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AWS SAA-C03: Troubleshoot IAM Permissions Errors with AWS CloudTrail and Athena

By: Author Alex Lim

Posted on

Categories Exam

Learn how to easily analyze and troubleshoot Access Denied and Unauthorized errors related to IAM permissions using Amazon Athena to query AWS CloudTrail logs stored in Amazon S3.

Table of Contents

Question

A company wants to analyze and troubleshoot Access Denied errors and Unauthorized errors that are related to IAM permissions. The company has AWS CloudTrail turned on.

Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST effort?

A. Use AWS Glue and write custom scripts to query CloudTrail logs for the errors.
B. Use AWS Batch and write custom scripts to query CloudTrail logs for the errors.
C. Search CloudTrail logs with Amazon Athena queries to identify the errors.
D. Search CloudTrail logs with Amazon QuickSight. Create a dashboard to identify the errors.

Answer

C. Search CloudTrail logs with Amazon Athena queries to identify the errors.

Explanation

The solution that will meet the requirements for analyzing and troubleshooting Access Denied and Unauthorized errors related to IAM permissions with the least effort is Option C: Search CloudTrail logs with Amazon Athena queries to identify the errors.

Here’s a detailed explanation:

  1. AWS CloudTrail: CloudTrail is a service that records AWS API calls and delivers log files to an Amazon S3 bucket. These logs contain detailed information about the API calls, including the caller’s identity, the time of the call, and the error codes if any.
  2. Amazon Athena: Athena is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. It allows you to run ad-hoc queries on CloudTrail logs stored in S3 without the need for complex data processing or scripting.
  3. Least Effort: By using Athena, you can directly query the CloudTrail logs stored in S3 without writing custom scripts or setting up additional services. Athena provides a simple and serverless way to search and analyze the logs, reducing the effort required compared to other solutions.
  4. Identifying Errors: You can write SQL queries in Athena to search for specific error codes or error messages related to Access Denied and Unauthorized errors. Athena supports full-text search and regular expressions, making it easy to filter and analyze the log data.
  5. Troubleshooting: The CloudTrail logs contain detailed information about the API calls, including the caller’s identity, the time of the call, and the resources being accessed. By querying the logs with Athena, you can identify the specific users, roles, or applications that are experiencing permission issues, as well as the resources they are trying to access, which can aid in troubleshooting and resolving the issues.

Using Amazon Athena to search and analyze CloudTrail logs eliminates the need for complex scripting, data processing, or setting up additional services, making it the least effort solution for analyzing and troubleshooting Access Denied and Unauthorized errors related to IAM permissions.

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