Overview

AWS CloudTrail

Stacks304

Followers280

Votes14

Rsyslog

Stacks37

Followers75

Votes0

GitHub Stars2.2K

Forks700

AWS CloudTrail vs Rsyslog: What are the differences?

Key Differences between AWS CloudTrail and Rsyslog

In this article, we will explore the key differences between AWS CloudTrail and Rsyslog. CloudTrail is a service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that enables auditing, compliance, and governance of the AWS account activity. On the other hand, Rsyslog is an open-source software tool that provides reliable and secure log processing on Unix-like systems.

Data source: The primary difference between AWS CloudTrail and Rsyslog is the source of the data they handle. CloudTrail collects and monitors API activity and other actions performed in the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command-line tools, and other AWS services. In contrast, Rsyslog is designed to process and manage log messages from various sources on Unix-like systems, including local log files, network devices, and applications.
Storage and management: AWS CloudTrail stores the collected logs in an S3 bucket, which allows for easy storage, retrieval, and analysis using other AWS services like Amazon Athena and Amazon CloudWatch. It also provides built-in log management features like log file encryption, log file integrity validation, and log file archiving. Rsyslog, on the other hand, usually stores log messages locally on the system it is installed on and offers log rotation and compression options for managing log files.
Integration and compatibility: AWS CloudTrail is tightly integrated with other AWS services and can be easily configured to send logs to centralized services like Amazon CloudWatch Logs or Amazon S3 for further processing and analysis. It also provides integration with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) for controlling access to the logs. Rsyslog, on the other hand, can integrate with various third-party tools and services for log analysis and management, including Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana (ELK stack).
Scalability and availability: AWS CloudTrail is a fully managed service provided by AWS, which means it automatically scales and handles the infrastructure required for collecting and managing the logs. It offers high availability and durability through data replication across multiple availability zones. Rsyslog's scalability and availability depend on the underlying system it is installed on and the resources allocated to it.
Security and compliance: AWS CloudTrail offers features like log file encryption and integrity validation to ensure the security and tamper-proof nature of the logs. It also provides integration with AWS Key Management Service (KMS) for further encryption of the log files. Rsyslog offers encryption options for securing log messages during transport and supports various industry-standard security protocols like TLS and SSL.
Pricing: AWS CloudTrail pricing is based on the number of events logged and stored, as well as any additional data transfer or analysis required. Rsyslog, being an open-source tool, is free to use, but the cost of infrastructure and resources required to run it may vary depending on the scale and complexity of the log management implementation.

In summary, AWS CloudTrail is a specialized service designed for monitoring and auditing AWS account activity, while Rsyslog is a versatile open-source tool for log processing and management on Unix-like systems.

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Advice on AWS CloudTrail, Rsyslog

Jigar

Security Software Engineer at Cisco

Jul 2, 2020

Needs adviceon

AWS IAM

Amazon EC2

Splunk Cloud

We would like to detect unusual config changes that can potentially cause production outage.

Such as, SecurityGroup new allow/deny rule, AuthZ policy change, Secret key/certificate rotation, IP subnet add/drop. The problem is the source of all of these activities is different, i.e., AWS IAM, Amazon EC2, internal prod services, envoy sidecar, etc.

Which of the technology would be best suitable to detect only IMP events (not all activity) from various sources all workload running on AWS and also Splunk Cloud?

168k views168k

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Detailed Comparison

AWS CloudTrail	Rsyslog
With CloudTrail, you can get a history of AWS API calls for your account, including API calls made via the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and higher-level AWS services (such as AWS CloudFormation). The AWS API call history produced by CloudTrail enables security analysis, resource change tracking, and compliance auditing. The recorded information includes the identity of the API caller, the time of the API call, the source IP address of the API caller, the request parameters, and the response elements returned by the AWS service.	It offers high-performance, great security features and a modular design. It is able to accept inputs from a wide variety of sources, transform them, and output to the results to diverse destinations.
Increased Visibility- CloudTrail provides increased visibility into your user activity by recording AWS API calls. You can answer questions such as, what actions did a given user take over a given time period? For a given resource, which user has taken actions on it over a given time period? What is the source IP address of a given activity? Which activities failed due to inadequate permissions?;Durable and Inexpensive Log File Storage- CloudTrail uses Amazon S3 for log file storage and delivery, so log files are stored durably and inexpensively. You can use Amazon S3 lifecycle configuration rules to further reduce storage costs. For example, you can define rules to automatically delete old log files or archive them to Amazon Glacier for additional savings.;Easy Administration- CloudTrail is a fully managed service; you simply turn on CloudTrail for your account using the AWS Management Console, the Command Line Interface, or the CloudTrail SDK and start receiving CloudTrail log files in the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket that you specify.;Reliable- CloudTrail continuously transports events from AWS services using a highly available and fault tolerant processing pipeline.;Timely Delivery- CloudTrail typically delivers events within 15 minutes of the API call.;Log File Aggregation- CloudTrail can be configured to aggregate log files across multiple accounts and regions so that log files are delivered to a single bucket. Please refer to the of the AWS CloudTrail User Guide for detailed instructions.;Notifications for Log File Delivery- CloudTrail can be configured to publish a notification for each log file delivered, thus enabling you to automatically take action upon log file delivery. CloudTrail uses the Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) for notifications.;Choice of Partner Solutions- Multiple partners including AlertLogic, Boundary, Loggly, Splunk and Sumologic offer integrated solutions to analyze CloudTrail log files. These solutions include features like change tracking, troubleshooting, and security analysis.	Multi-threading; TCP, SSL, TLS, RELP; MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and more; Filter any part of syslog message;
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 2.2K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 700
Stacks 304	Stacks 37
Followers 280	Followers 75
Votes 14	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 7 Very easy setup 3 Good integrations with 3rd party tools 2 Very powerful 2 Backup to S3	No community feedback yet
Integrations
Boundary Loggly Splunk Cloud	Oracle PostgreSQL Splunk MySQL

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