Preparation

Preparation

Enabling and configuring logs and tracing in API Gateway (REST API) helps you monitor, debug, and analyze the behavior of your application effectively.

🎯 Objectives:

• Enable Access Logs to capture detailed request/response data.
• Enable Execution Logs to trace internal execution steps (for REST APIs).
• Enable X-Ray Tracing to follow the request flow across AWS services like API Gateway → Lambda → DynamoDB.

🛠️ Steps to configure:

1. Access API Gateway

• Sign in to AWS Console: https://console.aws.amazon.com/
• Search for “API Gateway” and select the service.

2. Select your target API

• Go to API Gateway → Select your API
• Click Stages → Choose a stage (e.g., dev, prod)
• Click Edit in the Logs and Tracing section

3. Enable the following options:

• ✅ Errors and info logs: Capture both errors and detailed request/response info (recommended for debugging).
• ✅ Data tracing: Log full request and response payloads.
• ✅ Detailed metrics: Enable detailed CloudWatch metrics including count, latency, 4XX, and 5XX errors.
• ✅ X-Ray tracing: Activate AWS X-Ray to trace full request flow through services.

👉 Next: Use CloudWatch Metrics, Logs Insight, Alarm, Dashboard, and X-Ray to monitor your APIs.