The CloudWatch agent will not work properly without the permissions configured. This was the fastest way I found to get CloudWatch talking correctly. Create IAM Role – https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/create-iam-roles-for-cloudwatch-agent-commandline.html Attach Role to EC2 instance – https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/attach-iam-role.html Install Cloudwatch on the EC2 instance Install CloudWatch Agent sudo yum install amazon-cloudwatch-agent -y Install