CloudTrail log event reference - AWS CloudTrail

CloudTrail log event reference

A CloudTrail log is a record in JSON format. The log contains information about requests for resources in your account, such as who made the request, the services used, the actions performed, and parameters for the action. The event data is enclosed in a Records array.

The following example shows a single log record of an event. In this event, an IAM user named Mary_Major ran the aws cloudtrail start-logging command to call the CloudTrail StartLogging action to start the logging process on a trail named myTrail.

{
    "eventVersion": "1.09",
    "userIdentity": {
        "type": "IAMUser",
        "principalId": "EXAMPLE6E4XEGITWATV6R",
        "arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/Mary_Major",
        "accountId": "123456789012",
        "accessKeyId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
        "userName": "Mary_Major",
        "sessionContext": {
            "attributes": {
                "creationDate": "2023-07-19T21:11:57Z",
                "mfaAuthenticated": "false"
            }
        }
    },
    "eventTime": "2023-07-19T21:33:41Z",
    "eventSource": "cloudtrail.amazonaws.com",
    "eventName": "StartLogging",
    "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
    "sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.0",
    "userAgent": "aws-cli/2.13.5 Python/3.11.4 Linux/4.14.255-314-253.539.amzn2.x86_64 exec-env/CloudShell exe/x86_64.amzn.2 prompt/off command/cloudtrail.start-logging",
    "requestParameters": {
        "name": "myTrail"
    },
    "responseElements": null,
    "requestID": "9d478fc1-4f10-490f-a26b-EXAMPLE0e932",
    "eventID": "eae87c48-d421-4626-94f5-EXAMPLEac994",
    "readOnly": false,
    "eventType": "AwsApiCall",
    "managementEvent": true,
    "recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
    "eventCategory": "Management",
    "tlsDetails": {
        "tlsVersion": "TLSv1.2",
        "cipherSuite": "ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256",
        "clientProvidedHostHeader": "cloudtrail.us-east-1.amazonaws.com"
    },
    "sessionCredentialFromConsole": "true"
}

In this next example, an IAM user user named Paulo_Santos ran the aws cloudtrail start-event-data-store-ingestion command to call the StartEventDataStoreIngestion action to start ingestion on an event data store.

{
    "eventVersion": "1.09",
    "userIdentity": {
        "type": "IAMUser",
        "principalId": "EXAMPLEPHCNW5EQV7NA54",
        "arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/Paulo_Santos",
        "accountId": "123456789012",
        "accessKeyId": "(AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
        "userName": "Paulo_Santos",
        "sessionContext": {
            "attributes": {
                "creationDate": "2023-07-21T21:55:30Z",
                "mfaAuthenticated": "false"
            }
        }
    },
    "eventTime": "2023-07-21T21:57:28Z",
    "eventSource": "cloudtrail.amazonaws.com",
    "eventName": "StartEventDataStoreIngestion",
    "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
    "sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.0",
    "userAgent": "aws-cli/2.13.1 Python/3.11.4 Linux/4.14.255-314-253.539.amzn2.x86_64 exec-env/CloudShell exe/x86_64.amzn.2 prompt/off command/cloudtrail.start-event-data-store-ingestion",
    "requestParameters": {
        "eventDataStore": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:us-east-1:123456789012:eventdatastore/2a8f2138-0caa-46c8-a194-EXAMPLE87d41"
    },
    "responseElements": null,
    "requestID": "f62a3494-ba4e-49ee-8e27-EXAMPLE4253f",
    "eventID": "d97ca7e2-04fe-45b4-882d-EXAMPLEa9b2c",
    "readOnly": false,
    "eventType": "AwsApiCall",
    "managementEvent": true,
    "recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
    "eventCategory": "Management",
    "tlsDetails": {
        "tlsVersion": "TLSv1.2",
        "cipherSuite": "ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256",
        "clientProvidedHostHeader": "cloudtrail.us-east-1.amazonaws.com"
    },
    "sessionCredentialFromConsole": "true"
}

There are two events logged to show unusual activity in CloudTrail Insights: a start event and an end event. The following example shows a single log record of a starting Insights event that occurred when the Application Auto Scaling API CompleteLifecycleAction was called an unusual number of times. For Insights events, the value of eventCategory is Insight. An insightDetails block identifies the event state, source, name, Insights type, and context, including statistics and attributions. For more information about the insightDetails block, see CloudTrail Insights insightDetails element.

{
        "eventVersion": "1.08",
        "eventTime": "2023-07-10T01:42:00Z",
        "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
        "eventID": "55ed45c5-0b0c-4228-9fe5-EXAMPLEc3f4d",
        "eventType": "AwsCloudTrailInsight",
        "recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
        "sharedEventID": "979c82fe-14d4-4e4c-aa01-EXAMPLE3acee",
        "insightDetails": {
            "state": "Start",
            "eventSource": "autoscaling.amazonaws.com",
            "eventName": "CompleteLifecycleAction",
            "insightType": "ApiCallRateInsight",
            "insightContext": {
                "statistics": {
                    "baseline": {
                        "average": 9.82222E-5
                    },
                    "insight": {
                        "average": 5.0
                    },
                    "insightDuration": 1,
                    "baselineDuration": 10181
                },
                "attributions": [{
                    "attribute": "userIdentityArn",
                    "insight": [{
                        "value": "arn:aws:sts::123456789012:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole1",
                        "average": 5.0
                    }, {
                        "value": "arn:aws:sts::123456789012:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole2",
                        "average": 5.0
                    }, {
                        "value": "arn:aws:sts::123456789012:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole3",
                        "average": 5.0
                    }],
                    "baseline": [{
                        "value": "arn:aws:sts::123456789012:assumed-role/CodeDeployRole1",
                        "average": 9.82222E-5
                    }]
                }, {
                    "attribute": "userAgent",
                    "insight": [{
                        "value": "codedeploy.amazonaws.com",
                        "average": 5.0
                    }],
                    "baseline": [{
                        "value": "codedeploy.amazonaws.com",
                        "average": 9.82222E-5
                    }]
                }, {
                    "attribute": "errorCode",
                    "insight": [{
                        "value": "null",
                        "average": 5.0
                    }],
                    "baseline": [{
                        "value": "null",
                        "average": 9.82222E-5
                    }]
                }]
            }
        },
        "eventCategory": "Insight"
    }

The following topics list the data fields that CloudTrail captures for each AWS API call and sign-in event.

Topics