Lab Guide: Monitoring AWS CloudTrail Events with Amazon CloudWatch

Welcome to the Cloud Academy lab guide for Monitoring AWS CloudTrail Events with Amazon CloudWatch!

The most common concern we receive from students is that they are unable to create the Trail. This is caused by a misconfiguration or miss selection which causes the Cloud Academy lab security policies to block your attempt. Below, you can find the steps to create the trail without permission errors:

1. Ensure that the lab environment is 100% completed. Click the Open Environment button to access the console. Use the student credentials provided in the lab to sign in. 

2. Go to cloudtrail and click create trail.

3. Enter the below details for the general setting (match the capitalization):

• Trail name: JohnDoeTrail

• Storage location: Select Create new S3 bucket

• Trail log bucket and folder: calabs-bucket-unique_number/johndoe (S3 bucket names must be unique, hence you will need to append a number to "calabs-bucket" in order to guarantee a unique bucket name.) Ensure you take note of the name you will use (this will be later used paste it somewhere you can access)

• Log file SSE-KMS encryption: Uncheck this

• Log file validation: Uncheck this

4. Click next, on Choose log events, ensure the only event type chosen is Management events:

5. Click next, review your setting and click create trail.

6. You should be able to see it populate on the next screen and if you click on it you will see:

7. If the above steps were followed strictly you should also be able to see the folders under the bucket as below:

8. If you do not see the logs immediately, just wait for a few minutes for the logs to populate and then refresh S3 browser tab (or you can close AWS and log back in again and go to s3 after a few minutes and the logs should appear as above).

9. Continue with the rest of the tasks and you should be able to pass this step. 

Continue with the rest of the steps making sure you have selected the correct region and that all settings, values, and names are exactly as described in the instructions. If done correctly, you should be able to complete the lab. 

I hope this Lab Guide has helped! If the issue persists, or if you have any other concerns, please send me an email to support@cloudacademy.com

Happy Training!