AWS Cloudwatch Metrics Sink

The Vector aws_cloudwatch_metrics sink sends metrics to AWS Cloudwatch metrics.

Warnings

• Gauge values are persisted between flushes. On Vector start up each gauge is assumed to have zero, 0.0, value, that can be updated explicitly by the consequent absolute, not delta, gauge observation, or by delta increments/decrements. Delta gauges are considered an advanced feature useful in a distributed setting, however they should be used with care.

Configuration

• Common
• Advanced

• vector.toml
• vector.yaml
• vector.json

[sinks.my_sink_id]
  # General
  type = "aws_cloudwatch_metrics" # required
  inputs = ["my-source-or-transform-id", "prefix-*"] # required
  compression = "none" # optional, default
  default_namespace = "service" # required
  region = "us-east-1" # required, required when endpoint = null

  # Healthcheck
  healthcheck.enabled = true # optional, default

7 items

commonrequired

• optionaltable

  auth

  Options for the authentication strategy.

  • optionalstring

    access_key_id

    The AWS access key id. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services. See AWS Authentication for more info.

    • Syntax: literal
    • View examples
  • optionalstring

    assume_role

    The ARN of an IAM role to assume at startup. See AWS Authentication for more info.

    • Syntax: literal
    • View examples
  • optionalstring

    secret_access_key

    The AWS secret access key. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services. See AWS Authentication for more info.

    • Syntax: literal
    • View examples
• optionaltable

  batch

  Configures the sink batching behavior.

  • commonoptionaluint

    max_events

    The maximum size of a batch, in events, before it is flushed.

    • Default: 20 (events)
  • commonoptionaluint

    timeout_secs

    The maximum age of a batch before it is flushed.

    • Default: 1 (seconds)
• enumcommonoptionalstring

  compression

  The compression strategy used to compress the encoded event data before transmission.

  • Syntax: literal
  • Default: "none"
  • Enum, must be one of: "none" "gzip" "syntax"
  • View examples
• commonrequiredstring

  default_namespace

  A namespace that will isolate different metrics from each other. Used as a namespace for metrics that don't have it.

  • Syntax: literal
  • View examples
• optionalstring

  endpoint

  Custom endpoint for use with AWS-compatible services. Providing a value for this option will make region moot.

  • Syntax: literal
  • Only relevant when: region = null
  • View examples
• commonoptionaltable

  healthcheck

  Health check options for the sink. See Health checks for more info.

  • commonoptionalbool

    enabled

    Enables/disables the healthcheck upon Vector boot.

    • Default: true
    • View examples
• commonrequired*string

  region

  The AWS region of the target service. If endpoint is provided it will override this value since the endpoint includes the region.

  • Syntax: literal
  • Only required when: endpoint = null
  • View examples

Env Vars

9 items

common

• commonoptionalstring

  AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID

  The AWS access key id. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services. See AWS Authentication for more info.

  • Syntax: literal
  • View examples
• commonoptionalstring

  AWS_CONFIG_FILE

  Specifies the location of the file that the AWS CLI uses to store configuration profiles.

  • Syntax: literal
  • Default: "~/.aws/config"
• commonoptionalstring

  AWS_CREDENTIAL_EXPIRATION

  Expiration time in RFC 3339 format. If unset, credentials won't expire.

  • Syntax: literal
  • View examples
• commonoptionalstring

  AWS_DEFAULT_REGION

  The default AWS region.

  • Syntax: literal
  • Only relevant when: endpoint = null
  • View examples
• commonoptionalstring

  AWS_PROFILE

  Specifies the name of the CLI profile with the credentials and options to use. This can be the name of a profile stored in a credentials or config file.

  • Syntax: literal
  • Default: "default"
  • View examples
• commonoptionalstring

  AWS_ROLE_SESSION_NAME

  Specifies a name to associate with the role session. This value appears in CloudTrail logs for commands performed by the user of this profile.

  • Syntax: literal
  • View examples
• commonoptionalstring

  AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

  The AWS secret access key. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services. See AWS Authentication for more info.

  • Syntax: literal
  • View examples
• commonoptionalstring

  AWS_SESSION_TOKEN

  The AWS session token. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services.

  • Syntax: literal
  • View examples
• commonoptionalstring

  AWS_SHARED_CREDENTIALS_FILE

  Specifies the location of the file that the AWS CLI uses to store access keys.

  • Syntax: literal
  • Default: "~/.aws/credentials"

Telemetry

This component provides the following metrics that can be retrieved through the internal_metrics source. See the metrics section in the monitoring page for more info.

• counter

  events_in_total

  The total number of events accepted by this component. This metric includes the following tags:

  • component_kind - The Vector component kind.

  • component_name - The Vector component ID.

  • component_type - The Vector component type.

  • instance - The Vector instance identified by host and port.

  • job - The name of the job producing Vector metrics.

• counter

  events_out_total

  The total number of events emitted by this component. This metric includes the following tags:

  • component_kind - The Vector component kind.

  • component_name - The Vector component ID.

  • component_type - The Vector component type.

  • instance - The Vector instance identified by host and port.

  • job - The name of the job producing Vector metrics.

How It Works

AWS Authentication

Vector checks for AWS credentials in the following order:

1. Options access_key_id and secret_access_key.
2. Environment variables AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY.
3. The credential_process command in the AWS config file. (usually located at ~/.aws/config)
4. The AWS credentials file. (usually located at ~/.aws/credentials)
5. The IAM instance profile. (will only work if running on an EC2 instance with an instance profile/role)

If credentials are not found the healtcheck will fail and an error will be logged.

Obtaining an access key

In general, we recommend using instance profiles/roles whenever possible. In cases where this is not possible you can generate an AWS access key for any user within your AWS account. AWS provides a detailed guide on how to do this. Such created AWS access keys can be used via access_key_id and secret_access_key options.

Assuming roles

Vector can assume an AWS IAM role via the assume_role option. This is an optional setting that is helpful for a variety of use cases, such as cross account access.

Health checks

Health checks ensure that the downstream service is accessible and ready to accept data. This check is performed upon sink initialization. If the health check fails an error will be logged and Vector will proceed to start.

Require health checks

If you'd like to exit immediately upon a health check failure, you can pass the --require-healthy flag:

vector --config /etc/vector/vector.toml --require-healthy

Disable health checks

If you'd like to disable health checks for this sink you can set the healthcheck option to false.

State

This component is stateless, meaning its behavior is consistent across each input.