What VPC Flow Logs Capture
Understand the connection metadata recorded for your network.
What VPC Flow Logs Are
VPC Flow Logs capture metadata about the IP traffic flowing to and from network interfaces in your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). They record information about connections, giving security teams visibility into who talked to whom, on which ports, and whether the traffic was allowed or blocked.
Metadata, Not Payload
A crucial point: Flow Logs record connection metadata only, never the actual packet contents. You see source and destination IPs, ports, protocol, byte and packet counts, and the action taken. You do not see the data inside the packets. For payload inspection you need VPC Traffic Mirroring instead.