Provided by: auditd_2.3.2-2ubuntu1_amd64 
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 backlog
Set max number of outstanding audit buffers allowed (Kernel Default=64) If all
buffers are full, the failure flag is consulted by the kernel for action.
-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 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, 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 Ignore errors when reading rules from a file. This causes auditctl to always return
a success exit code.
-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.
-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.
-l List all rules 1 per line. This can take a key option (-k), too.
-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 audispd plugin that uses a
key to aid its analysis.
-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.
-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.
-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.
-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).
-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.
-t Trim the subtrees after a mount command.
-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, and msgtype. 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. The message type that you do not wish to see is given with the
msgtype field.
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.
-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.
-D Delete all rules and watches. This can take a key option (-k), too.
-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. 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, for example, the open 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.
-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.
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
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.
-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.
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 -S open -F success=0
auditctl -a always,exit -S truncate -F success=0
could be re-written as one rule:
auditctl -a always,exit -S open -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 open -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:
auditctl -a always,exit -S all -F pid=1005
To see files opened by a specific user:
auditctl -a always,exit -S open -F auid=510
To see unsuccessful open calls:
auditctl -a always,exit -S open -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
FILES
/etc/audit/audit.rules
SEE ALSO
audit.rules(7), auditd(8).
AUTHOR
Steve Grubb