Monitoring AWS Cognito Logs with OpenObserve: From Raw Data to Real Insights
Nitya Timalsina
January 18, 2025
16 min read
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Ever wonder what's happening behind the scenes of your user authentication system? If you're using AWS Cognito, you're sitting on a goldmine of security insights – but only if you know how to tap into it.
Authentication logs might not sound exciting at first glance, but they tell fascinating stories about your application. Every failed login could be a user who needs help, every unusual pattern might reveal an emerging security threat, and every successful authentication adds to the tale of how users interact with your system.
In this guide, we'll explore how to capture these stories from AWS Cognito logs and transform them into meaningful insights. Whether you're investigating security incidents, optimizing user experience, or maintaining compliance, you'll learn how to build a monitoring system that helps you understand what's really happening in your authentication system.
Architecture Overview
To effectively monitor AWS Cognito authentication events, our architecture leverages AWS EventBridge for enhanced event routing and processing. In this system:
- AWS Cognito generates authentication events for every user interaction
- EventBridge captures and routes these events efficiently
- AWS Data Firehose (also known as Kinesis Firehose) ensures reliable data delivery and transformation
- Lambda transforms the raw data and enriches it with additional context
- OpenObserve provides visualization and alerting capabilities
Here's how the components interact:
Here's how these components together together for effective authentication monitoring:
- When users interact with Cognito (login, signup, password reset, etc.), Cognito generates detailed event logs.
- EventBridge automatically captures these events and routes them to Kinesis Firehose based on configured rules.
- Before delivering to OpenObserve, Firehose can use Lambda to transform and enrich the data.
- Finally, the processed data arrives in OpenObserve, ready for analysis and visualization.
Understanding Cognito Authentication Events
Every time a user interacts with your authentication system, Cognito generates an event. These events contain crucial information about the authentication attempt, security context, and potential risks.
Here's an example of a typical authentication event:
{
"eventType": "SignIn",
"userPoolId": "us-east-1_xxxxx",
"timestamp": "2024-03-15T10:30:45.123Z",
"userIdentifier": "user@example.com",
"sourceIp": "192.168.1.1",
"eventResponse": "Success",
"riskLevel": "LOW",
"authenticationDetails": {
"authMethod": "USER_PASSWORD_AUTH",
"mfaType": "SMS"
}
}
Let's break down the key fields:
- eventType: Indicates the type of authentication action (SignIn, SignUp, ForgotPassword, etc.)
- userIdentifier: Helps track individual user patterns
- sourceIp: Enables geographic and security analysis
- riskLevel: Cognito's assessment of the authentication risk
- authenticationDetails: Contains information about how the user authenticated
Understanding these fields is crucial because they'll form the basis of our monitoring insights.
Building an Authentication Monitoring System
Part 1: Setting Up Test Environment
Before diving into monitoring, we need a working authentication system to monitor. We'll create a simple local testing environment that's easy to set up and verify.
A. Creating the Test Page
- First, create a new directory for our project:
mkdir auth-monitoring-demo
cd auth-monitoring-demo
- Create an index.html file with this content:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Auth Monitoring Demo</title>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/amazon-cognito-identity-js/dist/amazon-cognito-identity.min.js"></script>
<style>
body {
font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
max-width: 800px;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 20px;
}
.auth-container {
border: 1px solid #ddd;
padding: 30px;
border-radius: 8px;
margin-top: 20px;
background-color: #fff;
box-shadow: 0 2px 4px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);
}
.button {
padding: 12px 24px;
margin: 5px;
cursor: pointer;
background-color: #0066cc;
color: white;
border: none;
border-radius: 4px;
font-size: 16px;
transition: background-color 0.2s;
}
.button:hover {
background-color: #0052a3;
}
#status {
margin: 20px 0;
padding: 15px;
border-radius: 4px;
font-size: 16px;
text-align: center;
}
.success {
background-color: #dff0d8;
color: #3c763d;
border: 1px solid #d6e9c6;
}
.error {
background-color: #f2dede;
color: #a94442;
border: 1px solid #ebccd1;
}
.info-box {
background-color: #e8f4f8;
padding: 20px;
border-radius: 4px;
margin: 20px 0;
}
.config-info {
font-family: monospace;
background-color: #f5f5f5;
padding: 15px;
margin: 10px 0;
border-radius: 4px;
white-space: pre-wrap;
border: 1px solid #ddd;
}
.auth-buttons {
text-align: center;
margin-top: 20px;
}
h1 {
color: #333;
text-align: center;
margin-bottom: 30px;
}
.hidden {
display: none;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Auth Monitoring Demo</h1>
<div class="auth-container">
<div class="info-box">
<h2>AWS Cognito Authentication</h2>
<p>Use the buttons below to test authentication flows. All authentication events will be captured for monitoring.</p>
<div id="configSection" class="config-info hidden">
<strong>Current Configuration:</strong>
<pre id="configInfo"></pre>
</div>
</div>
<div id="status">Not authenticated</div>
<div class="auth-buttons">
<button class="button" onclick="initiateSignIn()">Sign In with Cognito</button>
<button class="button" onclick="signOut()">Sign Out</button>
</div>
</div>
<script>
// Function to parse full Cognito URL into domain
function parseCognitoDomain(fullUrl) {
const urlWithoutProtocol = fullUrl.replace(/^https?:\/\//, '');
return urlWithoutProtocol.replace(/\/$/, '');
}
// Replace these values with your Cognito configuration
const config = {
userPoolId: 'YOUR_USER_POOL_ID',
region: 'YOUR_REGION',
clientId: 'YOUR_CLIENT_ID',
cognitoDomain: parseCognitoDomain('YOUR_COGNITO_DOMAIN.auth.YOUR_REGION.amazoncognito.com')
};
function updateConfigDisplay(show) {
const configSection = document.getElementById('configSection');
if (show) {
configSection.classList.remove('hidden');
document.getElementById('configInfo').textContent =
`User Pool ID: ${config.userPoolId}\n` +
`Region: ${config.region}\n` +
`Domain: ${config.cognitoDomain}`;
} else {
configSection.classList.add('hidden');
}
}
// Handle the OAuth callback
function handleCallback() {
const urlParams = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
const code = urlParams.get('code');
const error = urlParams.get('error');
if (code) {
document.getElementById('status').innerHTML = 'Authentication successful!';
document.getElementById('status').className = 'success';
localStorage.setItem('authCode', code);
updateConfigDisplay(true);
} else if (error) {
document.getElementById('status').innerHTML = 'Authentication failed!';
document.getElementById('status').className = 'error';
updateConfigDisplay(false);
}
}
// Initiate sign-in using Cognito Hosted UI
function initiateSignIn() {
const redirectUri = window.location.origin;
const cognitoUrl = `https://${config.cognitoDomain}/login?` +
`client_id=${config.clientId}&` +
`response_type=code&` +
`scope=email+openid+profile&` +
`redirect_uri=${encodeURIComponent(redirectUri)}`;
window.location.href = cognitoUrl;
}
// Sign out
function signOut() {
const redirectUri = window.location.origin;
const cognitoUrl = `https://${config.cognitoDomain}/logout?` +
`client_id=${config.clientId}&` +
`logout_uri=${encodeURIComponent(redirectUri)}`;
localStorage.removeItem('authCode');
updateConfigDisplay(false);
window.location.href = cognitoUrl;
}
// Check authentication status on page load
function checkAuthStatus() {
const authCode = localStorage.getItem('authCode');
if (authCode) {
document.getElementById('status').innerHTML = 'Authentication successful!';
document.getElementById('status').className = 'success';
updateConfigDisplay(true);
} else {
updateConfigDisplay(false);
}
}
// Initialize page
checkAuthStatus();
handleCallback();
</script>
</body>
</html>
B. Set Up Your Local Server
With Python 3 installed, you can start a local server easily. In your terminal:
# Navigate to your project directory
cd auth-monitoring-demo
# Start the server
python -m http.server 8000
You should see output indicating the server is running. Keep this terminal window open while testing.
Now, if you navigate to http://localhost:8000/ on a browser, you will be able to see the authentication monitoring demo page. We will use this to simulate Cognito activity:
Part 2: Setting Up Amazon Cognito
Next, let's set up the authentication service by configuring Amazon Cognito:
A. Create User Pool
- Navigate to the Cognito Console
- Click the "Create user pool" button
- Configure sign-in experience:
- Application type: Select "Traditional web application"
- Application name: auth-monitoring-demo
- Under "Configure sign-in options":
- Check "Email" and "Username"
- Under required attributes, select "email"
- For the return URL, enter "http://localhost:8000"
- Click "Create"
Once configured, your Cognito user pool will look like this:
B. Configure App Client Settings
- In your User Pool dashboard:
- Click Applications → App clients on the left-hand side menu
- Find your automatically created app client under "App clients"
- Click on the app client name (usually matches your user pool name)
- Under "Login pages" tab:
- Click "Edit"
- Under "Allowed callback URLs" add:
http://localhost:8000 - Under "Allowed sign-out URLs" add:
http://localhost:8000 - Under "OAuth grant types", select:
- Authorization code grant
- Implicit grant
- Under "OpenID Connect scopes", select:
- OpenID
- Profile
- Click "Save changes"
C. Collect Configuration Details
From your app client page, collect:
- Client ID (from App Client page)
- Cognito domain (from Branding → Domain)
- User Pool ID (from user pool overview page)
- Region (from your AWS console)
Update your index.html config section:
const config = {
userPoolId: 'us-east-2_xxxxxx', // From User Pool Overview
region: 'your-region', // Your AWS region
clientId: 'your-client-id', // From App Client page
cognitoDomain: 'your-prefix.auth.your-region.amazoncognito.com' // From Domain page
};
E. Testing Your Setup
- Start your local server:
python -m http.server 8000
- Open your browser to http://localhost:8000
- Click "Sign In with Cognito" - you should see:
- Redirect to Cognito hosted UI
- Options to sign up or sign in
- After authentication, redirect back to your local page
- Test these flows:
- Create new account
- Sign in with existing account
- Sign out
If you see the success message after signing in, your authentication setup is working correctly! You can now use this set-up to test various authentication scenarios like: correct login details, incorrect password, forgot password, create an account, etc.
Part 3: Building a Flexible Authentication Monitoring Pipeline
While AWS Cognito's Plus plan offers built-in monitoring features, we can build a more flexible and cost-effective solution using AWS's event-driven architecture. This approach gives us complete control over our authentication monitoring, custom alerting capabilities, and the ability to adapt as our needs evolve. The Essentials plan is more than sufficient for our monitoring pipeline, which uses:
- EventBridge to capture Cognito authentication events
- Kinesis Firehose for reliable delivery to OpenObserve
- Lambda for data transformation
A. Create IAM Role for AWS Services
Note: While this guide uses broad AWS-managed policies for simplicity, it's considered best practice to:
- Create separate roles for each service (Lambda, Firehose, EventBridge)
- Use least-privilege permissions with custom policies
- Explicitly define required actions and resources
- Avoid using *FullAccess policies in production environments*
For the purposes of this demo, we'll use a simplified approach with a single role:
- Go to IAM Console
- Click "Roles" → "Create role"
- Configure:
- Choose "Custom trust policy" and use:
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": {
"Service": [
"lambda.amazonaws.com",
"firehose.amazonaws.com",
"events.amazonaws.com"
]
},
"Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
}
]
}
- Attach these policies:
- AmazonKinesisFirehoseFullAccess
- AmazonEventBridgeFullAccess
- AmazonS3FullAccess (for backup / failed data)
- CloudWatchFullAccess (for logging)
- AWSLambda_FullAccess
- Name: cognito-monitoring-role-demo
This single role will be used for Lambda, Firehose, and EventBridge to keep the demo straightforward.
B. Create the Transformer Lambda Function
Navigate to the AWS Lambda Console and create a new Lambda function,
cognitoAuthLogProcessor, to transform Cognito events into a format that's easy to analyze in OpenObserve:
import json
import base64
import gzip
from datetime import datetime
def transform_record(record_data):
"""Transform the record into OpenObserve format"""
try:
# Parse the event data
if isinstance(record_data, str):
record_data = json.loads(record_data)
print(f"Processing record data: {json.dumps(record_data, indent=2)}")
# Extract detail from the correct location
detail = record_data.get('detail', {})
if isinstance(detail, str):
try:
detail = json.loads(detail)
except:
print(f"Could not parse detail as JSON: {detail}")
detail = {}
# Extract additional event data
additional_event_data = {}
if isinstance(detail, dict) and 'additionalEventData' in detail:
try:
if isinstance(detail['additionalEventData'], str):
additional_event_data = json.loads(detail['additionalEventData'])
else:
additional_event_data = detail['additionalEventData']
except Exception as e:
print(f"Error parsing additionalEventData: {e}")
# Create event structure matching OpenObserve format
transformed = {
"_timestamp": int(datetime.utcnow().timestamp() * 1000000),
"timestamp": datetime.utcnow().isoformat(),
"stream": "cognito_events",
"data_time": record_data.get('time', datetime.utcnow().isoformat()),
"data_source": record_data.get('source', 'aws.cognito-idp'),
"data_account": record_data.get('account', ''),
"data_region": record_data.get('region', ''),
"data_detail_eventname": detail.get('eventName', ''),
"data_detail_eventsource": detail.get('eventSource', ''),
"data_detail_sourceipaddress": detail.get('sourceIPAddress', ''),
"data_detail_eventtime": detail.get('eventTime', ''),
"data_detail_eventtype": detail.get('eventType', ''),
"data_detail_awsregion": detail.get('awsRegion', ''),
"data_detail_useridentity": json.dumps(detail.get('userIdentity', {})),
"data_detail_additionaleventdata": json.dumps(additional_event_data),
"metadata_source": "cognito",
"metadata_type": "auth_event"
}
print(f"Transformed record: {json.dumps(transformed, indent=2)}")
return transformed
except Exception as e:
print(f"Error transforming record: {str(e)}")
print(f"Original record_data: {json.dumps(record_data, indent=2)}")
return None
def lambda_handler(event, context):
print(f"Received event: {json.dumps(event, indent=2)}")
output_records = []
for record in event['records']:
try:
# Decode the incoming data
data = base64.b64decode(record['data'])
print(f"Decoded base64 data: {data}")
# Handle potential GZIP compression
try:
data = gzip.decompress(data)
print(f"Decompressed data: {data}")
except:
print("Data was not gzipped")
# Ensure data is string
if isinstance(data, bytes):
data = data.decode('utf-8')
# Parse and transform the data
parsed_data = json.loads(data)
print(f"Parsed data: {json.dumps(parsed_data, indent=2)}")
transformed_data = transform_record(parsed_data)
if transformed_data:
# Convert to newline-delimited JSON as expected by OpenObserve
output_data = json.dumps(transformed_data) + "\n"
output_record = {
'recordId': record['recordId'],
'result': 'Ok',
'data': base64.b64encode(output_data.encode('utf-8')).decode('utf-8')
}
print(f"Successfully transformed record: {json.dumps(output_record)}")
else:
print(f"Transform returned None for record ID: {record['recordId']}")
output_record = {
'recordId': record['recordId'],
'result': 'ProcessingFailed',
'data': record['data']
}
except Exception as e:
print(f"Error processing record: {str(e)}")
print(f"Failed record: {json.dumps(record)}")
output_record = {
'recordId': record['recordId'],
'result': 'ProcessingFailed',
'data': record['data']
}
output_records.append(output_record)
result = {'records': output_records}
print(f"Final output: {json.dumps(result, indent=2)}")
return result
Set the Lambda timeout to 1 minute (or more as needed), and set the memory to 128 MB (increase if needed). Deploy the Lambda function.
Here's what the Lambda function will look like once created:
Next, we will configure Firehose to use this Lambda function for record transformation.
C. Set Up OpenObserve and Kinesis Firehose
First, retrieve the necessary information from OpenObserve by following these steps:
- Log in to OpenObserve:
- If you don't have an account, follow the OpenObserve Quickstart Guide to set up a free Cloud or self-hosted account.
- Navigate to Ingestion → Custom → Logs → Kinesis Firehose.
- Copy the following details:
- Endpoint URL: This is used as the destination in Kinesis Firehose.
- Access Key: Used for authentication when sending data to OpenObserve.
Next, navigate to Amazon Data Firehose in the AWS Console:
- Click "Create Firehose stream"
- Configure stream:
- Name: cognito-logs-to-openobserve
- Source: Direct PUT
- Stream: cognito-auth-events
- Destination: HTTP endpoint
- Endpoint URL: OpenObserve endpoint
- Content encoding: GZIP
- Authentication: Select "Use access key"
- Access key: From OpenObserve
- Transform records: Select "Turn on data transformation" and specify the Lambda function created above (cognitoAuthLogProcessor)
- Buffer size: 1 MB
- Buffer interval: 60 seconds
- S3 backup: Create a bucket and enable for failed records
- IAM: Use the role created in Step A above (cognito-monitoring-role-demo)
Once configured, the Firehose stream will look like this:
D. Set Up EventBridge Rule
- Go to Amazon EventBridge
- Click "Create rule"
- Configure:
- Name: cognito-auth-events
- Description: Capture Cognito authentication events
- Event pattern: Custom pattern
- Use this event pattern:
{
"source": ["aws.cognito-idp"]
}
- Set target:
- Target type: AWS service
- Select target: Firehose stream
- Stream: cognito-logs-to-openobserve
- Configure input: Matched event
- Role: cognito-monitoring-role-demo (existing role created above)
Here's what the Eventbridge rule will look like after set-up:
E. Test the Pipeline
Generate some authentication events:
- Sign in to your application
- Try an incorrect password
- Create a new account
You should soon be able to see logs flowing into OpenObserve.
Part 4: Building a Cognito Log Monitoring Dashboard
With logs flowing into OpenObserve, you can start analyzing them immediately. To get started:
- Log in to OpenObserve and navigate to Logs.
- Select your configured stream (e.g., cognito_logs in this case) to view logs, run queries, and create custom dashboard visualizations:
Now that our authentication events are flowing into OpenObserve, let's create a comprehensive monitoring dashboard. This dashboard will help you visualize authentication patterns, detect security issues, and track user engagement.
- Navigate to Dashboards to create your own custom dashboard, or import a JSON file for a pre-built dashboard to visualize your AWS Cognito logs:
- Once the dashboard has been imported, you can explore and further customize it, based on your requirements. For instance, you can add additional tabs or panels for further visualization.
- Within OpenObserve, you can also create Alerts to remain up-to-date on key events related to your AWS Cognito authentication system. You can easily set up customized alerts sent to destinations of your choice, or create reusable alert templates.
Transform AWS Cognito Logs into Actionable Insights
By following this guide, you've successfully set up a robust monitoring system for AWS Cognito authentication events using OpenObserve. This setup not only enhances your ability to track user interactions and detect security threats but also empowers you to optimize user experiences and maintain compliance with ease.
With your logs now streaming into OpenObserve, you can take advantage of its powerful visualization and alerting capabilities. Here are some recommended next steps to maximize the value of your monitoring system:
- Set Up Alerts: Configure alerts for critical authentication events to stay informed about potential security threats or user experience issues.
- Customize Dashboards: Tailor your dashboards to focus on specific metrics or user behaviors that are most relevant to your organization.
- Integrate with Other Tools: Consider integrating OpenObserve with other AWS services or monitoring tools to create a more comprehensive observability solution.
OpenObserve's intuitive interface makes it easy to search, visualize, and act on your log data, whether you're troubleshooting issues or optimizing performance. By leveraging this guide, you've built a flexible, real-time monitoring solution that provides valuable insights into your authentication system's performance and security.
If you have any questions or need help, feel free to join our Slack community or reach out directly. We're here to help you make the most of your monitoring setup!
About the Author
Nitya Timalsina
Nitya is a Developer Advocate at OpenObserve, with a diverse background in software development, technical consulting, and organizational leadership. Nitya is passionate about open-source technology, accessibility, and sustainable innovation.
