How To Monitor AWS VPC Traffic ?

AWS VPC traffic monitoring is very important in terms of maintaining cloud VPCs and security. Traffic monitoring allows for the monitoring of incoming and outgoing traffic in the vpc. It helps in the resolution of threats, and network issues and ensures compliance. Let’s understand how we can perform traffic monitoring in the AWS VPC.

Primary Terminologies

• VPC: Secure, isolated, and cloud-hosted in the public cloud.
• Traffic Monitoring: VPC traffic monitoring allows you to monitor inbound and outbound traffic to detect potential security threats, such as unauthorized access attempts, malware, or data exfiltration.

Steps For AWS VPC traffic monitoring

Traffic monitoring using flow logs: Flow logs allow the capture of information on IP addresses going to and from the VPC network. It also helps in monitoring traffic that is coming to the network. Flow logs can be created for the network, subnet, or network interface.

• Go to VPC overview, select the VPC for which you want to create a flow log, and then click on actions.

• Under actions select create flow log. Fill the details as required and click on create.
• You can specify which traffic to monitor in detail.

• Once created you can view flow of traffic for VPC.

Traffic monitoring using Traffic mirroring: VPC Traffic Mirroring allows you to replicate and monitor network traffic from EC2 instances within your VPC. By mirroring traffic to a monitoring appliance or service, you can perform deep packet inspection, intrusion detection, and analysis of network traffic.

• To create traffic mirroring go to VPC overview page.
• From navigation pane find traffic mirroring.

• First, we have to create traffic mirroring target. From navigation pane select mirroring targets.

• Click on create mirroring target. Specify name of the instance.
• Now select your target type and specific resource from dropdown.

• Finally click on create.
• Once it is done we can now create mirroring filter. From navigation select mirroring filters.
• Click on create new filter.
• Specify inbound and outbound rules for filter.

• click on create. Now we will create mirroring session.
• From navigation select mirroring session and click on create.
• specify mirroring source and destination.

• Specify advanced options as requirement. Finally click on create after reviewing.

• Now you can use mirroring session to monitor traffic for VPC.

Traffic monitoring using Network and Reachability analyzer: Reachability analyzer allows to check reachability two resources or endpoints in VPC. Network analyzer helps in analyzing access to resource in VPC.

• To use network analyzer search in services.
• By default there will be some network scopes in network analyzer .

• Select any one click on analyze this will perform analysis on that resource about network traffic.

• You can also create new network scopes .
• For reachabillity analyzer search it in services.
• On overview page click on create analysis path.
• Specify the source and destination for analysis path.

• once it is done click on create.
• now select path and click on analyze to view reachability between two resources.

Viewing Logs From VPC in Dashboard

You can visit cloudwatch dashboard for any of above methods to view the logs. To view logs generated using flow logs click on destination name of your flow log. This will open log group you have selected during creation. On Log group page select log stream where you can see logs generated as below.

• Also, you can use Logs Insights to get insights from logs generated. Write and run query to see graphical representation of logs.

Conclusion

Thus, we have seen various ways to monitor VPC traffic and how to implement them in AWS. Traffic monitoring allows to manage VPC traffic and protect resources in VPC. More filters and rules can be added to above methods for more complex analysis of network traffic to better understand the network traffic of VPC.

Aws VPC Traffic Monitoring – FAQ’s

What is VPC traffic monitoring?

VPC traffic monitoring involves the collection, analysis, and visualization of network traffic within your AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). It provides insights into how data flows between resources, helping to detect anomalies, troubleshoot issues, and maintain security.

Why is VPC traffic monitoring important?

VPC traffic monitoring is essential for maintaining the security, performance, and compliance of your cloud infrastructure. It allows you to detect security threats, optimize resource utilization, troubleshoot network issues, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.

What tools does AWS provide for VPC traffic monitoring?

AWS provides several tools for VPC traffic monitoring, including VPC Flow Logs, VPC Traffic Mirroring, and Amazon VPC Traffic Mirroring. These tools allow you to capture, analyze, and visualize network traffic within your VPC.

How do I analyze VPC traffic data?

You can analyze VPC traffic data using various tools and services, such as Amazon CloudWatch Logs Insights, Amazon Athena, or third-party network analysis tools. These tools allow you to query, filter, and visualize traffic data to gain insights into network behavior.

What are some common use cases for VPC traffic monitoring?

Common use cases for VPC traffic monitoring include security analysis, performance optimization, compliance auditing, troubleshooting network issues, and detecting anomalies or unauthorized activity.