Agent Skill · Cockroach Labs

configuring-log-export

Configures log and metric export for CockroachDB Cloud clusters to external monitoring services including AWS CloudWatch, GCP Cloud Logging, and Datadog. Use when setting up log export for audit compliance, configuring metric export for monitoring, or troubleshooting log delivery issues.

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Provider: Cockroach Labs Path in repo: skills/cockroachdb-security-and-governance/configuring-log-export/SKILL.md

Skill body

Configuring Log Export

Configures log and metric export for CockroachDB Cloud clusters to deliver cluster logs, audit logs, and performance metrics to external monitoring services. Supports AWS CloudWatch, GCP Cloud Logging, and third-party integrations like Datadog.

When to Use This Skill

Prerequisites

Verify access:

ccloud auth whoami
ccloud cluster info <cluster-name> -o json
# Look for "plan": "ADVANCED"

Configuration Decisions

Before proceeding, determine which export destinations apply to the user’s environment. Ask which options are relevant, then follow only the corresponding sections below.

Decision 1 — Log export destination:

Decision 2 — Metric export destination:

Steps

1. Check Current Log Export Configuration

# Check if log export is currently configured
ccloud cluster info <cluster-name> -o json
# Look for "log_export_config" in the output

2. Set Up Log Export to AWS CloudWatch

Follow this section only if the user selected AWS CloudWatch in Decision 1. Skip to Step 3 if using GCP Cloud Logging.

2.1 Create a CloudWatch Log Group

# Create a log group in AWS (if it doesn't exist)
aws logs create-log-group \
  --log-group-name cockroachdb-<cluster-name> \
  --region <aws-region>

# Set retention policy (recommended)
aws logs put-retention-policy \
  --log-group-name cockroachdb-<cluster-name> \
  --retention-in-days 90 \
  --region <aws-region>

2.2 Create an IAM Role for CockroachDB Cloud

See cloud provider setup reference for the complete IAM role policy.

The IAM role must:

2.3 Enable Log Export

# Enable log export to CloudWatch
ccloud cluster log-export create <cluster-id> \
  --log-group-name cockroachdb-<cluster-name> \
  --auth-principal <iam-role-arn> \
  --type AWS_CLOUDWATCH \
  --region <aws-region>

3. Set Up Log Export to GCP Cloud Logging

Follow this section only if the user selected GCP Cloud Logging in Decision 1. Skip if using AWS CloudWatch.

3.1 Enable Cloud Logging API

gcloud services enable logging.googleapis.com

3.2 Grant CockroachDB Cloud Service Account Access

# Get the CockroachDB Cloud service account from ccloud cluster info
# Grant Logs Writer role
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding <gcp-project-id> \
  --member="serviceAccount:<cockroachdb-service-account>" \
  --role="roles/logging.logWriter"

3.3 Enable Log Export

ccloud cluster log-export create <cluster-id> \
  --auth-principal <gcp-project-id> \
  --type GCP_CLOUD_LOGGING

4. Configure Metric Export

Skip this section if the user selected Skip in Decision 2. Follow only the relevant subsection (4.1 or 4.2) based on the selected metric export destination.

Metric export sends CockroachDB performance metrics to CloudWatch or Datadog.

4.1 Metric Export to CloudWatch

ccloud cluster metric-export create cloudwatch <cluster-id> \
  --role-arn <iam-role-arn> \
  --target-region <aws-region>

The IAM role for metric export needs cloudwatch:PutMetricData permission.

4.2 Metric Export to Datadog

ccloud cluster metric-export create datadog <cluster-id> \
  --api-key <datadog-api-key> \
  --site <datadog-site>

Datadog site values: datadoghq.com (US), datadoghq.eu (EU), us3.datadoghq.com (US3), us5.datadoghq.com (US5)

5. Verify Log and Metric Export

# Check log export status
ccloud cluster log-export list <cluster-id> -o json
# Status should be ENABLED

# Check metric export status
ccloud cluster metric-export list <cluster-id> -o json

Verify log delivery in CloudWatch:

# Check for recent log streams
aws logs describe-log-streams \
  --log-group-name cockroachdb-<cluster-name> \
  --order-by LastEventTime \
  --descending \
  --limit 5 \
  --region <aws-region>

# Tail recent log events
aws logs tail cockroachdb-<cluster-name> \
  --since 1h \
  --region <aws-region>

Verify audit logs are being exported:

Audit logs are included in the log export if SQL audit logging is enabled on the cluster. To confirm:

-- Check audit logging is enabled
SHOW CLUSTER SETTING sql.log.admin_audit.enabled;
SHOW CLUSTER SETTING sql.log.user_audit;

If audit logging is enabled but audit events are not appearing in CloudWatch, check:

  1. Log export status is ENABLED
  2. The IAM role has correct permissions
  3. Log group name matches the configured export target
  4. Allow 5-10 minutes for initial log delivery

6. Configure Log Export via Terraform

resource "cockroach_log_export_config" "main" {
  id         = cockroach_cluster.main.id
  auth_principal = "<iam-role-arn>"
  log_name       = "cockroachdb-${cockroach_cluster.main.name}"
  type           = "AWS_CLOUDWATCH"
  region         = "<aws-region>"
}

resource "cockroach_metric_export_cloudwatch_config" "main" {
  id         = cockroach_cluster.main.id
  role_arn       = "<iam-role-arn>"
  target_region  = "<aws-region>"
}

Known Terraform issue: Creating a cluster with log export and CMEK in the same terraform apply can cause a race condition. Apply the cluster first, then add log export and CMEK configurations in a subsequent apply.

Safety Considerations

Impact Type Severity Recommendation
Log export enabling Low No impact on cluster operation
Log export disabling Low Stops log delivery but does not affect cluster
IAM misconfiguration Medium Log export will fail silently; monitor for delivery gaps
Cost impact Medium High-volume clusters can generate significant CloudWatch/logging costs
Terraform race condition Medium Apply cluster creation before log/CMEK config

Cost planning:

Do not:

Rollback

# Disable log export
ccloud cluster log-export delete <cluster-id>

# Disable metric export
ccloud cluster metric-export delete cloudwatch <cluster-id>
ccloud cluster metric-export delete datadog <cluster-id>

Log export can be re-enabled at any time with the same or different configuration. Historical logs are not re-sent — only new logs are exported after re-enabling.

References

Skill references:

Related skills:

Official CockroachDB Documentation:

Skill frontmatter

compatibility: Requires CockroachDB Cloud Advanced plan. Requires ccloud CLI with Cluster Admin role and cloud provider IAM configuration. metadata: {"author" => "cockroachdb", "version" => "1.0"}