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Remediation

Enable CloudWatch Log Exports

To ensure database logs are retained and available for monitoring and auditing, configure AWS RDS instances to export supported log types to Amazon CloudWatch Logs. The available log types depend on the database engine.

To enable CloudWatch log exports for an RDS instance, update the instance configuration using the --cloudwatch-logs-export-configuration parameter. This parameter specifies which database log types are sent to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

Note: Changes to --cloudwatch-logs-export-configuration are applied immediately by AWS. The --apply-immediately or --no-apply-immediately options have no effect on this modification.

From Command Line

MySQL / MariaDB

aws rds modify-db-instance \
--region {{region}} \
--db-instance-identifier {{instance-id}} \
--cloudwatch-logs-export-configuration '{"EnableLogTypes":["error","general","slowquery","audit"]}'

PostgreSQL

aws rds modify-db-instance \
--region {{region}} \
--db-instance-identifier {{instance-id}} \
--cloudwatch-logs-export-configuration '{"EnableLogTypes":["postgresql","upgrade"]}'

SQL Server

aws rds modify-db-instance \
--region {{region}} \
--db-instance-identifier {{instance-id}} \
--cloudwatch-logs-export-configuration '{"EnableLogTypes":["error","agent"]}'

Oracle

aws rds modify-db-instance \
--region {{region}} \
--db-instance-identifier {{instance-id}} \
--cloudwatch-logs-export-configuration '{"EnableLogTypes":["alert","audit","listener","trace"]}'

Considerations

  • Supported log types vary by database engine and engine version.
  • Once enabled, logs are continuously streamed to Amazon CloudWatch Logs for centralized storage and analysis.
  • Additional CloudWatch costs may apply depending on log volume and retention settings.