Common options
Name Description
--aws-credential-file VALUE The location of the file with your AWS credentials.
You can set this value using the environment variable AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE. If you define the environment variable or you provide the path to the credential file, the file must exist or the request fails. All CloudWatch requests must be signed using your access key ID and secret access key.
Type: String
Valid values: A valid path to a file containing your access key ID and secret access key.
Default: Uses the environment variable AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE, if set.
-C, --ec2-cert-file-path VALUE The location of your EC2 certificate file for signing requests. You can use the environment variable EC2_CERT to specify this value.
Type: String
Valid values: A valid file path to the PEM file provided by Amazon EC2 or AWS Identity and Access Management.
Default: Uses the environment variable EC2_CERT, if set.
--connection-timeout VALUE The connection timeout value, in seconds.
Type: Integer
Valid values: Any positive number.
Default: 30
--delimiter VALUE The delimiter to use when displaying delimited (long) results.
Type: String
Valid values: Any string.
Default: Comma (,)
--headers If you are displaying tabular or delimited results, include the column headers. If you are showing XML results, return the HTTP headers from the service request, if applicable.
Type: Flag
Valid values: When present, shows headers.
Default: The --headers option is off by default.
Common options
Name Description
-I, --access-key-id VALUE The access key ID that will be used, in conjunction with the secret key, to sign the request. This must be used in conjunction with --secret-key, otherwise the option is ignored. All requests to CloudWatch must be signed, otherwise the request is rejected.
Type: String
Valid values: A valid access key ID.
Default: None -K, --ec2-private-key-file-path
VALUE
The private key that will be used to sign the request.
Using public/private keys causes the CLI to use SOAP.
The request is signed with a public certificate and private key. This parameter must be used in conjunction with EC2_CERT, otherwise the value is ignored. The value of the environment variable EC2_PRIVATE_KEY will be used if it is set, and this option is not specified.
This option is ignored if the environment variable
AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE is set, or --aws-credentials-file is used. All requests to CloudWatch must be signed, otherwise the request is rejected.
Type: String
Valid values: The path to a valid ASN.1 private key.
Default: None
--region VALUE The region requests are directed to. You can use the environment variable EC2_REGION to specify the value. The region is used to create the URL used to call CloudWatch, and must be a valid Amazon Web Services (AWS) region.
Type: String
Valid values: Any AWS region, for example, us-east-1.
Default: us-east-1, unless the EC2_REGION environment variable is set.
S, --secret-key VALUE The secret access key that will be used to sign the request, in conjunction with an access key ID. This parameter must be used in conjunction with --access-key-id, otherwise this option is ignored.
Type: String
Valid values: Your access key ID.
Default: None
Output
Name Description
--show-empty-fields Shows empty fields using (nil) as a placeholder to indicate that this data was not requested.
Type: Flag
Valid values: None
Default: Empty fields are not shown by default.
--show-request Displays the URL the CLI uses to call AWS.
Type: Flag
Valid values: None Default: false show-table, show-long,
--show-xml, --quiet
Specifies how the results are displayed: in a table, delimited (long), XML, or no output (quiet). The --show-table display shows a subset of the data in fixed column-width form; --show-long shows all of the returned values delimited by a character; --show-xml is the raw return from the service; and --quiet suppresses all standard output. All options are mutually exclusive, with the priority --show-table, --show-long, --show-xml, and --quiet.
Type: Flag
Valid values: None Default: --show-table
-U, --url VALUE The URL used to contact CloudWatch. You can set this value using the environment variable
AWS_CLOUDWATCH_URL. This value is used in conjunction with --region to create the expected URL. This option overrides the URL for the service call.
Type: String
Valid values: A valid HTTP or HTTPS URL.
Default: Uses the value specified in AWS_CLOUDWATCH_URL, if set.
Output
This command returns a table that contains the following:
• ALARM - Alarm name.
• DESCRIPTION - The alarm description. This column appears only in the --show-long view.
• STATE - The alarm state.
• STATE_REASON - A human-readable reason for state. This column appears only in the --show-long view.
Examples
• STATE_REASON_DATA - A machine-readable reason for state (JSON format). This column appears only in the --show-long view.
• ENABLED - Enables or disables actions. This column appears only in the --show-long view.
• OK_ACTIONS - The action to execute on OK status. This column appears only in the --show-long view.
• ALARM_ACTIONS - The action to execute on ALARM status.
• INSUFFICIENT_DATA_ACTIONS - The action to execute on INSUFFICIENT_DATA status. This column appears only in the --show-long view.
• NAMESPACE - A namespace for the metric.
• METRIC_NAME - The name of the metric.
• DIMENSIONS - The metric dimensions. This column appears only in the --show-long view.
• PERIOD - The period.
• STATISTIC - The statistic (Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum, SampleCount).
• EXTENDEDSTATISTIC - The percentile statistic.
• UNIT - The unit. This column appears only in the --show-long view.
• EVAL_PERIODS - The number of periods to evaluate the metric.
• COMPARISON - The comparison operator.
• THRESHOLD - The threshold.
The Amazon CloudWatch CLI displays errors on stderr.
Examples
Example request
This example describes an alarm for a given metric.
mon-describe-alarms-for-metricmetric-name CPUUtilization namespace AWS/EC2 --dimensions InstanceId=i-abcdef
This is an example output of this command.
ALARM STATE ALARM_ACTIONS NAMESPACE METRIC_NAME PERIOD STATISTIC EVAL_PERIODS COMPARISON THRESHOLD
my-alarm1 OK arn:aws:sns:.. AWS/EC2 CPUUtilization 60 Average 3 GreaterThanThreshold 100.0
my-alarm2 OK arn:aws:sns:.. AWS/EC2 CPUUtilization 60 Average 5 GreaterThanThreshold 80.0
Related topics
Download
• Set up the command line interface (p. 2)
Related action
• DescribeAlarmForMetric