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PRTG Manual: AWS EC2 v2 Sensor

<%NUMBERING1%>.<%NUMBERING2%>.<%NUMBERING3%> PRTG Manual: AWS EC2 v2 Sensor

The AWS EC2 v2 sensor monitors the performance of an Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance by reading its data from Amazon CloudWatch via the AWS API.

If you use the same Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy that you use for the Amazon CloudWatch EC2 sensor, you must update it. For more information, see the Knowledge Base: How do I set permissions for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API key to use certain sensors in PRTG?

AWS EC2 v2 Sensor

For a list of metrics that this sensor supports, see section Supported Metrics.

For a list of dimensions that this sensor supports, see section Supported Dimensions.

For a list of regions that this sensor supports, see section List of Supported AWS Regions and Their Codes.

For a detailed list and descriptions of the channels that this sensor can show, see section Channel List.

Sensor in Other Languages

Dutch: AWS EC2 v2
French: AWS EC2 v2
German: AWS EC2 v2
Japanese: AWS EC2 v2
Portuguese: AWS EC2 v2
Russian: AWS EC2 v2
Simplified Chinese: AWS EC2 v2
Spanish: AWS EC2 v2

Remarks

This sensor requires credentials for AWS in settings that are higher in the object hierarchy, for example, in the settings of the parent device.
This sensor requires permissions for the AWS API key.
Amazon charges you based on the number of API calls that the sensor sends to the Amazon servers. For more information, see Amazon CloudWatch Pricing – Amazon Web Services (AWS).
This sensor supports the IPv6 protocol.
This sensor has a low performance impact.
This sensor uses lookups to determine the status values of one or more channels. This means that possible states are defined in a lookup file. You can change the behavior of a channel by editing the lookup file that the channel uses. For details, see section Define Lookups.

Detailed Requirements

Requirement	Description
Permissions for the AWS API key	This sensor requires sufficient rights to query data from the AWS API For more information, see the Knowledge Base: How do I set permissions for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API key to use certain sensors in PRTG?

Requirement

Description

Permissions for the AWS API key

This sensor requires sufficient rights to query data from the AWS API

For more information, see the Knowledge Base: How do I set permissions for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API key to use certain sensors in PRTG?

Add Sensor

The Add Sensor dialog appears when you manually add a new sensor to a device. It only shows the settings that are required to create the sensor. You can change nearly all settings on the sensor's Settings tab after creation.

PRTG looks for available instances or auto scaling groups.

This can take up to several minutes.

The settings that you select in the Add Sensor dialog are valid for all sensors that you create when you finish the dialog.

AWS EC2 Specific

Setting	Description
ID	Select the IDs that you want to monitor. PRTG creates one sensor for each ID that you select. Enable check boxes in front of the respective lines to select the items. Use the check box in the table header to select all items or to cancel the selection. In large tables, use the search function in the upper-right corner.

Setting

Description

Select the IDs that you want to monitor. PRTG creates one sensor for each ID that you select.

Enable check boxes in front of the respective lines to select the items. Use the check box in the table header to select all items or to cancel the selection. In large tables, use the search function in the upper-right corner.

Basic Sensor Settings

Click the Settings tab of a sensor to change its settings.

Basic Sensor Settings

Setting	Description
Sensor Name	Enter a name to identify the sensor.
Parent Tags	Shows tags that the sensor inherits from its parent device, parent group, and parent probe. This setting is for your information only. You cannot change it.
Tags	Enter one or more tags. Confirm each tag with the Spacebar key, a comma, or the Enter key. You can use tags to group objects and use tag-filtered views later on. Tags are not case-sensitive. Tags are automatically inherited. It is not possible to enter tags with a leading plus (+) or minus (-) sign, nor tags with parentheses (()) or angle brackets (<>). For performance reasons, it can take some minutes until you can filter for new tags that you added. The sensor has the following default tags that are automatically predefined in the sensor's settings when you add the sensor: aws cloudwatch cloudwatchsensor ec2
Priority	Select a priority for the sensor. This setting determines the position of the sensor in lists. The highest priority is at the top of a list. Choose from the lowest priority () to the highest priority ().

Usually, a sensor connects to the IP Address/DNS Name of the parent device. See the device settings for details. For some sensors, you can explicitly define the monitoring target in the sensor settings.

AWS EC2 Specific

Setting	Description
ID	Shows the ID of the AWS EC2 instance that this sensor monitors. PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.
Name	Shows the name of the AWS EC2 instance that this sensor monitors. PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.
Region	Shows the region in which the AWS EC2 instance runs. PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew. For a list of regions that this sensor supports, see section List of Supported AWS Regions and Their Codes.

Setting

Description

Shows the ID of the AWS EC2 instance that this sensor monitors.

PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.

Name

Shows the name of the AWS EC2 instance that this sensor monitors.

PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.

Region

Shows the region in which the AWS EC2 instance runs.

PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.

For a list of regions that this sensor supports, see section List of Supported AWS Regions and Their Codes.

Sensor Display

Setting	Description
Primary Channel	Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel is always displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor. You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.
Graph Type	Define how different channels are shown for this sensor: Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel. Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic. You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).
Stack Unit	This setting is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

Setting

Description

Primary Channel

Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel is always displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.

You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.

Graph Type

Define how different channels are shown for this sensor:

Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.
Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).

Stack Unit

This setting is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

Debug Options

Setting	Description
Result Handling	Define what PRTG does with the sensor result: Discard result: Do not store the sensor result. Store result: Store the last sensor result in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file name is Result of Sensor [ID].log. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites this file with each scanning interval. This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance. In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.

Setting

Description

Result Handling

Define what PRTG does with the sensor result:

Discard result: Do not store the sensor result.

Store result: Store the last sensor result in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file name is Result of Sensor [ID].log. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites this file with each scanning interval.

This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance.

In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.

Inherited Settings

By default, all of these settings are inherited from objects that are higher in the hierarchy. We recommend that you change them centrally in the root group settings if necessary. To change a setting for this object only, click under the corresponding setting name to disable the inheritance and to display its options.

For more information, see section Inheritance of Settings.

Scanning Interval

This sensor has a fixed minimum scanning interval for performance reasons. You cannot use a shorter scanning interval. Consequently, shorter scanning intervals in the Monitoring settings are not available for this sensor.

The minimum scanning interval of this sensor is 5 minutes.

The recommended scanning interval of this sensor is 5 minutes.

Scanning Interval

For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Scanning Interval.

Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window

You cannot interrupt the inheritance for schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. The corresponding settings from the parent objects are always active. However, you can define additional schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. They are active at the same time as the parent objects' settings.

Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window

For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window.

Access Rights

For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Access Rights.

Channel Unit Configuration

Which channel units are available depends on the sensor type and the available parameters. If no configurable channels are available, this field shows No configurable channels.

Channel Unit Configuration

For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Channel Unit Configuration.

Supported Metrics

The AWS EC2 v2 sensor supports the following metrics:

CPUCreditBalance (Average)
CPUCreditUsage (Average)
CPUUtilization (Average)
DiskReadBytes (Average)
DiskReadOps (Average)
DiskWriteBytes (Average)
DiskWriteOps (Average)
NetworkIn (Average)
NetworkOut (Average)
StatusCheckFailed (Average)
StatusCheckFailed_Instance (Average)
StatusCheckFailed_System (Average)

Supported Dimensions

The AWS EC2 v2 sensor supports the following dimensions:

Instance

Channel List

Which channels the sensor actually shows might depend on the target device, the available components, and the sensor setup.

Channel	Description
CPU Credit Balance	The CPU credit balance
CPU Credit Usage	The CPU credit usage
CPU Utilization	The CPU usage in percent This channel is the primary channel by default.
Disk Read	The disk read speed in bytes
Disk Read Ops	The number of disk read operations
Disk Write	The disk write speed in bytes
Disk Write Ops	The number of disk write operations
Downtime	In the channel table on the Overview tab, this channel never shows any values. PRTG uses this channel in graphs and reports to show the amount of time in which the sensor was in the Down status in percent.
Instance Status	The AWS EC2 instance status Up status: Passed Down status: Failed
Network In	The incoming network load in bytes
Network Out	The outgoing network load in bytes
System Status	The AWS EC2 system status Up status: Passed Down status: Failed

Knowledge Base

How do I set permissions for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API key to use certain sensors in PRTG?

https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/38083

What security features does PRTG include?

https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/61108