bucket policy for CloudTrail.

Converting a trail that applies to one Region to apply to all Regions

To change an existing trail so that it applies to all Regions, use the --is-multi-region-trail option.

aws cloudtrail update-trail --name my-trail --is-multi-region-trail

To confirm that the trail now applies to all Regions, the IsMultiRegionTrail element in the output shows true.

{
    "IncludeGlobalServiceEvents": true, 
    "Name": "my-trail", 
    "TrailARN": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:us-east-2:123456789012:trail/my-trail", 
    "LogFileValidationEnabled": false, 
    "IsMultiRegionTrail": true, 
    "IsOrganizationTrail": false,
    "S3BucketName": "my-bucket"
}

Converting a multi-Region trail to a single-Region trail

To change an existing multi-Region trail so that it applies only to the Region in which it was created, use the --no-is-multi-region-trail option.

aws cloudtrail update-trail --name my-trail --no-is-multi-region-trail

To confirm that the trail now applies to a single Region, the IsMultiRegionTrail element in the output shows false.

{
    "IncludeGlobalServiceEvents": true, 
    "Name": "my-trail", 
    "TrailARN": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:us-east-2:123456789012:trail/my-trail", 
    "LogFileValidationEnabled": false, 
    "IsMultiRegionTrail": false, 
    "IsOrganizationTrail": false,
    "S3BucketName": "my-bucket"
}

Enabling and disabling global service event logging

To change a trail so that it does not log global service events, use the --no-include-global-service-events option.

aws cloudtrail update-trail --name my-trail --no-include-global-service-events

To confirm that the trail no longer logs global service events, the IncludeGlobalServiceEvents element in the output shows false.

{
    "IncludeGlobalServiceEvents": false, 
    "Name": "my-trail", 
    "TrailARN": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:us-east-2:123456789012:trail/my-trail", 
    "LogFileValidationEnabled": false, 
    "IsMultiRegionTrail": false, 
    "IsOrganizationTrail": false,
    "S3BucketName": "my-bucket"
}

To change a trail so that it logs global service events, use the --include-global-service-events option.

Single-Region trails will no longer receive global service events beginning November 22, 2021, unless the trail already appears in US East (N. Virginia) Region, us-east-1. To continue capturing global service events, update the trail configuration to a multi-Region trail. For example, this command updates a single-Region trail in US East (Ohio), us-east-2, into a multi-Region trail. Replace myExistingSingleRegionTrailWithGSE with the appropriate trail name for your configuration.

aws cloudtrail --region us-east-2 update-trail --name myExistingSingleRegionTrailWithGSE --is-multi-region-trail

Because global service events are only available in US East (N. Virginia) beginning November 22, 2021, you can also create a single-Region trail to subscribe to global service events in the US East (N. Virginia) Region, us-east-1. The following command creates a single-Region trail in us-east-1 to receive CloudFront, IAM, and AWS STS events:

aws cloudtrail --region us-east-1 create-trail --include-global-service-events --name myTrail --s3-bucket-name DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET

Enabling log file validation

To enable log file validation for a trail, use the --enable-log-file-validation option. Digest files are delivered to the Amazon S3 bucket for that trail.

aws cloudtrail update-trail --name my-trail --enable-log-file-validation

To confirm that log file validation is enabled, the LogFileValidationEnabled element in the output shows true.

{
    "IncludeGlobalServiceEvents": true, 
    "Name": "my-trail", 
    "TrailARN": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:us-east-2:123456789012:trail/my-trail", 
    "LogFileValidationEnabled": true, 
    "IsMultiRegionTrail": false, 
    "IsOrganizationTrail": false,
    "S3BucketName": "my-bucket"
}

Disabling log file validation

To disable log file validation for a trail, use the --no-enable-log-file-validation option.

aws cloudtrail update-trail --name my-trail-name --no-enable-log-file-validation

To confirm that log file validation is disabled, the LogFileValidationEnabled element in the output shows false.

{
    "IncludeGlobalServiceEvents": true, 
    "Name": "my-trail", 
    "TrailARN": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:us-east-2:123456789012:trail/my-trail", 
    "LogFileValidationEnabled": false, 
    "IsMultiRegionTrail": false, 
    "IsOrganizationTrail": false,
    "S3BucketName": "my-bucket"
}

To validate log files with the AWS CLI, see Validating CloudTrail log file integrity with the AWS CLI.