How to find out who created aws cloudwatch alarm/metrics? - amazon-web-services

How do I find out what IAM user created certain metrics and alarms?
I tried CLI commands: describe-alarms and list-metrics and they don't seem to provide this information nor when looking at the configuration for the alarms and metrics in the AWS console.

While users call APIs to create resources in AWS, those resources are associated with the AWS Account rather than a user. As long as a user has permission to create resources in the account, the resources will be created/viewed/deleted.
However, you can use AWS CloudTrail to retrieve information about the API calls themselves:
AWS CloudTrail is an AWS service that helps you enable governance, compliance, and operational and risk auditing of your AWS account. Actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service are recorded as events in CloudTrail. Events include actions taken in the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface, and AWS SDKs and APIs.

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AWS: how to see the services a particular user account has been using

I'm the administrator of an AWS account that has 4 users. One of the users is racking up higher-than-expected costs.
I checked the Cost Explorer, but could not seem to configure it to view individual users.
As an administrator in AWS, how do I see all of the services this particular user has been using during a given period of time (e.g. the last 12 months)?
Thanks!
AWS resources are associated with an AWS Account, not a specific user.
If a user has the necessary permissions to create resources (eg an Amazon EC2 instance), then the instance is launched in the AWS Account, but there is no link back to the user that requested the resource.
You can, however, use AWS CloudTrail:
AWS CloudTrail is an AWS service that helps you enable operational and risk auditing, governance, and compliance of your AWS account. Actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service are recorded as events in CloudTrail. Events include actions taken in the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface, and AWS SDKs and APIs.
It will show all API calls made by the user, including the Action ('launch an EC2 instance'), their IP address, timestamp, etc. Operations in the AWS management console will also be shown, since it makes API calls on behalf of the user.
CloudTrail keeps a history of the past 90 days, but you can create specific 'Trails' that retain data permanently. If you have not done this, then it will not be possible to see what they did prior to 90 days ago.

How to audit changes to the AWS account

I wanted to know if there was a way to track alerts or audit anything that happens with the AWS account like who changed what and why. I did find this https://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/audit-logs.html where they use a comand line for enabling audit logs on an existing domain: aws opensearch update-domain-config --domain-name my-domain --log-publishing-options "AUDIT_LOGS={CloudWatchLogsLogGroupArn=arn:aws:logs:us-east-1:123456789012:log-group:my-log-group,Enabled=true}" but this is in regard to Amazon OpenSearch Service which I believe is only free for 12 months if you haven't used already. AWS Audit Manager. I am aware there are services that can do this but require a fee and I wanted to know if there were any free options
From the AWS documentation:
With AWS CloudTrail, you can monitor your AWS deployments in the cloud by getting a history of AWS API calls for your account, including API calls made by using the AWS Management Console, the AWS SDKs, the command line tools, and higher-level AWS services. You can also identify which users and accounts called AWS APIs for services that support CloudTrail, the source IP address from which the calls were made, and when the calls occurred. You can integrate CloudTrail into applications using the API, automate trail creation for your organization, check the status of your trails, and control how administrators turn CloudTrail logging on and off.
AWS Config provides a detailed view of the resources associated with your AWS account, including how they are configured, how they are related to one another, and how the configurations and their relationships have changed over time.
Basically, AWS CloudTrail keeps a log of API calls (requests to AWS to do/change stuff), while AWS Config tracks how individual configurations have changed over time (for a limited range of resources, such as Security Group rule being changed).

How to know the IAM user who created a Lambda function

We have an AWS account with an IAM group, this group contains practically 6 users and most operations in the account are done by this 6 users.
There are 12 Lambda Functions that have been created in the account and there is a particular lambda function (created by one of the 6 users) that I am trying to know who created it (The Lambda function owner).
Please is there a way to do this ?
Resources created in AWS Accounts are associated with the Account, not the IAM User that created the account.
When a user requests AWS to create resources, IAM verifies that the user has permission to create resources. If so, then the resources are created in the Account, but no relationship with the user is kept on that resource.
You can, however, use AWS CloudTrail to view information about the API request that created the resource.
From What Is AWS CloudTrail? - AWS CloudTrail:
AWS CloudTrail is an AWS service that helps you enable governance, compliance, and operational and risk auditing of your AWS account. Actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service are recorded as events in CloudTrail. Events include actions taken in the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface, and AWS SDKs and APIs.

Cloudwatch API switch role

In Postman I'm calling the CloudWatch API and the GetLogEvents action. This works well and I'm able to retrieve logs. However, I have an AWS Role per AWS environment, so how do I specify a different role to switch to so I can retrieve logs from, for example, my UAT environment?
Many thanks

AWS S3 bucket logs vs AWS cloudtrail

What's the difference between the AWS S3 logs and the AWS CloudTrail?
On the doc of CloudTrail I saw this:
CloudTrail adds another dimension to the monitoring capabilities
already offered by AWS. It does not change or replace logging features
you might already be using.
CloudTrail tracks API access for infrastructure-changing events, in S3 this means creating, deleting, and modifying bucket (S3 CloudTrail docs). It is very focused on API methods that modify buckets.
S3 Server Access Logging provides web server-style logging of access to the objects in an S3 bucket. This logging is granular to the object, includes read-only operations, and includes non-API access like static web site browsing.
AWS has added one more functionality since this question was asked, namely CloudTrail Data events
Currently there are 3 features available:
CloudTrail: Which logs almost all API calls at Bucket level Ref
CloudTrail Data Events: Which logs almost all API calls at Object level Ref
S3 server access logs: Which logs almost all (best effort server logs delivery) access calls to S3 objects. Ref
Now, 2 and 3 seem similar functionalities but they have some differences which may prompt users to use one or the other or both(in our case)! Below are the differences which I could find:
Both works at different levels of granularity. e.g. CloudTrail data events can be set for all the S3 buckets for the AWS account or just for some folder in S3 bucket. Whereas, S3 server access logs would be set at individual bucket level
The S3 server access logs seem to give more comprehensive information about the logs like BucketOwner, HTTPStatus, ErrorCode, etc. Full list
Information which is not available in Cloudtrail logs but is available in Server Access logs. Reference:
Fields for Object Size, Total Time, Turn-Around Time, and HTTP Referer for log records
Life cycle transitions, expiration, restores
Logging of keys in a batch delete operation
Authentication failures
CloudTrail does not deliver logs for requests that fail authentication (in which the provided credentials are not valid). However, it does include logs for requests in which authorization fails (AccessDenied) and requests that are made by anonymous users.
If a request is made by a different AWS Account, you will see the CloudTrail log in your account only if the bucket owner owns or has full access to the object in the request. If that is not the case, the logs will only be seen in the requester account. The logs for the same request will however be delivered in the server access logs of your account without any additional requirements.
AWS Support recommends that decisions can be made using CloudTrail logs and if you need that additional information too which is not available in CloudTrail logs, you can then use Server access logs.
There are two reasons to use CloudTrail Logs over S3 Server Access Logs:
You are interested in bucket-level activity logging. CloudTrail has that, S3 logs does not.
You have a log analysis setup that involves CloudWatch log streams. The basic S3 logs just store log events to files on some S3 bucket and from there it's up to you to process them (though most log analytics services can do this for you).
Bottom line: use CloudTrail, which costs extra, if you have a specific scenario that requires it. Otherwise, the "standard" S3 Server Access Logs are good enough.
From the CloudTrail developer guide (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/cloudtrail-logging.html):
Using CloudTrail Logs with Amazon S3 Server Access Logs and CloudWatch Logs
You can use AWS CloudTrail logs together with server access logs for Amazon S3. CloudTrail logs provide you with detailed API tracking for Amazon S3 bucket-level and object-level operations, while server access logs for Amazon S3 provide you visibility into object-level operations on your data in Amazon S3. For more information about server access logs, see Amazon S3 Server Access Logging.
You can also use CloudTrail logs together with CloudWatch for Amazon S3. CloudTrail integration with CloudWatch logs delivers S3 bucket-level API activity captured by CloudTrail to a CloudWatch log stream in the CloudWatch log group you specify. You can create CloudWatch alarms for monitoring specific API activity and receive email notifications when the specific API activity occurs. For more information about CloudWatch alarms for monitoring specific API activity, see the AWS CloudTrail User Guide. For more information about using CloudWatch with Amazon S3, see Monitoring Metrics with Amazon CloudWatch.
AWS CloudTrail is an AWS service for logging all account activities on different AWS resources. It also tracks things like IAM console login etc. Once CloudTrail service is enabled you can just go to CloudTrail console and see all the activity and also apply filters. Also, while enabling you can choose to log these activities and send the data to AWS CloudWatch. In AWS CloudWatch you can apply filters and also create alarms to notify you when a certain kind of activity happens.
S3 logging is enabling logging for basic activity on your S3 buckets/Objects.
CloudTrail logs API calls accessed to your AWS Account.
These CloudTrail logs are stored in Amazon S3 Bucket.
The two offer different services.
The Definition you have shared from CloudTrail Doc:
CloudTrail adds another dimension to the monitoring capabilities already offered by AWS. It does not change or replace logging features you might already be using.
It means you might have already activated some of the other logging features offered in other AWS services like ELB logging etc..
But when you enable CloudTrail monitoring, you need not worry about your previous logging functionalities as they will be still active.
You will recieve logs from all the services.
So By Enabling CloudTrail logging, It does not change or replace logging features you might already be using.
Hope it Helps.. :)