S3 Access Logs

Amazon S3 server access logging captures detailed records for every request to a bucket, enabling you to audit access, debug issues, and optimize storage. Each operation—such as a GET on file1.txt—generates a log entry that records who accessed the object, when the request occurred, and which API call was performed:

John [06/Feb/2019:00:00:38 +0000] GET /file1.txt

Why Enable Access Logs?

Enabling server access logging provides several advantages:

Benefit	Description
Security & Auditing	Track who accessed objects and when, supporting compliance requirements.
Usage Patterns	Analyze request frequency to select the most cost-effective storage class.
Centralized Log Storage	Collect logs in a dedicated bucket for easy management and analysis.

Storing and analyzing access logs may incur additional storage and request charges. Review your AWS billing dashboard to estimate costs.

What Information Is Logged?

Each log record consists of numerous fields, including:

Field	Description
Bucket owner	AWS account ID of the bucket owner
Bucket name	Name of the S3 bucket
Timestamp	Date and time of the request (in UTC)
Requester IP & ID	Client IP address and AWS user identifier (or `-` if anonymous)
Request ID	Unique ID assigned by S3 for the request
Operation	API action (e.g., `REST.GET.OBJECT`, `REST.PUT.OBJECT`)
Object key & Version	Requested object path and version ID
HTTP status & Error	HTTP response code and any error codes
Bytes sent & Received	Payload sizes in bytes and response timing
User agent	Client application or browser details

For the complete list of log fields, see Monitoring Amazon S3 > Log Format in the AWS documentation:

The image shows a webpage from the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) documentation, detailing server access log formats and examples. It includes sections on HTTP status, error codes, bytes sent, object size, total time, and turn-around time.

Sample Log Entry

A typical S3 access log record begins with the bucket owner and bucket name, followed by the timestamp and requester details:

1e69f8cfa4d16e09c88f48d218e7c47fe2be DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET1 [06/Feb/2019:00:00:38 +0000] 192.0.2.3 79d59f4b900b49e95d5e1a69f8f8c49c8e9e09b0c8af8d218e7c47fe2be 3571 0 0

Subsequent fields describe the operation, request line, status, bytes, and user agent:

b0a88ac8fa921b2c7dfe 3E74277EXAMPLE REST.GET.VERSIONING "GET /DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET17/versioning HTTP/1.1" 200 113 "-" "$3Console/0.4" s9i2nYFfP76zVrKcP9<5
b0a88ac8fa921b2c7dfe 89C12E74EXAMPLE REST.GET.LOGGING_STATUS "GET /DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET17/logging HTTP/1.1" 200 242 11 "-" "$3Console/0.4" -9xkBeVhWfNxiM2bLxmOk0xq
b0a88ac8fa921b2c7dfe A2401f406E12 REST.GET.BUCKETPOLICY "GET /DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET17/policy HTTP/1.1" 404 NoSuchBucketPolicy 29 "-" "$3Console/0.4" -bMBSx0xqo
b0a88ac8fa921b2c7dfe REST.PUT.OBJECT s3-dg.pdf "PUT /DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET17/s3-dg.pdf HTTP/1.1" 200 - 28 "-" "$3Console/0.4" 160621Z1v8K1v8

All generated log files are delivered as plain text to your designated logging bucket:

The image shows a webpage from the AWS documentation about Amazon S3 server access log format, detailing log record fields and providing an example of log records.

Introduction

AWS S3 Basic Features

AWS S3 Advanced Features

AWS S3 Management

Summary

AWS S3 Core Concepts

Why Enable Access Logs?

What Information Is Logged?

Sample Log Entry

Links and References

Watch Video

​Why Enable Access Logs?

​What Information Is Logged?

​Sample Log Entry

​Links and References

Watch Video

Why Enable Access Logs?

What Information Is Logged?

Sample Log Entry

Links and References