Which is better AWS S3 bucket logs vs AWS cloudtrail

Question

What's the difference between the AWS S3 logs and the AWS Cloudtrail? In the docs of cloudrail I saw this:

CloudTrail adds another dimension to the monitoring capabilities already offered by AWS. It does not change or replace logging features you might already be using.

Answer 1

CloudTrail logs API calls accessed to your AWS Account. These CloudTrail logs are stored in Amazon S3 Bucket.

The two offer different services.

The Definition you have shared from CloudTrail Doc: CloudTrail adds another dimension to the monitoring capabilities already offered by AWS. It does not change or replace logging features you might already be using.

It means you might have already activated some of the other logging features offered in other AWS services like ELB logging etc.. But when you enable CloudTrail monitoring, you need not worry about your previous logging functionalities as they will be still active. You will receive logs from all the services. So By Enabling CloudTrail logging, It does not change or replace logging features you might already be using.

Hope it Helps.. :)

Answer 2

CloudTrail tracks the API access for some infrastructure-changing events, in S3 it means creating, deleting, and modifying bucket ( see this in  S3 CloudTrail docs). It is an API method oriented that helps in modifying buckets.
S3 Server Access Logging provides web server-style logging of access to the objects in an S3 bucket. This type of logging is gritty to the object, which includes read-only operations and includes only non-API access like static web site browsing.

Answer 3

I've dealt with same case several times:
Try to use .withRegion(..) and make sure you do not use .withEndpointConfiguration(...). Perhaps, you are using incorrect endpoint definition.