Collecting JVM heap dump from AWS ElasticBeanstalk - amazon-elastic-beanstalk

Question

I'm using AWS ElasticBeanstalk with Tomcat as web server. I would like to debug and to log the Java Virtual Machine performance, crash reports and to write them in CloudWatch Logs.
Currently the AWS ElasticBeanstalk collects logs created by the web server, application server, Elastic Beanstalk platform scripts. You can use CloudWatch logs as a centralized log system.
How can I collect my custom JVM logs in CloudWatch as I mentioned at the beginning?
Thanks.
Florin

Answer 1

I have contected the AWS support team and their answer was:
This can be done using .ebextensions configuration file to install awslogs package and define the log file, log_group_name and log_stream name to stream on CloudWatch,
Kindly find an example below for Enabling Catalina Logs in CloudWatch for Tomcat8 Environment
---.ebextensions/cwatch.config---
packages:
yum:
awslogs: []
files:
"/etc/awslogs/awscli.conf" :
mode: "000600"
owner: root
group: root
content: |
[plugins]
cwlogs = cwlogs
[default]
region = `{"Ref":"AWS::Region"}`
"/etc/awslogs/awslogs.conf" :
mode: "000600"
owner: root
group: root
content: |
[general]
state_file = /var/lib/awslogs/agent-state
[/var/log/tomcat8]
log_group_name = `{"Fn::Join":["-", [{ "Ref":"AWSEBEnvironmentName" }, "catalina"]]}`
log_stream_name = {instance_id}_messages
file = /var/log/tomcat8/catalina.out
datetime_format = %b %d %H:%M:%S
initial_position = start_of_file
buffer_duration = 5000
[/var/log/messages]
log_group_name = `{"Fn::Join":["-", [{ "Ref":"AWSEBEnvironmentName" }, "syslog"]]}`
log_stream_name = {instance_id}_messages
file = /var/log/messages
datetime_format = %b %d %H:%M:%S
initial_position = start_of_file
buffer_duration = 5000
[/var/log/eb-activity.log]
log_group_name = `{"Fn::Join":["-", [{ "Ref":"AWSEBEnvironmentName" }, "eb"]]}`
log_stream_name = {instance_id}_eb-activity.log
file = /var/log/eb-activity.log
datetime_format = [%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%3NZ]
initial_position = start_of_file
buffer_duration = 5000
[/var/log/eb-cfn-init.log]
log_group_name = `{"Fn::Join":["-", [{ "Ref":"AWSEBEnvironmentName" }, "eb"]]}`
log_stream_name = {instance_id}_eb-cfn-init.log
file = /var/log/eb-cfn-init.log
datetime_format = [%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%3NZ]
initial_position = start_of_file
buffer_duration = 5000
[/var/log/eb-commandprocessor.log]
log_group_name = `{"Fn::Join":["-", [{ "Ref":"AWSEBEnvironmentName" }, "eb"]]}`
log_stream_name = {instance_id}_eb-commandprocessor.log
file = /var/log/eb-commandprocessor.log
datetime_format = [%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%3NZ]
initial_position = start_of_file
buffer_duration = 5000
[/var/log/eb-publish-logs.log]
log_group_name = `{"Fn::Join":["-", [{ "Ref":"AWSEBEnvironmentName" }, "eb"]]}`
log_stream_name = {instance_id}_eb-publish-logs.log
file = /var/log/eb-publish-logs.log
datetime_format = %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S,%3N
initial_position = start_of_file
buffer_duration = 5000
[/var/log/eb-tools.log]
log_group_name = `{"Fn::Join":["-", [{ "Ref":"AWSEBEnvironmentName" }, "eb"]]}`
log_stream_name = {instance_id}_eb-tools.log
file = /var/log/eb-tools.log
datetime_format = %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S,%3N
initial_position = start_of_file
buffer_duration = 5000
commands:
"01":
command: chkconfig awslogs on
"02":
command: service awslogs restart
---end---
and here is a simpler version to Add log to default CloudWatch logs streaming config
Warning: does not set retention policy, won't obey retention policy (e.g "delete when env is deleted)
---.ebextensions/log.config---
files:
/etc/awslogs/config/mylog.conf:
owner: root
group: root
mode: "000644"
content:
Fn::Sub: |
[/var/log/mylog.log]
log_group_name=/aws/elasticbeanstalk/${AWSEBEnvironmentName}/var/log/mylog.log
log_stream_name={instance_id}
file=/var/log/mylog.log
commands:
restart_awslogs:
command: service awslogs restart || service awslogs start
---end---
Note: Do not use the sample provided in production. The goal of the sample is to illustrate the functionality."
I didn't check it, but if someone will test this solution please comment and mark it as valid. If not I'll delete my answer.