Skip to content

Logging and Monitoring for Node.js Environments

Prerequisites

  • A running Elastic Beanstalk Node.js environment.
  • IAM permissions for CloudWatch Logs and CloudWatch metrics.
  • Application writing operational logs to standard output.
  • Access to Elastic Beanstalk console and EB CLI.

What You'll Build

You will validate Node.js application logs on instance paths, enable CloudWatch Logs streaming, inspect environment metrics, and understand where AWS X-Ray SDK instrumentation fits for trace collection.

flowchart LR
    A[Node.js app stdout and stderr] --> B[/var/log/web.stdout.log]
    B --> C[Elastic Beanstalk log retrieval]
    B --> D[CloudWatch Logs streaming]
    E[Environment metrics] --> F[CloudWatch alarms and dashboards]
    G[X-Ray SDK for Node.js] --> H[Trace data analysis]

Steps

  1. Ensure your application logs meaningful operational events.

    app.get("/healthz", (req, res) => {
    console.log("health check request");
    res.status(200).send("ok");
});

  2. Retrieve logs from the environment.

    eb logs

  3. Review primary web process output location on instances.

    /var/log/web.stdout.log

  4. Enable CloudWatch Logs streaming for persistent central log access.

    • Turn on log streaming in Elastic Beanstalk configuration.
    • Select retention policy according to your operational requirements.
    • Confirm log groups are created for the target environment.

  5. Review environment metrics and health indicators.

    eb health --refresh

  6. Add AWS X-Ray SDK instrumentation to application code where distributed tracing is required.

  7. Configure log retention and lifecycle deliberately.

    • Keep short retention in development environments.
    • Use longer retention for production incident analysis windows.
    • Align retention with security and compliance policies.

  8. Define basic CloudWatch alarms from key environment metrics.

    • Elevated latency over baseline.
    • Increased 5xx error rates.
    • Persistent health degradation states.

Verification

  • eb logs returns recent logs from web instances.
  • web.stdout.log contains application messages from requests.
  • CloudWatch Logs groups include current environment log streams.
  • CloudWatch metrics reflect request volume, latency, and health behavior.
  • Optional X-Ray traces are visible when instrumentation is enabled.
  • Alarm thresholds are documented and tied to on-call response expectations.

See Also

Sources