Provided by: auditd_3.0.9-1_amd64 bug

NAME

       auditctl - a utility to assist controlling the kernel's audit system

SYNOPSIS

       auditctl [options]

DESCRIPTION

       The  auditctl  program  is  used  to  configure kernel options related to auditing, to see
       status of the configuration, and to load discretionary audit rules.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

       -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 than 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.

       --signal signal
              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.

STATUS OPTIONS

       -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.

RULE OPTIONS

       -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 do 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.

PERFORMANCE TIPS

       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.

EXAMPLES

       To see all syscalls made by a specific program:

       # By pid:
       auditctl -a always,exit -S all -F pid=1005
       # By executable path
       auditctl -a always,exit -S all -F exe=/usr/bin/ls

       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

DISABLED BY DEFAULT

       On  many  systems  auditd  is configured to install an -a never,task rule by default. This
       rule causes every new process to skip all audit rule processing. This is usually  done  to
       avoid a small performance overhead imposed by syscall auditing. If you want to use auditd,
       you need to remove that rule by deleting 10-no-audit.rules and adding 10-base-config.rules
       to the audit rules directory.

       If  you have defined audit rules that are not matching when they should, check auditctl -l
       to make sure there is no never,task rule there.

FILES

       /etc/audit/audit.rules /etc/audit/audit-stop.rules

SEE ALSO

       audit.rules(7), ausearch(8), aureport(8), auditd(8).

AUTHOR

       Steve Grubb