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AWS CloudTrail
User Guide (Version 1.0)

AWS Documentation » AWS CloudTrail » User Guide » Getting Started with CloudTrail » Viewing Events with CloudTrail Event History » Viewing CloudTrail Events with the AWS CLI

Viewing CloudTrail Events with the AWS CLI

You can look up CloudTrail events for the last 90 days using the aws cloudtrail lookup-events command. lookup-events has the following options:

  • --max-results

  • --start-time

  • --lookup-attributes

  • --next-token

  • --generate-cli-skeleton

  • --cli-input-json

These options are explained in this topic. For general information on using the AWS Command Line Interface, see the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

Prerequisites

Note

The CloudTrail AWS CLI commands are case-sensitive.

Getting command line help

To see the command line help for lookup-events, type the following command: 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events help

Looking up events

To see the ten latest events, type the following command:

aws cloudtrail lookup-events

A returned event looks similar to the following fictitious example, which has been formatted for readability: 

{
    "NextToken": "kbOt5LlZe++mErCebpy2TgaMgmDvF1kYGFcH64JSjIbZFjsuvrSqg66b5YGssKutDYIyII4lrP4IDbeQdiObkp9YAlju3oXd12juy3CIZW8=", 
    "Events": [
        {
            "EventId": "0ebbaee4-6e67-431d-8225-ba0d81df5972", 
            "Username": "root", 
            "EventTime": 1424476529.0, 
            "CloudTrailEvent": "{
                  \"eventVersion\":\"1.02\",
                  \"userIdentity\":{
                        \"type\":\"Root\",
                        \"principalId\":\"111122223333\",
                        \"arn\":\"arn:aws:iam::111122223333:root\",
                        \"accountId\":\"111122223333\"},
                  \"eventTime\":\"2015-02-20T23:55:29Z\",
                  \"eventSource\":\"signin.amazonaws.com\",
                  \"eventName\":\"ConsoleLogin\",
                  \"awsRegion\":\"us-east-2\",
                  \"sourceIPAddress\":\"203.0.113.4\",
                  \"userAgent\":\"Mozilla/5.0\",
                  \"requestParameters\":null,
                  \"responseElements\":{\"ConsoleLogin\":\"Success\"},
                  \"additionalEventData\":{
                         \"MobileVersion\":\"No\",
                         \"LoginTo\":\"https://console.aws.amazon.com/console/home",
                         \"MFAUsed\":\"No\"},
                  \"eventID\":\"0ebbaee4-6e67-431d-8225-ba0d81df5972\",
                  \"eventType\":\"AwsApiCall\",
                  \"recipientAccountId\":\"111122223333\"}", 
            "EventName": "ConsoleLogin", 
            "Resources": []
        }
    ]
}

For an explanation of the lookup-related fields in the output, see the section Lookup Output Fields later in this document. For an explanation of the fields in the CloudTrail event, see CloudTrail Record Contents.

Specifying the number of events to return

To specify the number of events to return, type the following command:

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --max-results <integer>

The default value for <integer> is 10. Possible values are 1 through 50. The following example returns one result. 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --max-results 1

Looking up events by time range

Events from the past 90 days are available for lookup. To specify a time range, type the following command: 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --start-time <timestamp> --end-time <timestamp>

--start-time <timestamp> specifies that only events that occur after or at the specified time are returned. If the specified start time is after the specified end time, an error is returned.

--end-time <timestamp> specifies that only events that occur before or at the specified time are returned. If the specified end time is before the specified start time, an error is returned.

The default start time is the earliest date that data is available within the last 90 days.The default end time is the time of the event that occurred closest to the current time.

Valid <timestamp> formats

The --start-time and --end-time attributes take UNIX time values or valid equivalents.

The following are examples of valid formats. Date, month, and year values can be separated by hyphens or forward slashes. Double quotes must be used if spaces are present. 

1422317782
1422317782.0
01-27-2015
01-27-2015,01:16PM
"01-27-2015, 01:16 PM"
"01/27/2015, 13:16"
2015-01-27
"2015-01-27, 01:16 PM"

Looking up events by attribute

To filter by an attribute, type the following command:

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=<attribute>,AttributeValue=<string>

You can specify only one attribute key/value pair for each lookup-events command. The following are values for AttributeKey. Value names are case sensitive.

  • EventId

  • EventName

  • EventSource

  • ResourceName

  • ResourceType

  • Username

Attribute lookup examples

The following example command returns the event for the specified CloudTrail EventId. 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventId,AttributeValue=b5cc8c40-12ba-4d08-a8d9-2bceb9a3e002

The following example command returns events in which the value of EventName is RunInstances. 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventName,AttributeValue=RunInstances

The following example command returns events in which the value of EventSource is iam.amazonaws.com. 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventSource,AttributeValue=iam.amazonaws.com

The following example command returns events in which the value of ResourceName is CloudTrail_CloudWatchLogs_Role. 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=ResourceName,AttributeValue=CloudTrail_CloudWatchLogs_Role

The following example command returns events in which the value of ResourceType is AWS::S3::Bucket. 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=ResourceType,AttributeValue=AWS::S3::Bucket

The following example command returns events in which the value of Username is root. 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=Username,AttributeValue=root

Specifying the next page of results

To get the next page of results from a lookup-events command, type the following command: 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events <same parameters as previous command> --next-token=<token>

where the value for <token> is taken from the first field of the output of the previous command.

When you use --next-token in a command, you must use the same parameters as in the previous command. For example, suppose you run the following command: 

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=Username,AttributeValue=root

To get the next page of results, your next command would look like this:

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=Username,AttributeValue=root --next-token=kbOt5LlZe++mErCebpy2TgaMgmDvF1kYGFcH64JSjIbZFjsuvrSqg66b5YGssKutDYIyII4lrP4IDbeQdiObkp9YAlju3oXd12juy3CIZW8=

Getting JSON input from a file

The AWS CLI for some AWS services has two parameters, --generate-cli-skeleton and --cli-input-json, that you can use to generate a JSON template which you can modify and use as input to the --cli-input-json parameter. This section describes how to use these parameters with aws cloudtrail lookup-events. For more general information, see Generate CLI Skeleton and CLI Input JSON Parameters.

To look up CloudTrail events by getting JSON input from a file

  1. Create an input template for use with lookup-events by redirecting the --generate-cli-skeleton output to a file, as in the following example. 

    aws cloudtrail lookup-events --generate-cli-skeleton > LookupEvents.txt

    The template file generated (in this case, LookupEvents.txt) looks like this: 

    
{
    "LookupAttributes": [
        {
            "AttributeKey": "",
            "AttributeValue": ""
        }
    ],
    "StartTime": null,
    "EndTime": null,
    "MaxResults": 0,
    "NextToken": ""
}

  2. Use a text editor to modify the JSON as needed. The JSON input must contain only values that are specified.

    Important

    All empty or null values must be removed from the template before you can use it.

    The following example specifies a time range and maximum number of results to return. 

    
{
    "StartTime": "2015-01-01",
    "EndTime": "2015-01-27",
    "MaxResults": 2
}

  3. To use the edited file as input, use the syntax --cli-input-json file://<filename>, as in the following example: 

    aws cloudtrail lookup-events --cli-input-json file://LookupEvents.txt

Note

You can use other arguments on the same command line as --cli-input-json .

Lookup Output Fields

Events

A list of lookup events based on the lookup attribute and time range that were specified. The events list is sorted by time, with the latest event listed first. Each entry contains information about the lookup request and includes a string representation of the CloudTrail event that was retrieved.

The following entries describe the fields in each lookup event.

CloudTrailEvent

A JSON string that contains an object representation of the event returned. For information about each of the elements returned, see Record Body Contents.

EventId

A string that contains the GUID of the event returned.

EventName

A string that contains the name of the event returned.

EventSource

The AWS service that the request was made to.

EventTime

The date and time, in UNIX time format, of the event.

Resources

A list of resources referenced by the event that was returned. Each resource entry specifies a resource type and a resource name.

ResourceName

A string that contains the name of the resource referenced by the event.

ResourceType

A string that contains the type of a resource referenced by the event. When the resource type cannot be determined, null is returned.

Username

A string that contains the user name of the account for the event returned.

NextToken

A string to get the next page of results from a previous lookup-events command. To use the token, the parameters must be the same as those in the original command. If no NextToken entry appears in the output, there are no more results to return.