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Chapter 11. Auditing the system
Audit does not provide additional security to your system; rather, it can be used to discover violations of security policies used on your system. These violations can further be prevented by additional security measures such as SELinux.
11.1. Linux Audit
The Linux Audit system provides a way to track security-relevant information about your system. Based on pre-configured rules, Audit generates log entries to record as much information about the events that are happening on your system as possible. This information is crucial for mission-critical environments to determine the violator of the security policy and the actions they performed.
The following list summarizes some of the information that Audit is capable of recording in its log files:
- Date and time, type, and outcome of an event
- Sensitivity labels of subjects and objects
- Association of an event with the identity of the user who triggered the event
- All modifications to Audit configuration and attempts to access Audit log files
- All uses of authentication mechanisms, such as SSH, Kerberos, and others
-
Changes to any trusted database, such as
/etc/passwd
- Attempts to import or export information into or from the system
- Include or exclude events based on user identity, subject and object labels, and other attributes
The use of the Audit system is also a requirement for a number of security-related certifications. Audit is designed to meet or exceed the requirements of the following certifications or compliance guides:
- Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP)
- Labeled Security Protection Profile (LSPP)
- Rule Set Base Access Control (RSBAC)
- National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM)
- Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)
- Payment Card Industry — Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS)
- Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG)
Audit has also been:
- Evaluated by National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) and Best Security Industries (BSI)
- Certified to LSPP/CAPP/RSBAC/EAL4+ on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
- Certified to Operating System Protection Profile / Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (OSPP/EAL4+) on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Use Cases
- Watching file access
- Audit can track whether a file or a directory has been accessed, modified, executed, or the file’s attributes have been changed. This is useful, for example, to detect access to important files and have an Audit trail available in case one of these files is corrupted.
- Monitoring system calls
-
Audit can be configured to generate a log entry every time a particular system call is used. This can be used, for example, to track changes to the system time by monitoring the
settimeofday
,clock_adjtime
, and other time-related system calls. - Recording commands run by a user
-
Audit can track whether a file has been executed, so rules can be defined to record every execution of a particular command. For example, a rule can be defined for every executable in the
/bin
directory. The resulting log entries can then be searched by user ID to generate an audit trail of executed commands per user. - Recording execution of system pathnames
- Aside from watching file access which translates a path to an inode at rule invocation, Audit can now watch the execution of a path even if it does not exist at rule invocation, or if the file is replaced after rule invocation. This allows rules to continue to work after upgrading a program executable or before it is even installed.
- Recording security events
-
The
pam_faillock
authentication module is capable of recording failed login attempts. Audit can be set up to record failed login attempts as well and provides additional information about the user who attempted to log in. - Searching for events
-
Audit provides the
ausearch
utility, which can be used to filter the log entries and provide a complete audit trail based on several conditions. - Running summary reports
-
The
aureport
utility can be used to generate, among other things, daily reports of recorded events. A system administrator can then analyze these reports and investigate suspicious activity further. - Monitoring network access
-
The
nftables
,iptables
, andebtables
utilities can be configured to trigger Audit events, allowing system administrators to monitor network access.
System performance may be affected depending on the amount of information that is collected by Audit.
11.2. Audit system architecture
The Audit system consists of two main parts: the user-space applications and utilities, and the kernel-side system call processing. The kernel component receives system calls from user-space applications and filters them through one of the following filters: user, task, fstype, or exit.
After a system call passes the exclude filter, it is sent through one of the aforementioned filters, which, based on the Audit rule configuration, sends it to the Audit daemon for further processing.
The user-space Audit daemon collects the information from the kernel and creates entries in a log file. Other Audit user-space utilities interact with the Audit daemon, the kernel Audit component, or the Audit log files:
-
The
auditctl
Audit control utility interacts with the kernel Audit component to manage rules and to control many settings and parameters of the event generation process. -
The remaining Audit utilities take the contents of the Audit log files as input and generate output based on user’s requirements. For example, the
aureport
utility generates a report of all recorded events.
In RHEL 9, the Audit dispatcher daemon (audisp
) functionality is integrated in the Audit daemon (auditd
). Configuration files of plugins for the interaction of real-time analytical programs with Audit events are located in the /etc/audit/plugins.d/
directory by default.
11.3. Configuring auditd for a secure environment
The default auditd
configuration should be suitable for most environments. However, if your environment must meet strict security policies, you can change the following settings for the Audit daemon configuration in the /etc/audit/auditd.conf
file:
log_file
-
The directory that holds the Audit log files (usually
/var/log/audit/
) should reside on a separate mount point. This prevents other processes from consuming space in this directory and provides accurate detection of the remaining space for the Audit daemon. max_log_file
-
Specifies the maximum size of a single Audit log file, must be set to make full use of the available space on the partition that holds the Audit log files. The
max_log_file`
parameter specifies the maximum file size in megabytes. The value given must be numeric. max_log_file_action
-
Decides what action is taken once the limit set in
max_log_file
is reached, should be set tokeep_logs
to prevent Audit log files from being overwritten. space_left
-
Specifies the amount of free space left on the disk for which an action that is set in the
space_left_action
parameter is triggered. Must be set to a number that gives the administrator enough time to respond and free up disk space. Thespace_left
value depends on the rate at which the Audit log files are generated. If the value of space_left is specified as a whole number, it is interpreted as an absolute size in megabytes (MiB). If the value is specified as a number between 1 and 99 followed by a percentage sign (for example, 5%), the Audit daemon calculates the absolute size in megabytes based on the size of the file system containinglog_file
. space_left_action
-
It is recommended to set the
space_left_action
parameter toemail
orexec
with an appropriate notification method. admin_space_left
-
Specifies the absolute minimum amount of free space for which an action that is set in the
admin_space_left_action
parameter is triggered, must be set to a value that leaves enough space to log actions performed by the administrator. The numeric value for this parameter should be lower than the number for space_left. You can also append a percent sign (for example, 1%) to the number to have the audit daemon calculate the number based on the disk partition size. admin_space_left_action
-
Should be set to
single
to put the system into single-user mode and allow the administrator to free up some disk space. disk_full_action
-
Specifies an action that is triggered when no free space is available on the partition that holds the Audit log files, must be set to
halt
orsingle
. This ensures that the system is either shut down or operating in single-user mode when Audit can no longer log events. disk_error_action
-
Specifies an action that is triggered in case an error is detected on the partition that holds the Audit log files, must be set to
syslog
,single
, orhalt
, depending on your local security policies regarding the handling of hardware malfunctions. flush
-
Should be set to
incremental_async
. It works in combination with thefreq
parameter, which determines how many records can be sent to the disk before forcing a hard synchronization with the hard drive. Thefreq
parameter should be set to100
. These parameters assure that Audit event data is synchronized with the log files on the disk while keeping good performance for bursts of activity.
The remaining configuration options should be set according to your local security policy.
11.4. Starting and controlling auditd
After auditd
is configured, start the service to collect Audit information and store it in the log files. Use the following command as the root user to start auditd
:
# service auditd start
To configure auditd
to start at boot time:
# systemctl enable auditd
You can temporarily disable auditd
with the # auditctl -e 0
command and re-enable it with # auditctl -e 1
.
You can perform other actions on auditd
by using the service auditd <action>
command, where <action> can be one of the following:
stop
-
Stops
auditd
. restart
-
Restarts
auditd
. reload
orforce-reload
-
Reloads the configuration of
auditd
from the/etc/audit/auditd.conf
file. rotate
-
Rotates the log files in the
/var/log/audit/
directory. resume
- Resumes logging of Audit events after it has been previously suspended, for example, when there is not enough free space on the disk partition that holds the Audit log files.
condrestart
ortry-restart
-
Restarts
auditd
only if it is already running. status
-
Displays the running status of
auditd
.
The service
command is the only way to correctly interact with the auditd
daemon. You need to use the service
command so that the auid
value is properly recorded. You can use the systemctl
command only for two actions: enable
and status
.
11.5. Understanding Audit log files
By default, the Audit system stores log entries in the /var/log/audit/audit.log
file; if log rotation is enabled, rotated audit.log
files are stored in the same directory.
Add the following Audit rule to log every attempt to read or modify the /etc/ssh/sshd_config
file:
# auditctl -w /etc/ssh/sshd_config -p warx -k sshd_config
If the auditd
daemon is running, for example, using the following command creates a new event in the Audit log file:
$ cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config
This event in the audit.log
file looks as follows:
type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287): arch=c000003e syscall=2 success=no exit=-13 a0=7fffd19c5592 a1=0 a2=7fffd19c4b50 a3=a items=1 ppid=2686 pid=3538 auid=1000 uid=1000 gid=1000 euid=1000 suid=1000 fsuid=1000 egid=1000 sgid=1000 fsgid=1000 tty=pts0 ses=1 comm="cat" exe="/bin/cat" subj=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 key="sshd_config" type=CWD msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287): cwd="/home/shadowman" type=PATH msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287): item=0 name="/etc/ssh/sshd_config" inode=409248 dev=fd:00 mode=0100600 ouid=0 ogid=0 rdev=00:00 obj=system_u:object_r:etc_t:s0 nametype=NORMAL cap_fp=none cap_fi=none cap_fe=0 cap_fver=0 type=PROCTITLE msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287) : proctitle=636174002F6574632F7373682F737368645F636F6E666967
The above event consists of four records, which share the same time stamp and serial number. Records always start with the type=
keyword. Each record consists of several name=value
pairs separated by a white space or a comma. A detailed analysis of the above event follows:
First Record
type=SYSCALL
-
The
type
field contains the type of the record. In this example, theSYSCALL
value specifies that this record was triggered by a system call to the kernel.
msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287):
The
msg
field records:-
A time stamp and a unique ID of the record in the form
audit(time_stamp:ID)
. Multiple records can share the same time stamp and ID if they were generated as part of the same Audit event. The time stamp is using the Unix time format - seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970. -
Various event-specific
name=value
pairs provided by the kernel or user-space applications.
-
A time stamp and a unique ID of the record in the form
arch=c000003e
-
The
arch
field contains information about the CPU architecture of the system. The value,c000003e
, is encoded in hexadecimal notation. When searching Audit records with theausearch
command, use the-i
or--interpret
option to automatically convert hexadecimal values into their human-readable equivalents. Thec000003e
value is interpreted asx86_64
. syscall=2
-
The
syscall
field records the type of the system call that was sent to the kernel. The value,2
, can be matched with its human-readable equivalent in the/usr/include/asm/unistd_64.h
file. In this case,2
is theopen
system call. Note that theausyscall
utility allows you to convert system call numbers to their human-readable equivalents. Use theausyscall --dump
command to display a listing of all system calls along with their numbers. For more information, see theausyscall
(8) man page. success=no
-
The
success
field records whether the system call recorded in that particular event succeeded or failed. In this case, the call did not succeed. exit=-13
The
exit
field contains a value that specifies the exit code returned by the system call. This value varies for a different system call. You can interpret the value to its human-readable equivalent with the following command:# ausearch --interpret --exit -13
Note that the previous example assumes that your Audit log contains an event that failed with exit code
-13
.a0=7fffd19c5592
,a1=0
,a2=7fffd19c5592
,a3=a
-
The
a0
toa3
fields record the first four arguments, encoded in hexadecimal notation, of the system call in this event. These arguments depend on the system call that is used; they can be interpreted by theausearch
utility. items=1
-
The
items
field contains the number of PATH auxiliary records that follow the syscall record. ppid=2686
-
The
ppid
field records the Parent Process ID (PPID). In this case,2686
was the PPID of the parent process such asbash
. pid=3538
-
The
pid
field records the Process ID (PID). In this case,3538
was the PID of thecat
process. auid=1000
-
The
auid
field records the Audit user ID, that is the loginuid. This ID is assigned to a user upon login and is inherited by every process even when the user’s identity changes, for example, by switching user accounts with thesu - john
command. uid=1000
-
The
uid
field records the user ID of the user who started the analyzed process. The user ID can be interpreted into user names with the following command:ausearch -i --uid UID
. gid=1000
-
The
gid
field records the group ID of the user who started the analyzed process. euid=1000
-
The
euid
field records the effective user ID of the user who started the analyzed process. suid=1000
-
The
suid
field records the set user ID of the user who started the analyzed process. fsuid=1000
-
The
fsuid
field records the file system user ID of the user who started the analyzed process. egid=1000
-
The
egid
field records the effective group ID of the user who started the analyzed process. sgid=1000
-
The
sgid
field records the set group ID of the user who started the analyzed process. fsgid=1000
-
The
fsgid
field records the file system group ID of the user who started the analyzed process. tty=pts0
-
The
tty
field records the terminal from which the analyzed process was invoked. ses=1
-
The
ses
field records the session ID of the session from which the analyzed process was invoked. comm="cat"
-
The
comm
field records the command-line name of the command that was used to invoke the analyzed process. In this case, thecat
command was used to trigger this Audit event. exe="/bin/cat"
-
The
exe
field records the path to the executable that was used to invoke the analyzed process. subj=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023
-
The
subj
field records the SELinux context with which the analyzed process was labeled at the time of execution. key="sshd_config"
-
The
key
field records the administrator-defined string associated with the rule that generated this event in the Audit log.
Second Record
type=CWD
In the second record, the
type
field value isCWD
— current working directory. This type is used to record the working directory from which the process that invoked the system call specified in the first record was executed.The purpose of this record is to record the current process’s location in case a relative path winds up being captured in the associated PATH record. This way the absolute path can be reconstructed.
msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287)
-
The
msg
field holds the same time stamp and ID value as the value in the first record. The time stamp is using the Unix time format - seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970. cwd="/home/user_name"
-
The
cwd
field contains the path to the directory in which the system call was invoked.
Third Record
type=PATH
-
In the third record, the
type
field value isPATH
. An Audit event contains aPATH
-type record for every path that is passed to the system call as an argument. In this Audit event, only one path (/etc/ssh/sshd_config
) was used as an argument. msg=audit(1364481363.243:24287):
-
The
msg
field holds the same time stamp and ID value as the value in the first and second record. item=0
-
The
item
field indicates which item, of the total number of items referenced in theSYSCALL
type record, the current record is. This number is zero-based; a value of0
means it is the first item. name="/etc/ssh/sshd_config"
-
The
name
field records the path of the file or directory that was passed to the system call as an argument. In this case, it was the/etc/ssh/sshd_config
file. inode=409248
The
inode
field contains the inode number associated with the file or directory recorded in this event. The following command displays the file or directory that is associated with the409248
inode number:# find / -inum 409248 -print /etc/ssh/sshd_config
dev=fd:00
-
The
dev
field specifies the minor and major ID of the device that contains the file or directory recorded in this event. In this case, the value represents the/dev/fd/0
device. mode=0100600
-
The
mode
field records the file or directory permissions, encoded in numerical notation as returned by thestat
command in thest_mode
field. See thestat(2)
man page for more information. In this case,0100600
can be interpreted as-rw-------
, meaning that only the root user has read and write permissions to the/etc/ssh/sshd_config
file. ouid=0
-
The
ouid
field records the object owner’s user ID. ogid=0
-
The
ogid
field records the object owner’s group ID. rdev=00:00
-
The
rdev
field contains a recorded device identifier for special files only. In this case, it is not used as the recorded file is a regular file. obj=system_u:object_r:etc_t:s0
-
The
obj
field records the SELinux context with which the recorded file or directory was labeled at the time of execution. nametype=NORMAL
-
The
nametype
field records the intent of each path record’s operation in the context of a given syscall. cap_fp=none
-
The
cap_fp
field records data related to the setting of a permitted file system-based capability of the file or directory object. cap_fi=none
-
The
cap_fi
field records data related to the setting of an inherited file system-based capability of the file or directory object. cap_fe=0
-
The
cap_fe
field records the setting of the effective bit of the file system-based capability of the file or directory object. cap_fver=0
-
The
cap_fver
field records the version of the file system-based capability of the file or directory object.
Fourth Record
type=PROCTITLE
-
The
type
field contains the type of the record. In this example, thePROCTITLE
value specifies that this record gives the full command-line that triggered this Audit event, triggered by a system call to the kernel. proctitle=636174002F6574632F7373682F737368645F636F6E666967
-
The
proctitle
field records the full command-line of the command that was used to invoke the analyzed process. The field is encoded in hexadecimal notation to not allow the user to influence the Audit log parser. The text decodes to the command that triggered this Audit event. When searching Audit records with theausearch
command, use the-i
or--interpret
option to automatically convert hexadecimal values into their human-readable equivalents. The636174002F6574632F7373682F737368645F636F6E666967
value is interpreted ascat /etc/ssh/sshd_config
.
11.6. Using auditctl for defining and executing Audit rules
The Audit system operates on a set of rules that define what is captured in the log files. Audit rules can be set either on the command line using the auditctl
utility or in the /etc/audit/rules.d/
directory.
The auditctl
command enables you to control the basic functionality of the Audit system and to define rules that decide which Audit events are logged.
File-system rules examples
To define a rule that logs all write access to, and every attribute change of, the
/etc/passwd
file:# auditctl -w /etc/passwd -p wa -k passwd_changes
To define a rule that logs all write access to, and every attribute change of, all the files in the
/etc/selinux/
directory:# auditctl -w /etc/selinux/ -p wa -k selinux_changes
System-call rules examples
To define a rule that creates a log entry every time the
adjtimex
orsettimeofday
system calls are used by a program, and the system uses the 64-bit architecture:# auditctl -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S adjtimex -S settimeofday -k time_change
To define a rule that creates a log entry every time a file is deleted or renamed by a system user whose ID is 1000 or larger:
# auditctl -a always,exit -S unlink -S unlinkat -S rename -S renameat -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=4294967295 -k delete
Note that the
-F auid!=4294967295
option is used to exclude users whose login UID is not set.
Executable-file rules
To define a rule that logs all execution of the /bin/id
program, execute the following command:
# auditctl -a always,exit -F exe=/bin/id -F arch=b64 -S execve -k execution_bin_id
Additional resources
-
auditctl(8)
man page on your system
11.7. Defining persistent Audit rules
To define Audit rules that are persistent across reboots, you must either directly include them in the /etc/audit/rules.d/audit.rules
file or use the augenrules
program that reads rules located in the /etc/audit/rules.d/
directory.
Note that the /etc/audit/audit.rules
file is generated whenever the auditd
service starts. Files in /etc/audit/rules.d/
use the same auditctl
command-line syntax to specify the rules. Empty lines and text following a hash sign (#) are ignored.
Furthermore, you can use the auditctl
command to read rules from a specified file using the -R
option, for example:
# auditctl -R /usr/share/audit/sample-rules/30-stig.rules
11.8. Pre-configured Audit rules files for compliance with standards
To configure Audit for compliance with a specific certification standard, such as OSPP, PCI DSS, or STIG, you can use the set of pre-configured rules files installed with the audit
package as a starting point. The sample rules are located in the /usr/share/audit/sample-rules
directory.
The Audit sample rules in the sample-rules
directory are not exhaustive nor up to date because security standards are dynamic and subject to change. These rules are provided only to demonstrate how Audit rules can be structured and written. They do not ensure immediate compliance with the latest security standards. To bring your system into compliance with the latest security standards according to specific security guidelines, use the SCAP-based security compliance tools.
30-nispom.rules
- Audit rule configuration that meets the requirements specified in the Information System Security chapter of the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual.
30-ospp-v42*.rules
- Audit rule configuration that meets the requirements defined in the OSPP (Protection Profile for General Purpose Operating Systems) profile version 4.2.
30-pci-dss-v31.rules
- Audit rule configuration that meets the requirements set by Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) v3.1.
30-stig.rules
- Audit rule configuration that meets the requirements set by Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG).
To use these configuration files, copy them to the /etc/audit/rules.d/
directory and use the augenrules --load
command, for example:
# cd /usr/share/audit/sample-rules/ # cp 10-base-config.rules 30-stig.rules 31-privileged.rules 99-finalize.rules /etc/audit/rules.d/ # augenrules --load
You can order Audit rules using a numbering scheme. See the /usr/share/audit/sample-rules/README-rules
file for more information.
Additional resources
-
audit.rules(7)
man page on your system
11.9. Using augenrules to define persistent rules
The augenrules
script reads rules located in the /etc/audit/rules.d/
directory and compiles them into an audit.rules
file. This script processes all files that end with .rules
in a specific order based on their natural sort order. The files in this directory are organized into groups with the following meanings:
- 10
- Kernel and auditctl configuration
- 20
- Rules that could match general rules but you want a different match
- 30
- Main rules
- 40
- Optional rules
- 50
- Server-specific rules
- 70
- System local rules
- 90
- Finalize (immutable)
The rules are not meant to be used all at once. They are pieces of a policy that should be thought out and individual files copied to /etc/audit/rules.d/
. For example, to set a system up in the STIG configuration, copy rules 10-base-config
, 30-stig
, 31-privileged
, and 99-finalize
.
Once you have the rules in the /etc/audit/rules.d/
directory, load them by running the augenrules
script with the --load
directive:
# augenrules --load
/sbin/augenrules: No change
No rules
enabled 1
failure 1
pid 742
rate_limit 0
...
Additional resources
-
audit.rules(8)
andaugenrules(8)
man pages.
11.10. Disabling augenrules
Use the following steps to disable the augenrules
utility. This switches Audit to use rules defined in the /etc/audit/audit.rules
file.
Procedure
Copy the
/usr/lib/systemd/system/auditd.service
file to the/etc/systemd/system/
directory:# cp -f /usr/lib/systemd/system/auditd.service /etc/systemd/system/
Edit the
/etc/systemd/system/auditd.service
file in a text editor of your choice, for example:# vi /etc/systemd/system/auditd.service
Comment out the line containing
augenrules
, and uncomment the line containing theauditctl -R
command:#ExecStartPost=-/sbin/augenrules --load ExecStartPost=-/sbin/auditctl -R /etc/audit/audit.rules
Reload the
systemd
daemon to fetch changes in theauditd.service
file:# systemctl daemon-reload
Restart the
auditd
service:# service auditd restart
Additional resources
-
augenrules(8)
andaudit.rules(8)
man pages. - Auditd service restart overrides changes made to /etc/audit/audit.rules (Red Hat Knowledgebase)
11.11. Setting up Audit to monitor software updates
You can use the pre-configured rule 44-installers.rules
to configure Audit to monitor the following utilities that install software:
-
dnf
[2] -
yum
-
pip
-
npm
-
cpan
-
gem
-
luarocks
To monitor the rpm
utility, install the rpm-plugin-audit
package. Audit will then generate SOFTWARE_UPDATE
events when it installs or updates a package. You can list these events by entering ausearch -m SOFTWARE_UPDATE
on the command line.
Pre-configured rule files cannot be used on systems with the ppc64le
and aarch64
architectures.
Prerequisites
-
auditd
is configured in accordance with the settings provided in Configuring auditd for a secure environment .
Procedure
Copy the pre-configured rule file
44-installers.rules
from the/usr/share/audit/sample-rules/
directory to the/etc/audit/rules.d/
directory:# cp /usr/share/audit/sample-rules/44-installers.rules /etc/audit/rules.d/
Load the audit rules:
# augenrules --load
Verification
List the loaded rules:
# auditctl -l -p x-w /usr/bin/dnf-3 -k software-installer -p x-w /usr/bin/yum -k software-installer -p x-w /usr/bin/pip -k software-installer -p x-w /usr/bin/npm -k software-installer -p x-w /usr/bin/cpan -k software-installer -p x-w /usr/bin/gem -k software-installer -p x-w /usr/bin/luarocks -k software-installer
Perform an installation, for example:
# dnf reinstall -y vim-enhanced
Search the Audit log for recent installation events, for example:
# ausearch -ts recent -k software-installer –––– time->Thu Dec 16 10:33:46 2021 type=PROCTITLE msg=audit(1639668826.074:298): proctitle=2F7573722F6C6962657865632F706C6174666F726D2D707974686F6E002F7573722F62696E2F646E66007265696E7374616C6C002D790076696D2D656E68616E636564 type=PATH msg=audit(1639668826.074:298): item=2 name="/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2" inode=10092 dev=fd:01 mode=0100755 ouid=0 ogid=0 rdev=00:00 obj=system_u:object_r:ld_so_t:s0 nametype=NORMAL cap_fp=0 cap_fi=0 cap_fe=0 cap_fver=0 cap_frootid=0 type=PATH msg=audit(1639668826.074:298): item=1 name="/usr/libexec/platform-python" inode=4618433 dev=fd:01 mode=0100755 ouid=0 ogid=0 rdev=00:00 obj=system_u:object_r:bin_t:s0 nametype=NORMAL cap_fp=0 cap_fi=0 cap_fe=0 cap_fver=0 cap_frootid=0 type=PATH msg=audit(1639668826.074:298): item=0 name="/usr/bin/dnf" inode=6886099 dev=fd:01 mode=0100755 ouid=0 ogid=0 rdev=00:00 obj=system_u:object_r:rpm_exec_t:s0 nametype=NORMAL cap_fp=0 cap_fi=0 cap_fe=0 cap_fver=0 cap_frootid=0 type=CWD msg=audit(1639668826.074:298): cwd="/root" type=EXECVE msg=audit(1639668826.074:298): argc=5 a0="/usr/libexec/platform-python" a1="/usr/bin/dnf" a2="reinstall" a3="-y" a4="vim-enhanced" type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1639668826.074:298): arch=c000003e syscall=59 success=yes exit=0 a0=55c437f22b20 a1=55c437f2c9d0 a2=55c437f2aeb0 a3=8 items=3 ppid=5256 pid=5375 auid=0 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 tty=pts0 ses=3 comm="dnf" exe="/usr/libexec/platform-python3.6" subj=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 key="software-installer"
11.12. Monitoring user login times with Audit
To monitor which users logged in at specific times, you do not need to configure Audit in any special way. You can use the ausearch
or aureport
tools, which provide different ways of presenting the same information.
Prerequisites
-
auditd
is configured in accordance with the settings provided in Configuring auditd for a secure environment .
Procedure
To display user log in times, use any one of the following commands:
Search the audit log for the
USER_LOGIN
message type:# ausearch -m USER_LOGIN -ts '12/02/2020' '18:00:00' -sv no time->Mon Nov 22 07:33:22 2021 type=USER_LOGIN msg=audit(1637584402.416:92): pid=1939 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 subj=system_u:system_r:sshd_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 msg='op=login acct="(unknown)" exe="/usr/sbin/sshd" hostname=? addr=10.37.128.108 terminal=ssh res=failed'
-
You can specify the date and time with the
-ts
option. If you do not use this option,ausearch
provides results from today, and if you omit time,ausearch
provides results from midnight. -
You can use the
-sv yes
option to filter out successful login attempts and-sv no
for unsuccessful login attempts.
-
You can specify the date and time with the
Pipe the raw output of the
ausearch
command into theaulast
utility, which displays the output in a format similar to the output of thelast
command. For example:# ausearch --raw | aulast --stdin root ssh 10.37.128.108 Mon Nov 22 07:33 - 07:33 (00:00) root ssh 10.37.128.108 Mon Nov 22 07:33 - 07:33 (00:00) root ssh 10.22.16.106 Mon Nov 22 07:40 - 07:40 (00:00) reboot system boot 4.18.0-348.6.el8 Mon Nov 22 07:33
Display the list of login events by using the
aureport
command with the--login -i
options.# aureport --login -i Login Report ============================================ # date time auid host term exe success event ============================================ 1. 11/16/2021 13:11:30 root 10.40.192.190 ssh /usr/sbin/sshd yes 6920 2. 11/16/2021 13:11:31 root 10.40.192.190 ssh /usr/sbin/sshd yes 6925 3. 11/16/2021 13:11:31 root 10.40.192.190 ssh /usr/sbin/sshd yes 6930 4. 11/16/2021 13:11:31 root 10.40.192.190 ssh /usr/sbin/sshd yes 6935 5. 11/16/2021 13:11:33 root 10.40.192.190 ssh /usr/sbin/sshd yes 6940 6. 11/16/2021 13:11:33 root 10.40.192.190 /dev/pts/0 /usr/sbin/sshd yes 6945
Additional resources
-
ausearch(8)
,aulast(8)
, andaureport(8)
man pages on your system
dnf
is a symlink in RHEL, the path in the dnf
Audit rule must include the target of the symlink. To receive correct Audit events, modify the 44-installers.rules
file by changing the path=/usr/bin/dnf
path to /usr/bin/dnf-3
.