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AWS Documentation » Amazon VPC » User Guide » Security » VPC Flow Logs » Flow Log Record Examples
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Flow Log Record Examples

The following are examples of flow log records that capture specific traffic flows.

Accepted and Rejected Traffic

The following are examples of default flow log records that are published to CloudWatch Logs or Amazon S3.

In this example, SSH traffic (destination port 22, TCP protocol) to network interface eni-1235b8ca123456789 in account 123456789010 was allowed. 

2 123456789010 eni-1235b8ca123456789 172.31.16.139 172.31.16.21 20641 22 6 20 4249 1418530010 1418530070 ACCEPT OK

In this example, RDP traffic (destination port 3389, TCP protocol) to network interface eni-1235b8ca123456789 in account 123456789010 was rejected. 

2 123456789010 eni-1235b8ca123456789 172.31.9.69 172.31.9.12 49761 3389 6 20 4249 1418530010 1418530070 REJECT OK

No Data and Skipped Records

The following are examples of default flow log records that are published to CloudWatch Logs or Amazon S3.

In this example, no data was recorded during the capture window.

2 123456789010 eni-1235b8ca123456789 - - - - - - - 1431280876 1431280934 - NODATA

In this example, records were skipped during the capture window.

2 123456789010 eni-11111111aaaaaaaaa - - - - - - - 1431280876 1431280934 - SKIPDATA

Security Group and Network ACL Rules

If you're using flow logs to diagnose overly restrictive or permissive security group rules or network ACL rules, be aware of the statefulness of these resources. Security groups are stateful — this means that responses to allowed traffic are also allowed, even if the rules in your security group do not permit it. Conversely, network ACLs are stateless, therefore responses to allowed traffic are subject to network ACL rules.

For example, you use the ping command from your home computer (IP address is 203.0.113.12) to your instance (the network interface's private IP address is 172.31.16.139). Your security group's inbound rules allow ICMP traffic but the outbound rules do not allow ICMP traffic. Because security groups are stateful, the response ping from your instance is allowed. Your network ACL permits inbound ICMP traffic but does not permit outbound ICMP traffic. Because network ACLs are stateless, the response ping is dropped and does not reach your home computer. In a default flow log, this is displayed as two flow log records:

  • An ACCEPT record for the originating ping that was allowed by both the network ACL and the security group, and therefore was allowed to reach your instance.

  • A REJECT record for the response ping that the network ACL denied. 

2 123456789010 eni-1235b8ca123456789 203.0.113.12 172.31.16.139 0 0 1 4 336 1432917027 1432917142 ACCEPT OK
2 123456789010 eni-1235b8ca123456789 172.31.16.139 203.0.113.12 0 0 1 4 336 1432917094 1432917142 REJECT OK

If your network ACL permits outbound ICMP traffic, the flow log displays two ACCEPT records (one for the originating ping and one for the response ping). If your security group denies inbound ICMP traffic, the flow log displays a single REJECT record, because the traffic was not permitted to reach your instance.

IPv6 Traffic

The following is an example of a default flow log record that is published to CloudWatch Logs or Amazon S3. In the example, SSH traffic (port 22) from IPv6 address 2001:db8:1234:a100:8d6e:3477:df66:f105 to network interface eni-1235b8ca123456789 in account 123456789010 was allowed. 

2 123456789010 eni-1235b8ca123456789 2001:db8:1234:a100:8d6e:3477:df66:f105 2001:db8:1234:a102:3304:8879:34cf:4071 34892 22 6 54 8855 1477913708 1477913820 ACCEPT OK

TCP Flag Sequence

The following is an example of a custom flow log that captures the following fields in the following order. 

version vpc-id subnet-id instance-id interface-id account-id type srcaddr dstaddr srcport dstport pkt-srcaddr pkt-dstaddr protocol bytes packets start end action tcp-flags log-status

Note

Custom flow logs can be published to Amazon S3 only.

The tcp-flags field can help you identify the direction of the traffic, for example, which server initiated the connection. In the following records (starting at 7:47:55 PM and ending at 7:48:53 PM), two connections were started by a client to a server running on port 5001. Two SYN flags (2) were received by server from the client from different source ports on the client (43416 and 43418). For each SYN, a SYN-ACK was sent from the server to the client (18) on the corresponding port. 

3 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-aaaaaaaa012345678 i-01234567890123456 eni-1235b8ca123456789 123456789010 IPv4 52.213.180.42 10.0.0.62 43416 5001 52.213.180.42 10.0.0.62 6 568 8 1566848875 1566848933 ACCEPT 2 OK
3 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-aaaaaaaa012345678 i-01234567890123456 eni-1235b8ca123456789 123456789010 IPv4 10.0.0.62 52.213.180.42 5001 43416 10.0.0.62 52.213.180.42 6 376 7 1566848875 1566848933 ACCEPT 18 OK
3 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-aaaaaaaa012345678 i-01234567890123456 eni-1235b8ca123456789 123456789010 IPv4 52.213.180.42 10.0.0.62 43418 5001 52.213.180.42 10.0.0.62 6 100701 70 1566848875 1566848933 ACCEPT 2 OK
3 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-aaaaaaaa012345678 i-01234567890123456 eni-1235b8ca123456789 123456789010 IPv4 10.0.0.62 52.213.180.42 5001 43418 10.0.0.62 52.213.180.42 6 632 12 1566848875 1566848933 ACCEPT 18 OK

In the second capture window, one of the connections that was established during the previous flow is now closed. The client sent a FIN flag (1) to the server for the connection on port 43418. The server sent a FIN to the client on port 43418. 

3 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-aaaaaaaa012345678 i-01234567890123456 eni-1235b8ca123456789 123456789010 IPv4 10.0.0.62 52.213.180.42 5001 43418 10.0.0.62 52.213.180.42 6 63388 1219 1566848933 1566849113 ACCEPT 1 OK
3 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-aaaaaaaa012345678 i-01234567890123456 eni-1235b8ca123456789 123456789010 IPv4 52.213.180.42 10.0.0.62 43418 5001 52.213.180.42 10.0.0.62 6 23294588 15774 1566848933 1566849113 ACCEPT 1 OK

For short connections (for example, a few seconds) that are opened and closed within a single capture window, the flags might be set on the same line in the flow log record for traffic flow in the same direction. In the following example, the connection is established and finished within the same capture window. In the first line, the TCP flag value is 3, which indicates that there was a SYN and a FIN message sent from the client to the server. In the second line, the TCP flag value is 19, which indicates that there was SYN-ACK and a FIN message sent from the server to the client. 

3 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-aaaaaaaa012345678 i-01234567890123456 eni-1235b8ca123456789 123456789010 IPv4 52.213.180.42 10.0.0.62 43638 5001 52.213.180.42 10.0.0.62 6 1260 17 1566933133 1566933193 ACCEPT 3 OK
3 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-aaaaaaaa012345678 i-01234567890123456 eni-1235b8ca123456789 123456789010 IPv4 10.0.0.62 52.213.180.42 5001 43638  10.0.0.62 52.213.180.42 6 967 14 1566933133 1566933193 ACCEPT 19 OK

Traffic Through a NAT Gateway

In this example, an instance in a private subnet accesses the internet through a NAT gateway that's in a public subnet.

Accessing the internet through a NAT gateway

The following custom flow log for the NAT gateway network interface captures the following fields in the following order. 

instance-id interface-id srcaddr dstaddr pkt-srcaddr pkt-dstaddr

Note

Custom flow logs can be published to Amazon S3 only.

The flow log shows the flow of traffic from the instance IP address (10.0.1.5) through the NAT gateway network interface to a host on the internet (203.0.113.5). The NAT gateway network interface is a requester-managed network interface, therefore the flow log record displays a '-' symbol for the instance-id field. The following line shows traffic from the source instance to the NAT gateway network interface. The values for the dstaddr and pkt-dstaddr fields are different. The dstaddr field displays the private IP address of the NAT gateway network interface, and the pkt-dstaddr field displays the final destination IP address of the host on the internet. 

- eni-1235b8ca123456789 10.0.1.5 10.0.0.220 10.0.1.5 203.0.113.5

The next two lines show the traffic from the NAT gateway network interface to the target host on the internet, and the response traffic from the host to the NAT gateway network interface. 

- eni-1235b8ca123456789 10.0.0.220 203.0.113.5 10.0.0.220 203.0.113.5
- eni-1235b8ca123456789 203.0.113.5 10.0.0.220 203.0.113.5 10.0.0.220

The following line shows the response traffic from the NAT gateway network interface to the source instance. The values for the srcaddr and pkt-srcaddr fields are different. The srcaddr field displays the private IP address of the NAT gateway network interface, and the pkt-srcaddr field displays the IP address of the host on the internet. 

- eni-1235b8ca123456789 10.0.0.220 10.0.1.5 203.0.113.5 10.0.1.5

You create another custom flow log using the same set of fields as above. You create the flow log for the network interface for the instance in the private subnet. In this case, the instance-id field returns the ID of the instance that's associated with the network interface, and there is no difference between the dstaddr and pkt-dstaddr fields and the srcaddr and pkt-srcaddr fields. Unlike the network interface for the NAT gateway, this network interface is not an intermediate network interface for traffic. 

i-01234567890123456 eni-1111aaaa2222bbbb3 10.0.1.5 203.0.113.5 10.0.1.5 203.0.113.5 #Traffic from the source instance to host on the internet
i-01234567890123456 eni-1111aaaa2222bbbb3 203.0.113.5 10.0.1.5 203.0.113.5 10.0.1.5 #Response traffic from host on the internet to the source instance

Traffic Through a Transit Gateway

In this example, a client in VPC A connects to a web server in VPC B through a transit gateway. The client and server are in different Availability Zones. Therefore, traffic arrives at the server in VPC B using eni-11111111111111111 and leaves VPC B using eni-22222222222222222.

Traffic through a transit gateway

You create a custom flow log for VPC B with the following format.

version interface-id account-id vpc-id subnet-id instance-id srcaddr dstaddr srcport dstport protocol tcp-flags type pkt-srcaddr pkt-dstaddr action log-status

Note

Custom flow logs can be published to Amazon S3 only.

The following lines from the flow log records demonstrate the flow of traffic on the network interface for the web server. The first line is the request traffic from the client, and the last line is the response traffic from the web server. 

3 eni-33333333333333333 123456789010 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-22222222bbbbbbbbb i-01234567890123456 10.20.33.164 10.40.2.236 39812 80 6 3 IPv4 10.20.33.164 10.40.2.236 ACCEPT OK
...
3 eni-33333333333333333 123456789010 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-22222222bbbbbbbbb i-01234567890123456 10.40.2.236 10.20.33.164 80 39812 6 19 IPv4 10.40.2.236 10.20.33.164 ACCEPT OK

The following line is the request traffic on eni-11111111111111111, a requester-managed network interface for the transit gateway in subnet subnet-11111111aaaaaaaaa. The flow log record therefore displays a '-' symbol for the instance-id field. The srcaddr field displays the private IP address of the transit gateway network interface, and the pkt-srcaddr field displays the source IP address of the client in VPC A. 

3 eni-11111111111111111 123456789010 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-11111111aaaaaaaaa - 10.40.1.175 10.40.2.236 39812 80 6 3 IPv4 10.20.33.164 10.40.2.236 ACCEPT OK

The following line is the response traffic on eni-22222222222222222, a requester-managed network interface for the transit gateway in subnet subnet-22222222bbbbbbbbb. The dstaddr field displays the private IP address of the transit gateway network interface, and the pkt-dstaddr field displays the IP address of the client in VPC A. 

3 eni-22222222222222222 123456789010 vpc-abcdefab012345678 subnet-22222222bbbbbbbbb - 10.40.2.236 10.40.2.31 80 39812 6 19 IPv4 10.40.2.236 10.20.33.164 ACCEPT OK