Logging Amazon Neptune API Calls with AWS CloudTrail - Amazon Neptune
Neptune Information in CloudTrailUnderstanding Neptune Log File Entries

Logging Amazon Neptune API Calls with AWS CloudTrail

Amazon Neptune is integrated with AWS CloudTrail, a service that provides a record of actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service in Neptune. CloudTrail captures API calls for Neptune as events, including calls from the Neptune console and from code calls to the Neptune APIs.

CloudTrail only logs events for Neptune Management API calls, such as creating an instance or cluster. If you want to audit changes to your graph, you can use audit logs. For more information, see Using Audit Logs with Amazon Neptune Clusters.

Important

Amazon Neptune console, AWS CLI, and API calls are logged as calls made to the Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) API.

If you create a trail, you can enable continuous delivery of CloudTrail events to an Amazon S3 bucket, including events for Neptune. 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 Neptune, 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.

Neptune Information in CloudTrail

CloudTrail is enabled on your AWS account when you create the account. When activity occurs in Amazon Neptune, 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 Neptune, 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 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 collected in CloudTrail logs. For more information, see:

If an action is taken on behalf of your AWS account using the Neptune console, the Neptune command line interface, or the Neptune SDK APIs, AWS CloudTrail logs the action as calls made to the Amazon RDS API. For example, if you use the Neptune console to modify a DB instance or call the AWS CLI modify-db-instance command, the AWS CloudTrail log shows a call to the Amazon RDS API ModifyDBInstance action. For a list of the Neptune API actions that are logged by AWS CloudTrail, see the Neptune API Reference.

Note

AWS CloudTrail only logs events for Neptune Management API calls, such as creating an instance or cluster. If you want to audit changes to your graph, you can use audit logs. For more information, see Using Audit Logs with Amazon Neptune Clusters.

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 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 Neptune 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 are not an ordered stack trace of the public API calls, so they do not appear in any specific order.

The following example shows a CloudTrail log for a user that created a snapshot of a DB instance and then deleted that instance using the Neptune console. The console is identified by the userAgent element. The requested API calls made by the console (CreateDBSnapshot and DeleteDBInstance) are found in the eventName element for each record. Information about the user (Alice) can be found in the userIdentity element. 

{
  Records:[
  {
    "awsRegion":"us-west-2",
    "eventName":"CreateDBSnapshot",
    "eventSource":"",
    "eventTime":"2014-01-14T16:23:49Z",
    "eventVersion":"1.0",
    "sourceIPAddress":"192.0.2.01",
    "userAgent":"AWS Console, aws-sdk-java\/unknown-version Linux\/2.6.18-kaos_fleet-1108-prod.2 Java_HotSpot(TM)_64-Bit_Server_VM\/24.45-b08",
    "userIdentity":
    {
      "accessKeyId":"",
      "accountId":"123456789012",
      "arn":"arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/Alice",
      "principalId":"AIDAI2JXM4FBZZEXAMPLE",
      "sessionContext":
      {
        "attributes":
        {
          "creationDate":"2014-01-14T15:55:59Z",
          "mfaAuthenticated":false
        }
      },
      "type":"IAMUser",
      "userName":"Alice"
    }
  },
  {
    "awsRegion":"us-west-2",
    "eventName":"DeleteDBInstance",
    "eventSource":"",
    "eventTime":"2014-01-14T16:28:27Z",
    "eventVersion":"1.0",
    "sourceIPAddress":"192.0.2.01",
    "userAgent":"AWS Console, aws-sdk-java\/unknown-version Linux\/2.6.18-kaos_fleet-1108-prod.2 Java_HotSpot(TM)_64-Bit_Server_VM\/24.45-b08",
    "userIdentity":
    {
      "accessKeyId":"",
      "accountId":"123456789012",
      "arn":"arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/Alice",
      "principalId":"AIDAI2JXM4FBZZEXAMPLE",
      "sessionContext":
      {
        "attributes":
        {
          "creationDate":"2014-01-14T15:55:59Z",
          "mfaAuthenticated":false
        }
      },
      "type":"IAMUser",
      "userName":"Alice"
    }
  }
  ]
}