auditd(8) -- Linux man page

NAME

DESCRIPTION

log_file

This keyword specifies the full path name to the log file where audit records will be stored. It must be a regular file.

log_format

The only valid value at the moment is RAW. If set to RAW , the audit records will be stored in a format exactly as the kernel sends it.

priority_boost

This is a non-negative number that tells the audit damon how much of a priority boost it should take. The default is 3. No change is 0.

flush

Valid values are none, incremental, data, and sync. If set to none, no special effort is made to flush the audit records to disk. If set to incremental, Then the freq parameter is used to determine how often an explicit flush to disk is issued. The data parameter tells the audit damon to keep the data portion of the disk file sync'd at all times. The sync option tells the audit daemon to keep both the data and meta-data fully sync'd with every write to disk.

freq

This is a non-negative number that tells the audit damon how many records to write before issuing an explicit flush to disk command. this value is only valid when the flush keyword is set to incremental.

num_logs

This keyword specifies the number of log files to keep if rotate is given as the max_log_file_action. If the number is < 2, logs are not rotated. This number must be 99 or less. The default is 0 - which means no rotation. As you increase the number of log files being rotated, you may need to adjust the kernel backlog setting upwards since it takes more time to rotate the files. This is typically done in /etc/audit.rules.

max_log_file

This keyword specifies the maximum file size in megabytes. When this limit is reached, it will trigger a configurable action. The value given must be numeric.

max_log_file_action

This parameter tells the system what action to take when the system has detected that the max file size limit has been reached. Valid values are ignore, syslog, suspend, rotate and keep_logs. If set to ignore, the audit daemon does nothing. syslog means that it will issue a warning to syslog. suspend will cause the audit daemon to stop writing records to the disk. The daemon will still be alive. The rotate option will cause the audit daemon to rotate the logs. It should be noted that logs with higher numbers are older than logs with lower numbers. This is the same convention used by the logrotate utility. The keep_logs option is similar to rotate except it does not use the num_logs setting. This prevents audit logs from being overwritten.

action_mail_acct

This option should contain a valid email address or alias. The default address is root. If the email address is not local to the machine, you must make sure you have email properly configured on your machine and network. Also, this option requires that /usr/lib/sendmail exists on the machine.

space_left

This is a numeric value in megabytes that tells the audit daemon when to perform a configurable action because the system is starting to run low on disk space.

space_left_action

This parameter tells the system what action to take when the system has detected that it is starting to get low on disk space. Valid values are ignore, syslog, email, suspend, single, and halt. If set to ignore, the audit daemon does nothing. syslog means that it will issue a warning to syslog. Email means that it will send a warning to the email account specified in action_mail_acct as well as sending the message to syslog. suspend will cause the audit daemon to stop writing records to the disk. The daemon will still be alive. The single option will cause the audit daemon to put the computer system in single user mode. halt option will cause the audit daemon to shutdown the computer system.

admin_space_left

This is a numeric value in megabytes that tells the audit daemon when to perform a configurable action because the system is running low on disk space. This should be considered the last chance to do something before running out of disk space. The numeric value for this parameter should be lower than the number for space_left.

admin_space_left_action

This parameter tells the system what action to take when the system has detected that it is low on disk space. Valid values are ignore, syslog, email, suspend, single, and halt. If set to ignore, the audit daemon does nothing. Syslog means that it will issue a warning to syslog. Email means that it will send a warning to the email account specified in action_mail_acct as well as sending the message to syslog. Suspend will cause the audit daemon to stop writing records to the disk. The daemon will still be alive. The single option will cause the audit daemon to put the computer system in single user mode. halt

disk_full_action

This parameter tells the system what action to take when the system has detected that the partition to which log files are written has become full. Valid values are ignore, syslog, suspend, single, and halt. If set to ignore, the audit daemon does nothing. Syslog means that it will issue a warning to syslog. Suspend will cause the audit daemon to stop writing records to the disk. The daemon will still be alive. The single option will cause the audit daemon to put the computer system in single user mode. halt option will cause the audit daemon to shutdown the computer system.

disk_error_action

This parameter tells the system what action to take whenever there is an error detected when writing audit events to disk or rotating logs. Valid values are ignore, syslog, suspend, single, and halt. If set to ignore, the audit daemon does nothing. Syslog means that it will issue a warning to syslog. Suspend will cause the audit daemon to stop writing records to the disk. The daemon will still be alive. The single option will cause the audit daemon to put the computer system in single user mode. halt option will cause the audit daemon to shutdown the computer system.

NOTES

The flush parameter should be set to sync or data.

Max_log_file and num_logs need to be adjusted so that you get complete use of your partition. It should be noted that the more files that have to be rotated, the longer it takes to get back to receiving audit events. Max_log_file_action should be set to keep_logs.

Space_left should be set to a number that gives the admin enough time to react to any alert message and perform some maintenance to free up disk space. This would typically involve running the aureport -t report and moving the oldest logs to an archive area. The value of space_left is site dependant since the rate at which events are generated varies with each deployment. The space_left_action is recommended to be set to email.

Admin_space_left should be set to the amount of disk space on the audit partition needed for admin actions to be recorded. Admin_space_left_action would be set to single so that use of the machine is restricted to just the console.

The disk_full_action is triggered when no more room exists on the partition. All access should be terminated since no more audit capability exists. This can be set to either single or halt.

The disk_error_action should be set to syslog, single, or halt depending on your local policies regarding handling of hardware malfunctions.  

FILES

/etc/auditd.conf

Audit daemon configuration file

SEE ALSO