Renaming an Amazon CloudWatch Alarm

Question

I'm trying to organize a large number of CloudWatch alarms for maintainability, and the web console grays out the name field on an edit. Is there another method (preferably something scriptable) for updating the name of CloudWatch alarms? I would prefer a solution that does not require any programming beyond simple executable scripts.

Zandrazandt

Our workaround is to use the "Description" field and configure the console to display that column (it doesn't by default). – Clichy

Answer 1

Unfortunately it looks like this is not currently possible.

Zandrazandt

Dec 2018 - still does not appear possible :-( – Backhanded

OCT -2019 Still not possible – Kinny

June 2021 Still not possible – Grandiloquent

Jan 2022 - Still not possible, but we gotta be close now! – Eskill

I'm from the future and it's still not possible in 2023 – Jaquelynjaquenetta

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. now 2022 it's still not possible. – Suffix

Now sept 2022 it's not possible : LOL – Maintain

Jan 2023 - Still not possible – Disagree

Jun1 2023 - seems like you can copy the alarm and rename it that way - copy/delete original? – Barytes

May 29, 2024 - Still not possible. – Mallen

Answer 2

Here's a script we use to do this for the time being:

import sys
import boto


def rename_alarm(alarm_name, new_alarm_name):
    conn = boto.connect_cloudwatch()

    def get_alarm():
        alarms = conn.describe_alarms(alarm_names=[alarm_name])
        if not alarms:
            raise Exception("Alarm '%s' not found" % alarm_name)
        return alarms[0]

    alarm = get_alarm()

    # work around boto comparison serialization issue
    # https://github.com/boto/boto/issues/1311
    alarm.comparison = alarm._cmp_map.get(alarm.comparison)

    alarm.name = new_alarm_name
    conn.update_alarm(alarm)

    # update actually creates a new alarm because the name has changed, so
    # we have to manually delete the old one
    get_alarm().delete()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    alarm_name, new_alarm_name = sys.argv[1:3]

    rename_alarm(alarm_name, new_alarm_name)

It assumes you're either on an ec2 instance with a role that allows this, or you've got a ~/.boto file with your credentials. It's easy enough to manually add yours.

Karykaryl

Answer 3

I looked around for the same solution but it seems neither console nor cloudwatch API provides that feature.

Note:

But we can copy the existing alram with the same parameter and can save on new name

.

Celeski

Answer 4

If you use Terraform to manage your CloudWatch alarms, you can easily change the alarm resource's name and Terraform will recreate the alarm with the new name.

Veda