Parse AWS VPC Flow Logedit

The parse_aws_vpc_flow_log processor decodes AWS VPC Flow log messages.

Exampleedit

The following example configuration decodes the message field using the default version 2 VPC flow log format.

processors:
  - parse_aws_vpc_flow_log:
      format: version account-id interface-id srcaddr dstaddr srcport dstport protocol packets bytes start end action log-status
      field: message

Configuration settingsedit

Elastic Agent processors execute before ingest pipelines, which means that your processor configurations cannot refer to fields that are created by ingest pipelines or Logstash. For more limitations, refer to What are some limitations of using processors?

Name Required Default Description

field

No

message

Source field containing the VPC flow log message.

target_field

No

aws.vpcflow

Target field for the VPC flow log object. This applies only to the original VPC flow log fields. ECS fields are written to the standard location.

format

Yes

VPC flow log format. This supports VPC flow log fields from versions 2 through 5. It will accept a string or a list of strings. Each format must have a unique number of fields to enable matching it to a flow log message.

mode

No

ecs

Controls which fields are generated. The available options are:

  • original: generates the fields specified in the format string.
  • ecs: maps the original fields to ECS and removes the original fields that are mapped to ECS.
  • ecs_and_original: maps the original fields to ECS and retains all the original fields.

To learn more, refer to Modes.

ignore_missing

No

false

Whether to ignore a missing source field.

ignore_failure

No

false

Whether to ignore failures while parsing and transforming the flow log message.

id

No

Instance ID for debugging purposes.

Modesedit

This section provides more information about available modes.

Originaledit

This mode returns the same fields found in the format string. It will drop any fields whose value is a dash (-). It converts the strings into the appropriate data types. These are the known field names and their data types.

The AWS VPC flow field names use underscores instead of dashes within Elastic Agent. You may configure the format using field names that contain either.

VPC Flow Log Field Data Type

account_id

string

action

string

az_id

string

bytes

long

dstaddr

ip

dstport

integer

end

timestamp

flow_direction

string

instance_id

string

interface_id

string

log_status

string

packets

long

pkt_dst_aws_service

string

pkt_dstaddr

ip

pkt_src_aws_service

string

pkt_srcaddr

ip

protocol

integer

region

string

srcaddr

ip

srcport

integer

start

timestamp

sublocation_id

string

sublocation_type

string

subnet_id

string

tcp_flags

integer

tcp_flags_array*

integer

traffic_path

integer

type

string

version

integer

vpc_id

string

ECSedit

This mode maps the original VPC flow log fields into their associated Elastic Common Schema (ECS) fields. It removes the original fields that were mapped to ECS to reduced duplication. These are the field associations. There may be some transformations applied to derive the ECS field.

VPC Flow Log Field ECS Field

account_id

cloud.account.id

action

event.outcome

action

event.action

action

event.type

az_id

cloud.availability_zone

bytes

network.bytes

bytes

source.bytes

dstaddr

destination.address

dstaddr

destination.ip

dstport

destination.port

end

@timestamp

end

event.end

flow_direction

network.direction

instance_id

cloud.instance.id

packets

network.packets

packets

source.packets

protocol

network.iana_number

protocol

network.transport

region

cloud.region

srcaddr

network.type

srcaddr

source.address

srcaddr

source.ip

srcport

source.port

start

event.start

ECS and Originaledit

This mode maps the fields into ECS and retains all the original fields. Below is an example document produced using ecs_and_orignal mode.

{
  "@timestamp": "2021-03-26T03:29:09Z",
  "aws": {
    "vpcflow": {
      "account_id": "64111117617",
      "action": "REJECT",
      "az_id": "use1-az5",
      "bytes": 1,
      "dstaddr": "10.200.0.0",
      "dstport": 33004,
      "end": "2021-03-26T03:29:09Z",
      "flow_direction": "ingress",
      "instance_id": "i-0axxxxxx1ad77",
      "interface_id": "eni-069xxxxxb7a490",
      "log_status": "OK",
      "packets": 52,
      "pkt_dst_aws_service": "CLOUDFRONT",
      "pkt_dstaddr": "10.200.0.80",
      "pkt_src_aws_service": "AMAZON",
      "pkt_srcaddr": "89.160.20.156",
      "protocol": 17,
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "srcaddr": "89.160.20.156",
      "srcport": 50041,
      "start": "2021-03-26T03:28:12Z",
      "sublocation_id": "fake-id",
      "sublocation_type": "wavelength",
      "subnet_id": "subnet-02d645xxxxxxxdbc0",
      "tcp_flags": 1,
      "tcp_flags_array": [
        "fin"
      ],
      "traffic_path": 1,
      "type": "IPv4",
      "version": 5,
      "vpc_id": "vpc-09676f97xxxxxb8a7"
    }
  },
  "cloud": {
    "account": {
      "id": "64111117617"
    },
    "availability_zone": "use1-az5",
    "instance": {
      "id": "i-0axxxxxx1ad77"
    },
    "region": "us-east-1"
  },
  "destination": {
    "address": "10.200.0.0",
    "ip": "10.200.0.0",
    "port": 33004
  },
  "event": {
    "action": "reject",
    "end": "2021-03-26T03:29:09Z",
    "outcome": "failure",
    "start": "2021-03-26T03:28:12Z",
    "type": [
      "connection",
      "denied"
    ]
  },
  "message": "5 64111117617 eni-069xxxxxb7a490 89.160.20.156 10.200.0.0 50041 33004 17 52 1 1616729292 1616729349 REJECT OK vpc-09676f97xxxxxb8a7 subnet-02d645xxxxxxxdbc0 i-0axxxxxx1ad77 1 IPv4 89.160.20.156 10.200.0.80 us-east-1 use1-az5 wavelength fake-id AMAZON CLOUDFRONT ingress 1",
  "network": {
    "bytes": 1,
    "direction": "ingress",
    "iana_number": "17",
    "packets": 52,
    "transport": "udp",
    "type": "ipv4"
  },
  "related": {
    "ip": [
      "89.160.20.156",
      "10.200.0.0",
      "10.200.0.80"
    ]
  },
  "source": {
    "address": "89.160.20.156",
    "bytes": 1,
    "ip": "89.160.20.156",
    "packets": 52,
    "port": 50041
  }
}