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AWS Config

  • Helps with auditing and recording compliance of AWS resources
  • Helps record configurations and changes over time
  • Provides the ability of storing the configuration data into S3 where it can be analyzed by Athena
  • Problems AWS Config Solves:
    • Check if there is unrestricted SSH access to a security group
    • Check if buckets have public access
    • Find out how did an ALB configuration change over time
  • We can receive alerts (SNS notifications) for any change
  • AWS Config is a per region service, but it can be aggregated across regions and accounts

AWS Config Rules

  • AWS provides a set of managed config rules (over 75) which can be used by the users
  • Users can also make custom config rules (a rule must be defined using AWS Lambda)
  • Example of custom rules user can make:
    • Evaluate if each EBS disk is of type GP2
    • Evaluate if each EC2 instance is of type t2.micro
  • Rules can be evaluated/triggered:
    • For each config change (Configuration change)
    • At regular time intervals (Periodic)
  • Evaluation of rules can trigger CloudWatch events if the rule is non-compliant
  • Rules can have auto remediations: if a resource is not compliant, the is an option to trigger auto remediation, example: stop instances with non-approved tags
  • AWS Config Rules do not prevent actions from happening (no deny)
  • Custom rules:
    • We can create custom rules which will be managed by us
    • In order to create a custom rule, we have to create a Lambda function which will check if a resource is compliant or not
    • Trigger types for custom rules are same as for managed rules:
      • Configuration change
      • Periodic
    • Scope of the trigger: we can define for which resource does the rule apply, example database instance, EC2 instance, etc. We can use tags as well instead of resource types

AWS Config Resource

  • Ability to view the compliance of a resource over time
  • Ability to view configuration of a resource over time
  • View CloudTrails API calls if enabled

Remediations

  • Rules have a remediation action option, where we can run a SSM Automation document to address a non-compliant warning
  • We can use AWS-managed automation document or create a custom automation document
  • We can set Remediations Retries if the resource is still non-compliant after auto remediation

Notifications

  • We can use EventBridge to trigger notifications when AWS resources are non-compliant
  • We can configure Config to stream configuration changes and notifications to an SNS topic
  • AWS Config sends notifications for the following events:
    • Configuration item change for resource
    • Configuration history delivered for an account
    • Configuration snapshot was started and delivered for an account
    • Compliance state of resources
    • Evaluation started for a rule
    • Config failed to deliver the notification for an account

Configuration Recorder

  • Stores the configuration of our AWS resources as Configuration Items
  • Configuration Item: a point-in-time view of the various attributes of an AWS resource. Created whenever AWS Config detects a change to the resource (eg. attributes, relationships, config events)
  • We can create custom configuration recorders to save record only the resources we specify
  • To be able to use Config, we must create a recorder so AWS Config can track our resources (it is automatically created when we enable AWS Config from the Console or CLI)

Aggregators

  • A aggregator is an AWS Config resource type that collects AWS Config configuration and compliance data from the following:
    • Multiple accounts and multiple regions
    • Single account and multiple regions
    • An organization in AWS Organizations and all the accounts in that organization
  • The aggregator is created in one central account
  • If we use AWS Organizations, we don't need for individual authorization of the accounts
  • AWS Config Rules must be deployed in each individual account

Conformance Pack

  • A conformance pack is a collection of AWS Config Rules and Remediation Actions
  • Packs are created using YAML files
  • They are deployed to an AWS account and region or across an AWS Organization
  • We can use pre-built packs or create our won Custom Conformance Packs
  • Custom Conformance Packs can have custom rules backed by Lambda Functions
  • We can designate a Delegated Administrator to deploy Conformance Packs to our AWS Organization (can be a member account)

Organizational Rules

  • They are AWS Config Rules that we can manage across all accounts within an AWS Organization
Organizational Rules Conformance Packs
Scope AWS Organization AWS Accounts and Organization
Evaluation Type Evaluate resources against predefined rules that are defined and enforced at Org level Evaluate resources against predefined rules that are defined and enforced at Account level
Rules Count One rule Many Rules at a time
Compliance Level Managed at Organization level Managed at account level

CloudWatch vs CloudTrail vs Config

  • CloudWatch
    • Performance monitoring (metrics, CPU, network, etc.) and dashboards
    • Events and alerting
    • Log aggregation and analysis
  • CloudTrail
    • Record API calls made within an account
    • Define trails for specific resources
    • It is a global service
  • Config
    • Record configuration changes
    • Evaluate resources against compliance rules
    • Get timeline of changes and compliance