Logging Web ACL traffic information

Warning

Deprecation notice: AWS WAF Classic support will end on September 30, 2025.

Note

This is AWS WAF Classic documentation. You should only use this version if you created AWS WAF resources, like rules and web ACLs, in AWS WAF prior to November 2019, and you have not migrated them over to the latest version yet. To migrate your resources, see Migrating your AWS WAF Classic resources to AWS WAF.

For the latest version of AWS WAF, see AWS WAF.

Note

You cannot use Amazon Security Lake to collect AWS WAF Classic data.

You can enable logging to get detailed information about traffic that is analyzed by your web ACL. Information that is contained in the logs include the time that AWS WAF Classic received the request from your AWS resource, detailed information about the request, and the action for the rule that each request matched.

To get started, you set up an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose. As part of that process, you choose a destination for storing your logs. Next, you choose the web ACL that you want to enable logging for. After you enable logging, AWS WAF delivers logs through the firehose to your storage destination.

For information about how to create an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose and review your stored logs, see What Is Amazon Data Firehose? To understand the permissions required for your Kinesis Data Firehose configuration, see Controlling Access with Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose.

You must have the following permissions to successfully enable logging:

iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole
firehose:ListDeliveryStreams
waf:PutLoggingConfiguration

For more information about service-linked roles and the iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole permission, see Using service-linked roles for AWS WAF Classic.

To enable logging for a web ACL

Create an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose using a name starting with the prefix "aws-waf-logs-" For example, aws-waf-logs-us-east-2-analytics. Create the data firehose with a PUT source and in the region that you are operating. If you are capturing logs for Amazon CloudFront, create the firehose in US East (N. Virginia). For more information, see Creating an Amazon Data Firehose Delivery Stream.

Important
Do not choose Kinesis stream as your source.
One AWS WAF Classic log is equivalent to one Firehose record. If you typically receive 10,000 requests per second and you enable full logs, you should have a 10,000 records per second setting in Firehose. If you don't configure Firehose correctly, AWS WAF Classic won't record all logs. For more information, see Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose Quotas.
Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the AWS WAF console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/wafv2/.

If you see Switch to AWS WAF Classic in the navigation pane, select it.
In the navigation pane, choose Web ACLs.
Choose the name of the web ACL that you want to enable logging for. This opens a page with the web ACL's details in the right pane.
On the Logging tab, choose Enable logging.
Choose the Kinesis Data Firehose that you created in the first step. You must choose a firehose that begins with "aws-waf-logs-."
(Optional) If you don't want certain fields and their values included in the logs, redact those fields. Choose the field to redact, and then choose Add. Repeat as necessary to redact additional fields. The redacted fields appear as REDACTED in the logs. For example, if you redact the cookie field, the cookie field in the logs will be REDACTED.
Choose Enable logging.

Note
When you successfully enable logging, AWS WAF Classic will create a service linked role with the necessary permissions to write logs to the Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose. For more information, see Using service-linked roles for AWS WAF Classic.

To disable logging for a web ACL

In the navigation pane, choose Web ACLs.
Choose the name of the web ACL that you want to disable logging for. This opens a page with the web ACL's details in the right pane.
On the Logging tab, choose Disable logging.
In the dialog box, choose Disable logging.

Example log



{
			
	"timestamp":1533689070589,                            
	"formatVersion":1,                                   
	"webaclId":"385cb038-3a6f-4f2f-ac64-09ab912af590",  
	"terminatingRuleId":"Default_Action",                
	"terminatingRuleType":"REGULAR",                     
	"action":"ALLOW",                                    
	"httpSourceName":"CF",                               
	"httpSourceId":"i-123",                             
	"ruleGroupList":[                                    
                         {  
                          "ruleGroupId":"41f4eb08-4e1b-2985-92b5-e8abf434fad3",
                          "terminatingRule":null,    
                          "nonTerminatingMatchingRules":[                  
                                                         {"action" : "COUNT",   
                                                         "ruleId" : "4659b169-2083-4a91-bbd4-08851a9aaf74"}       
                                                        ],
                          "excludedRules":              [
                                                         {"exclusionType" : "EXCLUDED_AS_COUNT",   
                                                          "ruleId" : "5432a230-0113-5b83-bbb2-89375c5bfa98"}
                                                        ]                          
                         }
                        ],
     
	"rateBasedRuleList":[                                 
                             {  
                              "rateBasedRuleId":"7c968ef6-32ec-4fee-96cc-51198e412e7f",   
                              "limitKey":"IP",
                              "maxRateAllowed":100                                                                                           
                             },
                             {  
                              "rateBasedRuleId":"462b169-2083-4a93-bbd4-08851a9aaf30",
                              "limitKey":"IP",
                              "maxRateAllowed":100
                              }
                              ],
			
	"nonTerminatingMatchingRules":[                                
                                       {"action" : "COUNT",                                                           
                                       "ruleId" : "4659b181-2011-4a91-bbd4-08851a9aaf52"}    
                                      ],
                                  
	"httpRequest":{                                                             
                       "clientIp":"192.10.23.23",                                           
                       "country":"US",                                                         
                       "headers":[                                                                 
                                   {  
                                    "name":"Host",
                                    "value":"127.0.0.1:1989"
                                   },
                                   {  
                                    "name":"User-Agent",
                                    "value":"curl/7.51.2"
                                   },
                                   {  
                                    "name":"Accept",
                                    "value":"*/*"
                                   }
                                 ],
                      "uri":"REDACTED",                                                
                      "args":"usernam=abc",                                         
                      "httpVersion":"HTTP/1.1",
                      "httpMethod":"GET",
                      "requestId":"cloud front Request id"                    
                      }
}

Following is an explanation of each item listed in these logs:

timestamp: The timestamp in milliseconds.
formatVersion: The format version for the log.
webaclId: The GUID of the web ACL.
terminatingRuleId: The ID of the rule that terminated the request. If nothing terminates the request, the value is Default_Action.
terminatingRuleType: The type of rule that terminated the request. Possible values: RATE_BASED, REGULAR, and GROUP.
action: The action. Possible values for a terminating rule: ALLOW and BLOCK. COUNT is not a valid value for a terminating rule.
terminatingRuleMatchDetails: Detailed information about the terminating rule that matched the request. A terminating rule has an action that ends the inspection process against a web request. Possible actions for a terminating rule are ALLOW and BLOCK. This is only populated for SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) match rule statements. As with all rule statements that inspect for more than one thing, AWS WAF applies the action on the first match and stops inspecting the web request. A web request with a terminating action could contain other threats, in addition to the one reported in the log.
httpSourceName: The source of the request. Possible values: CF (if the source is Amazon CloudFront), APIGW (if the source is Amazon API Gateway), and ALB (if the source is an Application Load Balancer).
httpSourceId: The source ID. This field shows the ID of the associated Amazon CloudFront distribution, the REST API for API Gateway, or the name for an Application Load Balancer.
ruleGroupList: The list of rule groups that acted on this request. In the preceding code example, there is only one.
ruleGroupId: The ID of the rule group. If the rule blocked the request, the ID for ruleGroupID is the same as the ID for terminatingRuleId.
terminatingRule: The rule within the rule group that terminated the request. If this is a non-null value, it also contains a ruleid and action. In this case, the action is always BLOCK.
nonTerminatingMatchingRules: The list of rules in the rule group that match the request. These are always COUNT rules (non-terminating rules that match).
action (nonTerminatingMatchingRules group): This is always COUNT (non-terminating rules that match).
ruleId (nonTerminatingMatchingRules group): The ID of the rule within the rule group that matches the request and was non-terminating. That is, COUNT rules.
excludedRules: The list of rules in the rule group that you have excluded. The action for these rules is set to COUNT.
exclusionType (excludedRules group): A type that indicates that the excluded rule has the action COUNT.
ruleId (excludedRules group): The ID of the rule within the rule group that is excluded.
rateBasedRuleList: The list of rate-based rules that acted on the request.
rateBasedRuleId: The ID of the rate-based rule that acted on the request. If this has terminated the request, the ID for rateBasedRuleId is the same as the ID for terminatingRuleId.
limitKey: The field that AWS WAF uses to determine if requests are likely arriving from a single source and thus subject to rate monitoring. Possible value: IP.
maxRateAllowed: The maximum number of requests, which have an identical value in the field that is specified by limitKey, allowed in a five-minute period. If the number of requests exceeds the maxRateAllowed and the other predicates specified in the rule are also met, AWS WAF triggers the action that is specified for this rule.
httpRequest: The metadata about the request.
clientIp: The IP address of the client sending the request.
country: The source country of the request. If AWS WAF is unable to determine the country of origin, it sets this field to -.
headers: The list of headers.
uri: The URI of the request. The preceding code example demonstrates what the value would be if this field had been redacted.
args: The query string.
httpVersion: The HTTP version.
httpMethod: The HTTP method in the request.
requestId: The ID of the request.

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Document Conventions

Tutorial: Creating a AWS Firewall Managerpolicy with hierarchical rules

Listing IP addresses blocked by rate-based rules

Logging Web ACL traffic information

Warning

Note

Note

To enable logging for a web ACL

Important

Note

To disable logging for a web ACL

Example log