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Install and Configure Amazon CloudWatch Agent On EC2 Instances

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34 views7 pages

Install and Configure Amazon CloudWatch Agent On EC2 Instances

Uploaded by

Rohan Ashish
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Install and configure Amazon CloudWatch

Agent on EC2 instances


The Amazon CloudWatch Agent enables you to collect metrics, custom metrics,
and logs from within Windows and Linux EC2 instances. This step-by-step guide
explains how to install and configure the Amazon CloudWatch Agent on EC2
instances.

1. Prerequisites
2. Install the Amazon CloudWatch Agent on an EC2 instance
3. Configure the CloudWatch Agent
4. Verify Amazon CloudWatch Agent Configuration

Prerequisites
Before we get started with CloudWatch, you have to follow these steps in AWS:

 Create an EC2 instance.


 Ensure that the EC2 instance can reach the SSM endpoint either via public
internet or a VPC Endpoint.
 Attach an IAM role to the EC2 instance that includes the following policies:
o CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy: This policy enables the EC2 instance to
push the logs and metrics to the Amazon CloudWatch service.
o AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore: This policy enables the EC2
instance to read parameters stored in the SSM parameter store and to
have them registered under the SSM managed instances, so you
can Run Commands against it.
 Ensure that the SSM agent is installed in this EC2 instance.

Install the Amazon CloudWatch Agent on an EC2 instance


Navigate to the AWS Systems Manager console.
On the left menu, select Node Management > Run Command. Then click Run
command.

RunCommand in Systems Manager Console


In the Command document search bar, choose Document prefix name, then Equals,
and then specify the name of the document as AWS-ConfigureAWSPackage.

Search for the command document

Then specify the following command parameters:

 Action: Install
 Installation Type: Uninstall and Reinstall
 Name: AmazonCloudWatchAgent
 Version: Latest
 Additional Arguments: No additional arguments needed

Specify command parameters

Specify command parameters


Under the Targets section, specify the method for selecting the instances in which you
want to install the CloudWatch agent. There are three methods:
 Instance Tags: If the instances you're using are tagged, you can specify one or
more instance tag key–value pairs to identify the instances on which the tasks will
run.
 Manually: Manually select the instances on which the tasks will run.
 Resource Group: If the instances are gathered under, you can specify the
resource group on which the tasks will run.

Specify the targets

If you don't want to store the outputs of this command in an S3 document, you can just
uncheck Enable an S3 bucket under Output options.
Finally, click Run.
Once you click Run, you are redirected to a new page where you can monitor the
status of the running tasks.

Status of the running tasks

Using this method for installing the CloudWatch agent is highly recommended for
instances on scale, where you can install the agent on all the instances at once. The
command document we used to install the CloudWatch agent is suitable for Linux,
Windows, and MacOS. So you don't have to worry about segregating the different
platforms while provisioning the agent.

Configure the CloudWatch Agent


Once the agent is installed, the next step is to configure it to push the logs and metrics
to CloudWatch.
To configure the CloudWatch agent, you need to create a configuration file. You can
create it by running the CloudWatch Agent Configuration Wizard, which you can start
by entering the following command:
Linux

sudo /opt/aws/amazon-cloudwatch-agent/bin/amazon-cloudwatch-agent-

config-wizard

Windows:

cd "C:\\Program Files\\Amazon\\AmazonCloudWatchAgent" amazon-cloudwatch-

agent-config-wizard.exe

All you need to do is answer the wizard questions to generate a customized


configuration file for the server you would like to monitor. Otherwise, you can create the
configuration file manually by following this
guide: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/
CloudWatch-Agent-Configuration-File-Details.html
It's recommended to store the configuration file as an SSM parameter store in AWS
Systems Manager because it provides version control for your stored parameter;
therefore, if you modified the value of the parameter, it would create a new version of
the parameter while retaining a history of the previous versions.
If you're following the wizard to generate the configuration file, you have the option to
store it on SSM. Just ensure you answer Yes when prompted whether to store the file
in Systems Manager Parameter Store. However, if you're creating it manually, you can
just store it right away as a parameter in the Systems Manager Parameter Store.
If you're creating the configuration file manually, you can store it as a parameter in SSM
by following these steps:

 Navigate to AWS Systems Manager.


 Under the Application Management section, choose Parameter Store.
 On the Parameter Store console, click Create Parameter.
 Specify a Name for the parameter, copy the content of the configuration file,
paste in a Value, and you can keep the rest of the options as defaults.
If you use the wizard to write the configuration file to the SSM parameter store, ensure
that the IAM role attached to the EC2 instance
includes CloudWatchAgentAdminPolicy instead of CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy.
If you're storing the configuration file locally, the configuration file config.json is stored
in /opt/aws/amazon-cloudwatch-agent/bin/ on Linux servers and in C:\Program
Files\Amazon\AmazonCloudWatchAgent on Windows Servers.
Once the agent is created, you can use it to configure the CloudWatch agent. You can
do so by either running this command on the instance or using the Run
Command feature of AWS Systems Manager.
To run it locally, use the following commands:
Linux:
sudo /opt/aws/amazon-cloudwatch-agent/bin/amazon-cloudwatch-agent-ctl -a fetch-config
-m ec2 -s -c ssm:<Parameter\_Name\_in\_SSM>

Windows:
& 'C:\\Program Files\\Amazon\\AmazonCloudWatchAgent\\amazon-cloudwatch-agent-
ctl.ps1' -a fetch-config -m ec2 -s -c ssm:<Parameter\_Name\_in\_SSM>

If you're storing the configuration file locally, then you need to replace ssm with file in
the command and specify the file path, e.g., file:'C:\Program Files\Amazon\
AmazonCloudWatchAgent\config.json'
To do this with Run Command:
Navigate to Run Command the same way we did earlier.
In the Command document search bar, choose Document prefix name, then Equals,
and then specify the name of the document AmazonCloudWatch-ManageAgent.

image6

Search for the CloudWatch-Manage Agent command document


Then specify the following command parameters:

 Action: configure
 Mode: ec2
 Optional Configuration Source: ssm
 Optional Configuration Location: The name of the parameter that stores the
CloudWatch agent configuration
 Optional Open Telemetry Collector Configuration Source: default

The rest of the sections are the same as in the command document we ran earlier.

image7

Configure CloudWatch-ManageAgent Command Parameters


Finally, you can click Run and wait until it configures the CloudWatch agent on the
instances you specified.
As of CloudWatch agent version 1.247347.3, there's an embedded AWS
OpenTelemetry Collector that enables you to monitor with open telemetry without
needing multiple agents. If you need to configure the Open Telemetry Collector, you
can change its command parameter to SSM and specify the parameter that stores this
configuration in the Optional Open Telemetry Collector Configuration
Location field.

Verify Amazon CloudWatch Agent Configuration


Once configured, you can verify whether the configurations specified in the
configuration file have taken place successfully by doing the following:

 Logs: Navigate to the CloudWatch console and select Logs > Log groups.
Check whether the log groups you specified in the configuration file are there,
with streams inside them and logs pushed to these streams.
 Metrics: Navigate to the CloudWatch console and select Metrics > All Metrics.
You should see it under Custom Namespaces. Open this namespace and see if
the metrics specified in the configuration file are being pushed.

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