AWS CLI

CloudWatch Commands

Monitor AWS resources and applications. Learn to query logs, view metrics, and set up alarms from the command line.

8 commands

Pro Tips

Use 'aws logs tail' with '--follow' for real-time log streaming like 'tail -f'.

Use CloudWatch Insights query syntax for complex log analysis across log groups.

Common Mistakes

CloudWatch logs can get expensive at scale. Set retention policies to control costs.

Commands

List log groups

$ aws logs describe-log-groups --output table

List all log groups.

Tail logs

$ aws logs tail /aws/lambda/myfunction --follow --since 1h

Stream logs from last hour.

Filter logs

$ aws logs filter-log-events --log-group-name /my/log/group --filter-pattern 'ERROR'

Search logs for pattern.

List alarms

$ aws cloudwatch describe-alarms --output table

List all CloudWatch alarms.

Get metrics

$ aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics --namespace AWS/EC2 --metric-name CPUUtilization --dimensions Name=InstanceId,Value=i-xxx --start-time 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z --end-time 2024-01-02T00:00:00Z --period 3600 --statistics Average

Get metric statistics.

Start Insights query

$ aws logs start-query --log-group-name /aws/lambda/myfunction --start-time $(date -u -d "1 hour ago" +%s) --end-time $(date -u +%s) --query-string "fields @timestamp, @message | filter @type = \"ERROR\"" --query QueryId --output text

Start CloudWatch Logs Insights query.

Get query results

$ aws logs get-query-results --query-id <query-id>

Retrieve Insights query results by ID.

Tail logs

$ aws logs tail /aws/lambda/myfunction --follow --since 1h

Stream logs in real-time with follow mode.

AWS CLI

CloudWatch Commands

Monitor AWS resources and applications. Learn to query logs, view metrics, and set up alarms from the command line.

8 commands

Pro Tips

Use 'aws logs tail' with '--follow' for real-time log streaming like 'tail -f'.

Use CloudWatch Insights query syntax for complex log analysis across log groups.

Common Mistakes

CloudWatch logs can get expensive at scale. Set retention policies to control costs.

Commands

List log groups

$ aws logs describe-log-groups --output table

List all log groups.

Tail logs

$ aws logs tail /aws/lambda/myfunction --follow --since 1h

Stream logs from last hour.

Filter logs

$ aws logs filter-log-events --log-group-name /my/log/group --filter-pattern 'ERROR'

Search logs for pattern.

List alarms

$ aws cloudwatch describe-alarms --output table

List all CloudWatch alarms.

Get metrics

Get metric statistics.

Start Insights query

Start CloudWatch Logs Insights query.

Get query results

$ aws logs get-query-results --query-id <query-id>

Retrieve Insights query results by ID.

Tail logs

$ aws logs tail /aws/lambda/myfunction --follow --since 1h

Stream logs in real-time with follow mode.