AWS Config provides a detailed view of the configuration of AWS resources in your AWS account. This includes how the resources are related to one another and how they were configured in the past so that you can see how the figurations and relationships change over time.
An AWS resource is an entity you can work within AWS, such as an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance, an Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume, a security group, or an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). For a complete list of AWS resources supported by AWS Config.
With AWS Config, you can do the following:
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Ways to Use AWS Config
When you run your applications on AWS, you usually use AWS resources, which you must create and manage collectively. As the demand for your application keeps growing, so does your need to keep track of your AWS resources. AWS Config is designed to help you oversee your application resources in the following scenarios:
Resource Administration
To exercise better governance over your resource configurations and to detect resource misconfigurations, you need fine-grained visibility into what resources exist and how these resources are configured at any time. You can use AWS Config to notify you whenever resources are created, modified, or deleted without having to monitor these changes by polling the calls made to each resource.
You can use AWS Config rules to evaluate the configuration settings of your AWS resources. When AWS Config detects that a resource violates the conditions in one of your rules, AWS Config flags the resource as noncompliant and sends a notification. AWS Config continuously evaluates your resources as they are created, changed, or deleted.
Auditing and Compliance
You might be working with data that requires frequent audits to ensure compliance with internal policies and best practices. To demonstrate compliance, you need access to the historical configurations of your resources. This information is provided by AWS Config.
Managing and Troubleshooting Configuration Changes
When you use multiple AWS resources that depend on one another, a change in the configuration of one resource might have unintended consequences on related resources. With AWS Config, you can view how the resource you intend to modify is related to other resources and assess the impact of your change.
You can also use the historical configurations of your resources provided by AWS Config to troubleshoot issues and to access the last known good configuration of a problem resource.
Security Analysis
To analyze potential security weaknesses, you need detailed historical information about your AWS resource configurations, such as the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions that are granted to your users, or the Amazon EC2 security group rules that control access to your resources.
You can use AWS Config to view the IAM policy that was assigned to an IAM user, group, or role at any time in which AWS Config was recording. This information can help you determine the permissions that belonged to a user at a specific time: for example, you can view whether the user John Doe had permission to modify Amazon VPC settings on Jan 1, 2015.
You can also use AWS Config to view the configuration of your EC2 security groups, including the port rules that were open at a specific time. This information can help you determine whether a security group blocked incoming TCP traffic to a specific port.
AWS Config Concepts
AWS Config provides a detailed view of the resources associated with your AWS account, including how they are configured, how they are related to one another, and how the configurations and their relationships have changed over time. Let's take a closer look at the concepts of AWS Config.
AWS Config
Understanding the basic components of AWS Config will help you track resource inventory and changes and evaluate configurations of your AWS resources. AWS Resources
AWS resources are entities that you create and manage using the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), the AWS SDKs, or AWS partner tools. Examples of AWS resources include Amazon EC2 instances, security groups, Amazon VPCs, and Amazon Elastic Block Store. AWS Config refers to each resource using its unique identifier, such as the resource ID or an Amazon Resource Name (ARN).
Configuration History
A configuration history is a collection of the configuration items for a given resource over any time period. A configuration history can help you answer questions about, for example, when the resource was first created, how the resource has been configured over the last month, and what configuration changes were introduced yesterday at 9 AM. The configuration history is available to you in multiple formats. AWS Config automatically delivers a configuration history file for each resource type that is being recorded to an Amazon S3 bucket that you specify. You can select a given resource in the AWS Config console and navigate to all previous configuration items for that resource using the timeline. Additionally, you can access the historical configuration items for a resource from the API.
Configuration Items
A configuration item represents a point-in-time view of the various attributes of a supported AWS resource that exists in your account. The components of a configuration item include metadata, attributes, relationships, current configuration, and related events. AWS Config creates a configuration item whenever it detects a change to a resource type that it is recording. For example, if AWS Config is recording Amazon S3 buckets, AWS Config creates a configuration item whenever a bucket is created, updated, or deleted.
Configuration Recorder
The configuration recorder stores the configurations of the supported resources in your account as configuration items. You must first create and then start the configuration recorder before you can start recording. You can stop and restart the configuration recorder at any time.
By default, the configuration recorder records all supported resources in the region where AWS Config is running. You can create a customized configuration recorder that records only the resource types that you specify.
If you use the AWS Management Console or the CLI to turn on the service, AWS Config automatically creates and starts a configuration recorder for you.
Configuration Snapshot
A configuration snapshot is a collection of the configuration items for the supported resources that exist in your account. This configuration snapshot is a complete picture of the resources that are being recorded and their configurations. The configuration snapshot can be a useful tool for validating your configuration. For example, you may want to examine the configuration snapshot regularly for resources that are configured incorrectly or that potentially should not exist. The configuration snapshot is available in multiple formats. You can have the configuration snapshot delivered to an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket that you specify. Additionally, you can select a point in time in the AWS Config console and navigate through the snapshot of configuration items using the relationships between the resources.
Configuration Stream
A configuration stream is an automatically updated list of all configuration items for the resources that AWS Config is recording. Every time a resource is created, modified, or deleted, AWS Config creates a configuration item and adds to the configuration stream. The configuration stream works by using an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic of your choice. The configuration stream is helpful for observing configuration changes as they occur so that you can spot potential problems, generating notifications if certain resources are changed, or updating external systems that need to reflect the configuration of your AWS resources. Take your career to new heights of success with an AWS Training
