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Logging network traffic from AWS Network Firewall - AWS Network Firewall

Logging network traffic from AWS Network Firewall

You can configure AWS Network Firewall logging for your firewall's stateful engine. Logging gives you detailed information about network traffic, including the time that the stateful engine received a packet, detailed information about the packet, and any stateful rule action taken against the packet. The logs are published to the log destination that you've configured, where you can retrieve and view them.

Note

Firewall logging is only available for traffic that you forward to the stateful rules engine. You forward traffic to the stateful engine through stateless rule actions and stateless default actions in the firewall policy. For information about these actions settings, see Firewall policy settings in AWS Network Firewall and Defining rule actions in AWS Network Firewall.

Metrics provide some higher-level information for both stateless and stateful engine types. For more information, see AWS Network Firewall metrics in Amazon CloudWatch.

You can record the following types of logs from your Network Firewall stateful engine.

  • Flow logs are standard network traffic flow logs.

  • Alert logs report traffic that matches your stateful rules that have an action that sends an alert. A stateful rule sends alerts for the rule actions DROP, ALERT, and REJECT. In a Next Generation policy, a firewall engine drop or reject rule sends an alert only when you add the alert keyword to the rule—either chained to the action (drop:flow,alert) or as a rule option. For more information, see Actions for stateful rules.

  • TLS logs report events that are related to TLS inspection. These logs require the firewall to be configured for TLS inspection. For information, see Inspecting SSL/TLS traffic with TLS inspection configurations in AWS Network Firewall.

You can use the same or different logging destination for each log type. You turn on logging for a firewall after you create it. For information about how to do this, see Updating a AWS Network Firewall logging configuration.

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