Setting Up Lnav with an AWS S3 Read-Only Role for Secure Log Analysis

The logs spill across your screen like a flood. You need answers fast. You open Lnav against Amazon S3, but access control looms like a wall. The solution is a lean, locked-down AWS S3 read-only role—tight security, full visibility, zero risk of accidental writes.

Lnav lets you browse and search logs directly inside compressed files without moving them locally. When paired with AWS, you can point Lnav at S3 buckets to inspect application logs, server traces, and system events without downloading gigabytes of data. But direct access means your IAM roles must be configured with surgical precision.

A read-only role in AWS uses IAM policies to grant only s3:GetObject and needed listing permissions like s3:ListBucket. No PutObject, no DeleteObject. This ensures that when Lnav connects, it can read every log file—but not modify or remove them. This is critical in production environments where logs are evidence and uptime depends on immutability.

Steps to set up Lnav with an AWS S3 read-only role:

1. Create a new IAM role restricted to your logging buckets.
2. Attach a policy allowing s3:GetObject on arn:aws:s3:::your-logs-bucket/* and s3:ListBucket on arn:aws:s3:::your-logs-bucket.
3. Grant access to the services or users who will run Lnav.
4. Configure environment variables or credentials file with that role’s keys.
5. Run Lnav with lnav s3://your-logs-bucket/ and get instant search and filtering across all logs.

With read-only access, audits pass, compliance boxes tick, and operational safety stays intact. The connection between Lnav and AWS S3 remains efficient because S3 streams files directly as Lnav indexes them. No temporary copies. No unverified changes. Pure investigation flow.

Get this right once, and future incidents become faster to diagnose. No hunting through local drives, no risk of corrupted archives—just clear, controlled access to every log in S3.

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