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Observability

Activity Logs

What Is It?

Activity Logs provide contract owners and administrators with a read-only audit trail of every action performed on IONOS Cloud resources within a specific contract. The service captures user logins, resource provisioning, configuration changes, data access, and more, recording who did what, when, and from which source IP or service. All interactions are retrieved via authenticated GET requests, making Activity Logs a tamper-proof record for security auditing, compliance reporting, and operational troubleshooting.

Quick Facts

Aspect Details
Type Read-only audit trail API
Scope Per-contract basis
Access Method GET requests only (REST API)
Authentication Basic Auth or Bearer token
Data Captured Source IP/service, affected resources, actions, timestamps, principal identity
Filtering Date range (startDate OR endDate, not both), pagination (limit/offset)
Retention Fixed at 35 days; entries older than 35 days are purged
Scope IaaS products (PaaS coverage is a documented roadmap item)
Endpoints API root, list contracts, download entries

API Endpoints

Purpose Endpoint Method
Get API meta-information https://api.ionos.com/activitylog/v1 GET
List accessible contracts https://api.ionos.com/activitylog/v1/contracts GET
Download log entries https://api.ionos.com/activitylog/v1/contracts/{contractNumber} GET

What You Can Do

Retrieve Audit Trails

Access comprehensive logs showing every action performed within your contract. Each entry includes the UUID, timestamp, principal (username and contract number), source IP, and event details (resource type, action, and affected resource IDs).

Filter by Date Range

Narrow your audit queries using startDate or endDate query parameters to focus on specific time windows. This helps isolate events during incident investigations or compliance reporting periods.

Paginate Results

Control the volume of returned data with limit (maximum entries per page) and offset (starting index) parameters. This enables efficient retrieval of large audit datasets without overwhelming your analysis tools.

Authenticate Securely

Choose between Basic Authentication (Base64-encoded username and password) or Bearer token authentication. Both methods require the Authorization header and Content-Type: application/json for every request.

List Accessible Contracts

Use the list contracts endpoint to discover which contract numbers your credentials are authorized to query. This is the first step in any Activity Logs workflow.

Integrate with SIEM Tools

Download log entries as JSON for ingestion into security information and event management (SIEM) systems. The structured response format includes a hits object with total count and an array of log entries, each containing metadata, principal identity, and event details.

Best For

Scenario Why It Fits
Security auditing Provides complete record of user logins, resource changes, and source IPs to detect unauthorized or suspicious activity
Compliance reporting Delivers detailed timestamps, principal identities, and resource actions required for GDPR, ISO 27001, and other regulatory audits
Operational troubleshooting Timeline of events helps engineers pinpoint when changes were made that caused outages or performance issues
Change management Lists resources modified and actions performed, enabling impact analysis before releases or rollbacks
Incident response Read-only, tamper-proof data needed to contain breaches, revert changes, or communicate with stakeholders during incidents
Governance reporting Consolidated per-contract view with date filtering supports regular health checks and continuous improvement practices

Key Considerations

Billing & Costs

  • Pricing: Activity Logs pricing is not published in the IONOS Cloud price list; the Service Catalog does not state a charging model. In practice it is available as a contract-level feature. Confirm current terms with IONOS.
  • Data transfer: Standard API egress rates may apply if retrieving large volumes of log data
  • Retention: Entries are retained for 35 days, then purged; export via the API to Object Storage for longer persistence

Limitations

  • Read-only access only (all interactions are GET requests; you cannot create, modify, or delete log entries)
  • Logs are scoped per contract (you must specify contract number to retrieve entries)
  • Date filtering supports either startDate or endDate, not both simultaneously
  • Pagination required for large result sets (controlled via limit and offset parameters)
  • Contract visibility limited to credentials with appropriate authorization (use list contracts endpoint to discover accessible contracts)
  • Retention is fixed at 35 days and is not configurable; for longer persistence, download entries and archive externally (Object Storage recommended)
  • Maximum limit value not documented (consult official API reference or IONOS support for specifics)

Management Options

  • REST API via authenticated GET requests
  • Integration with automation scripts (curl, Python, etc.)
  • SIEM ingestion via JSON response format