Detecting EC2 Errors

Start up errors are stored in the /var/log/messages file in each instance. To view the messages file, SSH into an instance as described in Accessing an EC2 Instance.

To access the messages file, you must be super user. For example, if you want to tail the messages file, enter sudo tail -f /var/log/messages

You can also capture errors related to Cloud Formation stack by means of the SNS Topic, as described in Creating a Simple Notification Service (SNS) Topic.