|
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | CONFIGURATION OPTIONS | STATUS OPTIONS | RULE OPTIONS | PERFORMANCE TIPS | EXAMPLES | FILES | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | COLOPHON |
|
|
|
AUDITCTL:(8) System Administration Utilities AUDITCTL:(8)
auditctl - a utility to assist controlling the kernel's audit
system
auditctl [options]
The auditctl program is used to configure kernel options related
to auditing, to see status of the configuration, and to load
discretionary audit rules.
-b backlog
Set max number (limit) of outstanding audit buffers
allowed (Kernel Default=64) If all buffers are full, the
failure flag is consulted by the kernel for action.
--backlog_wait_time wait_time
Set the time for the kernel to wait (Kernel Default 60*HZ)
when the backlog limit is reached before queuing more
audit events to be transferred to auditd. The number must
be greater than or equal to zero and less that 10 times
the default value.
--reset_backlog_wait_time_actual
Reset the actual backlog wait time counter shown by the
status command.
-c Continue loading rules in spite of an error. This
summarizes the results of loading the rules. The exit code
will not be success if any rule fails to load.
-D Delete all rules and watches. This can take a key option
(-k), too.
-e [0..2]
Set enabled flag. When 0 is passed, this can be used to
temporarily disable auditing. When 1 is passed as an
argument, it will enable auditing. To lock the audit
configuration so that it can't be changed, pass a 2 as the
argument. Locking the configuration is intended to be the
last command in audit.rules for anyone wishing this
feature to be active. Any attempt to change the
configuration in this mode will be audited and denied. The
configuration can only be changed by rebooting the
machine.
-f [0..2]
Set failure mode 0=silent 1=printk 2=panic. This option
lets you determine how you want the kernel to handle
critical errors. Example conditions where this mode may
have an effect includes: transmission errors to userspace
audit daemon, backlog limit exceeded, out of kernel
memory, and rate limit exceeded. The default value is 1.
Secure environments will probably want to set this to 2.
-h Help
-i When given by itself, ignore errors when reading rules
from a file. This causes auditctl to always return a
success exit code. If passed as an argument to -s then it
gives an interpretation of the numbers to human readable
words if possible.
--loginuid-immutable
This option tells the kernel to make loginuids
unchangeable once they are set. Changing loginuids
requires CAP_AUDIT_CONTROL. So, its not something that can
be done by unprivileged users. Setting this makes loginuid
tamper-proof, but can cause some problems in certain kinds
of containers.
-q mount-point,subtree
If you have an existing directory watch and bind or move
mount another subtree in the watched subtree, you need to
tell the kernel to make the subtree being mounted
equivalent to the directory being watched. If the subtree
is already mounted at the time the directory watch is
issued, the subtree is automatically tagged for watching.
Please note the comma separating the two values. Omitting
it will cause errors.
-r rate
Set limit in messages/sec (0=none). If this rate is non-
zero and is exceeded, the failure flag is consulted by the
kernel for action. The default value is 0.
--reset-lost
Reset the lost record counter shown by the status command.
-R file
Read rules from a file. The rules must be 1 per line and
in the order that they are to be executed in. The rule
file must be owned by root and not readable by other users
or it will be rejected. The rule file may have comments
embedded by starting the line with a '#' character. Rules
that are read from a file are identical to what you would
type on a command line except they are not preceded by
auditctl (since auditctl is the one executing the file)
and you would not use shell escaping since auditctl is
reading the file instead of bash.
--signalsignal
Send a signal to the audit daemon. You must have
privileges to do this. Supported signals are TERM, HUP,
USR1, USR2, CONT.
-t Trim the subtrees after a mount command.
-l List all rules 1 per line. Two more options may be given
to this command. You can give either a key option (-k) to
list rules that match a key or a (-i) to have a0 through
a3 interpreted to help determine the syscall argument
values are correct .
-m text
Send a user space message into the audit system. This can
only be done if you have CAP_AUDIT_WRITE capability
(normally the root user has this). The resulting event
will be the USER type.
-s Report the kernel's audit subsystem status. It will tell
you the in-kernel values that can be set by -e, -f, -r,
and -b options. The pid value is the process number of the
audit daemon. Note that a pid of 0 indicates that the
audit daemon is not running. The lost entry will tell you
how many event records that have been discarded due to the
kernel audit queue overflowing. The backlog field tells
how many event records are currently queued waiting for
auditd to read them. This option can be followed by the -i
to get a couple fields interpreted.
-v Print the version of auditctl.
-a [list,action|action,list]
Append rule to the end of list with action. Please note
the comma separating the two values. Omitting it will
cause errors. The fields may be in either order. It could
be list,action or action,list. The following describes the
valid list names:
task Add a rule to the per task list. This rule list is
used only at the time a task is created -- when
fork() or clone() are called by the parent task.
When using this list, you should only use fields
that are known at task creation time, such as the
uid, gid, etc.
exit Add a rule to the syscall exit list. This list is
used upon exit from a system call to determine if
an audit event should be created.
user Add a rule to the user message filter list. This
list is used by the kernel to filter events
originating in user space before relaying them to
the audit daemon. It should be noted that the only
fields that are valid are: uid, auid, gid, pid,
subj_user, subj_role, subj_type, subj_sen,
subj_clr, msgtype, and executable name. All other
fields will be treated as non-matching. It should
be understood that any event originating from user
space from a process that has CAP_AUDIT_WRITE will
be recorded into the audit trail. This means that
the most likely use for this filter is with rules
that have an action of never since nothing has to
be done to allow events to be recorded.
exclude
Add a rule to the event type exclusion filter list.
This list is used to filter events that you do not
want to see. For example, if you do not want to see
any avc messages, you would using this list to
record that. Events can be excluded by process ID,
user ID, group ID, login user ID, message type,
subject context, or executable name. The action is
ignored and uses its default of "never".
filesystem
Add a rule that will be applied to a whole
filesystem. The filesystem must be identified with
a fstype field. Normally this filter is used to
exclude any events for a whole filesystem such as
tracefs or debugfs.
The following describes the valid actions for the rule:
never No audit records will be generated. This can be
used to suppress event generation. In general, you
want suppressions at the top of the list instead of
the bottom. This is because the event triggers on
the first matching rule.
always Allocate an audit context, always fill it in at
syscall entry time, and always write out a record
at syscall exit time.
-A list,action
Add rule to the beginning list with action.
-C [f=f | f!=f]
Build an inter-field comparison rule: field, operation,
field. You may pass multiple comparisons on a single
command line. Each one must start with -C. Each inter-
field equation is anded with each other as well as
equations starting with -F to trigger an audit record.
There are 2 operators supported - equal, and not equal.
Valid fields are:
auid, uid, euid, suid, fsuid, obj_uid; and gid, egid,
sgid, fsgid, obj_gid
The two groups of uid and gid cannot be mixed. But any
comparison within the group can be made. The obj_uid/gid
fields are collected from the object of the event such as
a file or directory.
-d list,action
Delete rule from list with action. The rule is deleted
only if it exactly matches syscall name(s) and every field
name and value.
-F [n=v | n!=v | n<v | n>v | n<=v | n>=v | n&v | n&=v]
Build a rule field: name, operation, value. You may have
up to 64 fields passed on a single command line. Each one
must start with -F. Each field equation is anded with each
other (as well as equations starting with -C) to trigger
an audit record. There are 8 operators supported - equal,
not equal, less than, greater than, less than or equal,
and greater than or equal, bit mask, and bit test
respectively. Bit test will "and" the values and check
that they are equal, bit mask just "ands" the values.
Fields that take a user ID may instead have the user's
name; the program will convert the name to user ID. The
same is true of group names. Valid fields are:
a0, a1, a2, a3
Respectively, the first 4 arguments to a syscall.
Note that string arguments are not supported. This
is because the kernel is passed a pointer to the
string. Triggering on a pointer address value is
not likely to work. So, when using this, you should
only use on numeric values. This is most likely to
be used on platforms that multiplex socket or IPC
operations.
arch The CPU architecture of the syscall. The arch can
be found doing 'uname -m'. If you do not know the
arch of your machine but you want to use the 32 bit
syscall table and your machine supports 32 bit, you
can also use b32 for the arch. The same applies to
the 64 bit syscall table, you can use b64. In this
way, you can write rules that are somewhat arch
independent because the family type will be auto
detected. However, syscalls can be arch specific
and what is available on x86_64, may not be
available on ppc. The arch directive should precede
the -S option so that auditctl knows which internal
table to use to look up the syscall numbers.
auid The original ID the user logged in with. Its an
abbreviation of audit uid. Sometimes its referred
to as loginuid. Either the user account text or
number may be used.
devmajor
Device Major Number
devminor
Device Minor Number
dir Full Path of Directory to watch. This will place a
recursive watch on the directory and its whole
subtree. It can only be used on exit list. See
"-w".
egid Effective Group ID. May be numeric or the groups
name.
euid Effective User ID. May be numeric or the user
account name.
exe Absolute path to application that while executing
this rule will apply to. It supports = and !=
operators. Note that you can only use this once for
each rule.
exit Exit value from a syscall. If the exit code is an
errno, you may use the text representation, too.
fsgid Filesystem Group ID. May be numeric or the groups
name.
fsuid Filesystem User ID. May be numeric or the user
account name.
filetype
The target file's type. Can be either file, dir,
socket, link, character, block, or fifo.
gid Group ID. May be numeric or the groups name.
inode Inode Number
key This is another way of setting a filter key. See
discussion above for -k option.
msgtype
This is used to match the event's record type. It
should only be used on the exclude or user filter
lists.
obj_uid
Object's UID
obj_gid
Object's GID
obj_user
Resource's SE Linux User
obj_role
Resource's SE Linux Role
obj_type
Resource's SE Linux Type
obj_lev_low
Resource's SE Linux Low Level
obj_lev_high
Resource's SE Linux High Level
path Full Path of File to watch. It can only be used on
exit list.
perm Permission filter for file operations. See "-p". It
can only be used on exit list. You can use this
without specifying a syscall and the kernel will
select the syscalls that satisfy the permissions
being requested.
pers OS Personality Number
pid Process ID
ppid Parent's Process ID
saddr_fam
Address family number as found in
/usr/include/bits/socket.h. For example, IPv4 would
be 2 and IPv6 would be 10.
sessionid
User's login session ID
subj_user
Program's SE Linux User
subj_role
Program's SE Linux Role
subj_type
Program's SE Linux Type
subj_sen
Program's SE Linux Sensitivity
subj_clr
Program's SE Linux Clearance
sgid Saved Group ID. See getresgid(2) man page.
success
If the exit value is >= 0 this is true/yes
otherwise its false/no. When writing a rule, use a
1 for true/yes and a 0 for false/no
suid Saved User ID. See getresuid(2) man page.
uid User ID. May be numeric or the user account name.
-k key Set a filter key on an audit rule. The filter key is an
arbitrary string of text that can be up to 31 bytes long.
It can uniquely identify the audit records produced by a
rule. Typical use is for when you have several rules that
together satisfy a security requirement. The key value can
be searched on with ausearch so that no matter which rule
triggered the event, you can find its results. The key can
also be used on delete all (-D) and list rules (-l) to
select rules with a specific key. You may have more than
one key on a rule if you want to be able to search logged
events in multiple ways or if you have an auditd plugin
that uses a key to aid its analysis.
-p [r|w|x|a]
Describe the permission access type that a file system
watch will trigger on. r=read, w=write, x=execute,
a=attribute change. These permissions are not the standard
file permissions, but rather the kind of syscall that
would do this kind of thing. The read & write syscalls are
omitted from this set since they would overwhelm the logs.
But rather for reads or writes, the open flags are looked
at to see what permission was requested.
-S [Syscall name or number|all]
Any syscall name or number may be used. The word 'all' may
also be used. If the given syscall is made by a program,
then start an audit record. If a field rule is given and
no syscall is specified, it will default to all syscalls.
You may also specify multiple syscalls in the same rule by
using multiple -S options in the same rule. Doing so
improves performance since fewer rules need to be
evaluated. Alternatively, you may pass a comma separated
list of syscall names. If you are on a bi-arch system,
like x86_64, you should be aware that auditctl simply
takes the text, looks it up for the native arch (in this
case b64) and sends that rule to the kernel. If there are
no additional arch directives, IT WILL APPLY TO BOTH 32 &
64 BIT SYSCALLS. This can have undesirable effects since
there is no guarantee that any syscall has the same number
on both 32 and 64 bit interfaces. You will likely want to
control this and write 2 rules, one with arch equal to b32
and one with b64 to make sure the kernel finds the events
that you intend. See the arch field discussion for more
info.
-w path
Insert a watch for the file system object at path. You
cannot insert a watch to the top level directory. This is
prohibited by the kernel. Wildcards are not supported
either and will generate a warning. The way that watches
work is by tracking the inode internally. If you place a
watch on a file, its the same as using the -F path option
on a syscall rule. If you place a watch on a directory,
its the same as using the -F dir option on a syscall rule.
The -w form of writing watches is for backwards
compatibility and the syscall based form is more
expressive. Unlike most syscall auditing rules, watches do
not impact performance based on the number of rules sent
to the kernel. The only valid options when using a watch
are the -p and -k. If you need to anything fancy like
audit a specific user accessing a file, then use the
syscall auditing form with the path or dir fields. See the
EXAMPLES section for an example of converting one form to
another.
-W path
Remove a watch for the file system object at path. The
rule must match exactly. See -d discussion for more info.
Syscall rules get evaluated for each syscall for every program.
If you have 10 syscall rules, every program on your system will
delay during a syscall while the audit system evaluates each
rule. Too many syscall rules will hurt performance. Try to
combine as many as you can whenever the filter, action, key, and
fields are identical. For example:
auditctl -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S openat -F success=0
auditctl -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S truncate -F success=0
could be re-written as one rule:
auditctl -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S openat -S truncate -F success=0
Also, try to use file system auditing wherever practical. This
improves performance. For example, if you were wanting to capture
all failed opens & truncates like above, but were only concerned
about files in /etc and didn't care about /usr or /sbin, its
possible to use this rule:
auditctl -a always,exit -S openat -S truncate -F dir=/etc -F success=0
This will be higher performance since the kernel will not
evaluate it each and every syscall. It will be handled by the
filesystem auditing code and only checked on filesystem related
syscalls.
To see all syscalls made by a specific program:
auditctl -a always,exit -S all -F pid=1005
To see files opened by a specific user:
auditctl -a always,exit -S openat -F auid=510
To see unsuccessful openat calls:
auditctl -a always,exit -S openat -F success=0
To watch a file for changes (2 ways to express):
auditctl -w /etc/shadow -p wa
auditctl -a always,exit -F path=/etc/shadow -F perm=wa
To recursively watch a directory for changes (2 ways to express):
auditctl -w /etc/ -p wa
auditctl -a always,exit -F dir=/etc/ -F perm=wa
To see if an admin is accessing other user's files:
auditctl -a always,exit -F dir=/home/ -F uid=0 -C auid!=obj_uid
/etc/audit/audit.rules /etc/audit/audit-stop.rules
audit.rules(7), auditd(8).
Steve Grubb
This page is part of the audit (Linux Audit) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://people.redhat.com/sgrubb/audit/⟩. If you have a bug
report for this manual page, send it to linux-audit@redhat.com.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/linux-audit/audit-userspace.git⟩ on
2020-12-18. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
that was found in the repository was 2020-12-16.) If you
discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for
the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original
manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
Red Hat Aug 2018 AUDITCTL:(8)
Pages that refer to this page: audit_add_rule_data(3), audit_delete_rule_data(3), audit_request_rules_list_data(3), audit_set_backlog_limit(3), audit_set_backlog_wait_time(3), audit_set_failure(3), audit.rules(7), auditd(8), augenrules(8), autrace(8), pam_loginuid(8)
|
HTML rendering created 2020-12-21 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface, maintainer of the Linux man-pages project. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|