Chapter 4. Viewing audit logs


Audit provides a security-relevant chronological set of records documenting the sequence of activities that have affected the system by individual users, administrators, or other components of the system.

4.1. About the API audit log

Audit works at the API server level, logging all requests coming to the server. Each audit log contains the following information:

Table 4.1. Audit log fields
FieldDescription

level

The audit level at which the event was generated.

auditID

A unique audit ID, generated for each request.

stage

The stage of the request handling when this event instance was generated.

requestURI

The request URI as sent by the client to a server.

verb

The Kubernetes verb associated with the request. For non-resource requests, this is the lowercase HTTP method.

user

The authenticated user information.

impersonatedUser

Optional. The impersonated user information, if the request is impersonating another user.

sourceIPs

Optional. The source IPs, from where the request originated and any intermediate proxies.

userAgent

Optional. The user agent string reported by the client. Note that the user agent is provided by the client, and must not be trusted.

objectRef

Optional. The object reference this request is targeted at. This does not apply for List-type requests, or non-resource requests.

responseStatus

Optional. The response status, populated even when the ResponseObject is not a Status type. For successful responses, this will only include the code. For non-status type error responses, this will be auto-populated with the error message.

requestObject

Optional. The API object from the request, in JSON format. The RequestObject is recorded as is in the request (possibly re-encoded as JSON), prior to version conversion, defaulting, admission or merging. It is an external versioned object type, and might not be a valid object on its own. This is omitted for non-resource requests and is only logged at request level and higher.

responseObject

Optional. The API object returned in the response, in JSON format. The ResponseObject is recorded after conversion to the external type, and serialized as JSON. This is omitted for non-resource requests and is only logged at response level.

requestReceivedTimestamp

The time that the request reached the API server.

stageTimestamp

The time that the request reached the current audit stage.

annotations

Optional. An unstructured key value map stored with an audit event that may be set by plug-ins invoked in the request serving chain, including authentication, authorization and admission plug-ins. Note that these annotations are for the audit event, and do not correspond to the metadata.annotations of the submitted object. Keys should uniquely identify the informing component to avoid name collisions, for example podsecuritypolicy.admission.k8s.io/policy. Values should be short. Annotations are included in the metadata level.

Example output for the Kubernetes API server:

{"kind":"Event","apiVersion":"audit.k8s.io/v1","level":"Metadata","auditID":"ad209ce1-fec7-4130-8192-c4cc63f1d8cd","stage":"ResponseComplete","requestURI":"/api/v1/namespaces/openshift-kube-controller-manager/configmaps/cert-recovery-controller-lock?timeout=35s","verb":"update","user":{"username":"system:serviceaccount:openshift-kube-controller-manager:localhost-recovery-client","uid":"dd4997e3-d565-4e37-80f8-7fc122ccd785","groups":["system:serviceaccounts","system:serviceaccounts:openshift-kube-controller-manager","system:authenticated"]},"sourceIPs":["::1"],"userAgent":"cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator/v0.0.0 (linux/amd64) kubernetes/$Format","objectRef":{"resource":"configmaps","namespace":"openshift-kube-controller-manager","name":"cert-recovery-controller-lock","uid":"5c57190b-6993-425d-8101-8337e48c7548","apiVersion":"v1","resourceVersion":"574307"},"responseStatus":{"metadata":{},"code":200},"requestReceivedTimestamp":"2020-04-02T08:27:20.200962Z","stageTimestamp":"2020-04-02T08:27:20.206710Z","annotations":{"authorization.k8s.io/decision":"allow","authorization.k8s.io/reason":"RBAC: allowed by ClusterRoleBinding \"system:openshift:operator:kube-controller-manager-recovery\" of ClusterRole \"cluster-admin\" to ServiceAccount \"localhost-recovery-client/openshift-kube-controller-manager\""}}

4.2. Viewing the audit log

You can view logs for the OpenShift Container Platform API server or the Kubernetes API server for each master node.

Procedure

To view the audit log:

  1. View the OpenShift Container Platform API server logs

    1. If necessary, get the node name of the log you want to view:

      $ oc adm node-logs --role=master --path=openshift-apiserver/

      Example output

      ip-10-0-140-97.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T00-12-19.834.log
      ip-10-0-140-97.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T11-13-00.469.log
      ip-10-0-140-97.ec2.internal audit.log
      ip-10-0-153-35.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T00-11-49.835.log
      ip-10-0-153-35.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T11-08-30.469.log
      ip-10-0-153-35.ec2.internal audit.log
      ip-10-0-170-165.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T00-13-00.128.log
      ip-10-0-170-165.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T11-10-04.082.log
      ip-10-0-170-165.ec2.internal audit.log

    2. View the OpenShift Container Platform API server log for a specific master node and timestamp or view all the logs for that master:

      $ oc adm node-logs <node-name> --path=openshift-apiserver/<log-name>

      For example:

      $ oc adm node-logs ip-10-0-140-97.ec2.internal --path=openshift-apiserver/audit-2019-04-08T13-09-01.227.log
      $ oc adm node-logs ip-10-0-140-97.ec2.internal --path=openshift-apiserver/audit.log

      The output appears similar to the following:

      Example output

      {"kind":"Event","apiVersion":"audit.k8s.io/v1","level":"Metadata","auditID":"ad209ce1-fec7-4130-8192-c4cc63f1d8cd","stage":"ResponseComplete","requestURI":"/api/v1/namespaces/openshift-kube-controller-manager/configmaps/cert-recovery-controller-lock?timeout=35s","verb":"update","user":{"username":"system:serviceaccount:openshift-kube-controller-manager:localhost-recovery-client","uid":"dd4997e3-d565-4e37-80f8-7fc122ccd785","groups":["system:serviceaccounts","system:serviceaccounts:openshift-kube-controller-manager","system:authenticated"]},"sourceIPs":["::1"],"userAgent":"cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator/v0.0.0 (linux/amd64) kubernetes/$Format","objectRef":{"resource":"configmaps","namespace":"openshift-kube-controller-manager","name":"cert-recovery-controller-lock","uid":"5c57190b-6993-425d-8101-8337e48c7548","apiVersion":"v1","resourceVersion":"574307"},"responseStatus":{"metadata":{},"code":200},"requestReceivedTimestamp":"2020-04-02T08:27:20.200962Z","stageTimestamp":"2020-04-02T08:27:20.206710Z","annotations":{"authorization.k8s.io/decision":"allow","authorization.k8s.io/reason":"RBAC: allowed by ClusterRoleBinding \"system:openshift:operator:kube-controller-manager-recovery\" of ClusterRole \"cluster-admin\" to ServiceAccount \"localhost-recovery-client/openshift-kube-controller-manager\""}}

  2. View the Kubernetes API server logs:

    1. If necessary, get the node name of the log you want to view:

      $ oc adm node-logs --role=master --path=kube-apiserver/

      Example output

      ip-10-0-140-97.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T14-07-27.129.log
      ip-10-0-140-97.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T19-18-32.542.log
      ip-10-0-140-97.ec2.internal audit.log
      ip-10-0-153-35.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T19-24-22.620.log
      ip-10-0-153-35.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T19-51-30.905.log
      ip-10-0-153-35.ec2.internal audit.log
      ip-10-0-170-165.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T18-37-07.511.log
      ip-10-0-170-165.ec2.internal audit-2019-04-09T19-21-14.371.log
      ip-10-0-170-165.ec2.internal audit.log

    2. View the Kubernetes API server log for a specific master node and timestamp or view all the logs for that master:

      $ oc adm node-logs <node-name> --path=kube-apiserver/<log-name>

      For example:

      $ oc adm node-logs ip-10-0-140-97.ec2.internal --path=kube-apiserver/audit-2019-04-09T14-07-27.129.log
      $ oc adm node-logs ip-10-0-170-165.ec2.internal --path=kube-apiserver/audit.log

      The output appears similar to the following:

      Example output

      {"kind":"Event","apiVersion":"audit.k8s.io/v1","level":"Metadata","auditID":"ad209ce1-fec7-4130-8192-c4cc63f1d8cd","stage":"ResponseComplete","requestURI":"/api/v1/namespaces/openshift-kube-controller-manager/configmaps/cert-recovery-controller-lock?timeout=35s","verb":"update","user":{"username":"system:serviceaccount:openshift-kube-controller-manager:localhost-recovery-client","uid":"dd4997e3-d565-4e37-80f8-7fc122ccd785","groups":["system:serviceaccounts","system:serviceaccounts:openshift-kube-controller-manager","system:authenticated"]},"sourceIPs":["::1"],"userAgent":"cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator/v0.0.0 (linux/amd64) kubernetes/$Format","objectRef":{"resource":"configmaps","namespace":"openshift-kube-controller-manager","name":"cert-recovery-controller-lock","uid":"5c57190b-6993-425d-8101-8337e48c7548","apiVersion":"v1","resourceVersion":"574307"},"responseStatus":{"metadata":{},"code":200},"requestReceivedTimestamp":"2020-04-02T08:27:20.200962Z","stageTimestamp":"2020-04-02T08:27:20.206710Z","annotations":{"authorization.k8s.io/decision":"allow","authorization.k8s.io/reason":"RBAC: allowed by ClusterRoleBinding \"system:openshift:operator:kube-controller-manager-recovery\" of ClusterRole \"cluster-admin\" to ServiceAccount \"localhost-recovery-client/openshift-kube-controller-manager\""}}

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