session recording

Limitations

• You can view session recordings in Workbench, but you cannot download them from the Workbench console.

• Workbench stores session recordings in OSS. You can view and download the recording files from your OSS bucket, but you cannot parse or play them outside of Workbench.

Prerequisites

Create an OSS bucket to store session recording files. The bucket name must use the workbench-record-<Alibaba Cloud account ID>-<custom string> format. For more information, see Create a bucket.

Enable session recording

1. Configure the required permissions for session recording.

   Session recording uses the following API operations. You can configure permissions for the API operations based on your business requirements.

   • Set the recording configuration for an instance: SetInstanceRecordConfig

   • Query the recording configuration of an instance: GetInstanceRecordConfig

   • View a list of recordings: ListInstanceRecords

   • View the content of a recording: ViewInstanceRecords

   1. Create a permission policy.

      • For more information, see Create a custom permission policy.

      • Sample policy:

        {
            "Version": "1",
            "Statement": [
                {
                    "Effect": "Allow",
                    "Action": "ecs-workbench:SetInstanceRecordConfig",
                    "Resource": "*"
                },
                {
                    "Effect": "Allow",
                    "Action": "ecs-workbench:GetInstanceRecordConfig",
                    "Resource": "*"
                },
                {
                    "Effect": "Allow",
                    "Action": "ecs-workbench:ListInstanceRecords",
                    "Resource": "*"
                },
                {
                    "Effect": "Allow",
                    "Action": "ecs-workbench:ViewInstanceRecords",
                    "Resource": "*"
                }
            ]
        }

   2. Attach the custom permission policy. For more information, see Grant permissions to a RAM user.

2. Call the SetInstanceRecordConfig API operation to enable session recording.

   Parameter	Required	Description	Example
   Enabled	Yes	Specifies whether to enable session recording. true: Enable session recording. false: Disable session recording.	true
   InstanceId	Yes	The ID of the target instance. Specify the ID of a single target instance or an asterisk (*). The asterisk (*) indicates that session recording is enabled for all instances.	i-2ze3en5q21ah9x******
   RecordStorageTarget	No	The destination for storing recordings. Format: acs:oss:cn-<region>:<Alibaba Cloud account ID>:workbench-record-<Alibaba Cloud account ID>-<custom string>/<Bucket subdirectory>.	acs:oss:cn-beijing:1609982529******:workbench-record-1609982529******-<custom string>/record
   ExpirationDays	No	The expiration period in days. Note After this period expires, you can no longer view the recording in Workbench. However, the recording file in the OSS bucket is not deleted. If you do not specify the ExpirationDays parameter, recordings are available in Workbench for 7 days by default.	7
   RegionId	No	The ID of the region where the instance is located.	cn-beijing

   After enabling this feature, all end-user operations on the instance are automatically recorded.

3. Connect to the ECS instance by using Workbench.

   For more information, see Connect to an instance by using Workbench.

4. View the list of recordings.

   1. In the top menu bar of Workbench, choose Features > Session Recording.

   2. On the Session Recording page, view information such as the user ID and recording duration.

5. View a session recording.

   • In the list of recordings, find the desired session and click Play in the Actions column.

   • You can also log in to the OSS console to view and download the recording files from your OSS bucket.

Disable session recording

You can disable session recording for an instance by calling the SetInstanceRecordConfig API operation and setting the Enabled parameter to false.