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AUDITCTL:(8) System Administration Utilities AUDITCTL:(8)
NAME
auditctl - a utility to assist controlling the kernel's audit system
SYNOPSIS
auditctl [options]
DESCRIPTION
The auditctl program is used to control the behavior, get status, and
add or delete rules into the 2.6 kernel's audit system.
OPTIONS
-b
Set max number of outstanding audit buffers allowed (Kernel
Default=64) If all buffers are full, the failure flag is con-
sulted by the kernel for action.
-e [0|1]
Set enabled flag. This can be used to temporarily disable
auditing or re-enable it.
-f [0..2]
Set failure flag 0=silent 1=printk 2=panic. This option lets
you determine how you want the kernel to handle critical
errors. Example conditions where this flag is consulted
includes: transmission errors to userspace audit daemon, back-
log 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 Ignore errors when reading rules from a file
-l List all rules 1 per line.
-k
Set a filter key on a filesystem watch. The filterkey is an
arbitrary string of text that can be up to 31 bytes long. It
can uniquely identify the audit records produced by the watch.
-m text
Send a user-space message into the audit system. This can only
be done by the root user.
-p [r|w|x|a]
Set permissions filter for a file system watch. r=read,
w=write, x=execute, a=append.
-r
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.
-R
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 preceeded by auditctl (since auditctl is the one
executing the file).
-s Report status
-a
Append rule to the end of ist with ction. Please note the
comma separating the two values. Omitting it will cause errors.
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.
entry Add a rule to the syscall entry list. This list is
used upon entry to a system call to determine if an
audit event should be created.
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 origi-
nating 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, and
pid. All other fileds will be treated as non-match-
ing.
watch Add a rule to the file system watch filter list.
This list is used to filter events that originate
from file system watches. You can use syscall
matching with this list, but the only syscalls that
are meaningful are I/O related.
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.
possible Allocate an audit context for the new task, and
always fill it in at syscall entry time. This makes
a full syscall record available if some other part
of the kernel decides it should be recorded. This
option is intended for use with file system audit-
ing. For example, you could use this with the open
syscall and set a file system watch for a specific
file. In this case, you will not get an audit event
for each call to open - just the ones that the
files system watch triggers on.
always Allocate an audit context, always fill it in at
syscall entry time, and always write out a record
at syscall exit time.
-A
Add rule to the beginning ist with ction
-d
Delete rule from ist with ction. The rule is deleted only
if it exactly matches syscall name and field names.
-D Delete all rules and watches.
-S [Syscall name or number|all]
Any syscall name or number may be used. The word 'all' may also
be used. If this syscall is made by a program, then start an
audit record. If a field rule is given and no syscall is speci-
fied, it will default to all syscalls. You may also specify
multiple syscalls in the same rule. Doing so improves perfor-
mance since fewer rules need to be evaluated.
-F [n=v | n!=v]
Build a rule field: name = value. You may have multiple fields
passed on a command line. Each one must start with -F. You may
have up to 64 fields passed on a single commandline. Each field
equation is anded with each other to trigger an audit record.
There are 2 operators supported - equal and not equal. Fields
that take a user ID may instead have the user's name; the pro-
gram will convert the name to user ID. The same is true of
group names. Valid fields are:
pid Process ID
uid User ID
euid Effective User ID
suid Set User ID
fsuid Filesystem User ID
gid Group ID
egid Effect Group ID
sgid Set Group ID
fsgid Filesystem Group ID
auid The original ID the user logged in with. Its an
abbreviation of audit uid.
pers OS Personality Number
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.
devmajor Device Major Number
devminor Device Minor Number
inode Inode Number
exit Exit value from a syscall
success If the exit value is >= 0 this is true/yes other-
wise its false/no. When writing a rule, use a 1 for
true/yes and a 0 for false/no
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.
-t
Translate syscall number to syscall name. No other task is per-
formed. Also note that you can use the -F arch=xxx to set the
syscall table for translation. If you use this, it must be
before the -t parameter or the machine's native type will be
used.
-w
Insert a watch for the file system object at . You cannot
insert a watch to the top level directory. This is prohibited
by the kernel. Wildcards are not supported either and will gen-
erate a warning. The way that watches work is by tracking the
inode internally. This means that if you put a watch on a
directory, you will see what appears to be file events, but it
is really just the updating of meta data. You might miss a few
events by doing this. If you need to watch all files in a
directory, its recommended to place an individual watch on each
file. Unlike syscall auditing rules, watches do not impact per-
formance based on the number of rules sent to the kernel.
-W
Remove a watch for the file system object at
EXAMPLES
To see all syscalls made by a program:
auditctl -a entry,always -S all -F pid=1005
To see files opened by a specific user:
auditctl -a exit,always -S open -F auid=510
To see unsuccessful open call's:
auditctl -a exit,always -S open -F success!=0
SEE ALSO
auditd(8)
Red Hat Oct 2005 AUDITCTL:(8)
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