Remote logging with autitd

Wouter van Verre woutervanverre at outlook.com
Sat Nov 1 21:49:24 UTC 2014


Hi all,

I am trying to set up logging using the audit framework, but I have some questions about how the system works and how the components fit together. 

My use case is as follows: 
* I would like to have one or more servers on my network capturing data, including TTY sessions. 
* I would then like to have these servers (the 'client servers') submit the data to another server on the network (the 'central server'). 
* This central server would then write the incoming data to disk, and do some processing on the data as well.

My current idea on how to implement this is to:
* Run auditd + audisp + audisp-remote on every client server.
* Use pam_tty_audit.so on every client server for the TTY logging.
* Run auditd on the central server to receive the data and write it to disk.
* Either implement my processing tool such that it can be used instead of the dispatcher, or implement it as a plugin for audisp?

I'd love some feedback on whether this set up makes sense. In particular on whether receiving the data with auditd on the central server is the best way to go? And on which option is recommended for implementing the processing tool? I would think that a custom plugin for audisp would be best? If so, is there any documentation on how to go about implementing a plugin for audisp that I could read?

I have already experimented with this set up a bit, and have come to the conclusion that I am not sure how things work...
I have implemented a single client running auditd + audisp + audisp-remote with logging of TTY session (using pam_tty_audit.so), and a central server running auditd (with auditd configured to listen to port 60). 

This seems to work to an extent:
* On the client server all the data is logged to /var/log/audit/audit.log and I can see it there. 
* On the client server I can run "aureport --tty" and I will see the TTY session data represented more easily.
* When I am on the central server I can run "aureport --tty" and see the TTY session data for session on the client server.
               My conclusion based on this is that the central server must be receiving and storing data properly?

* However, when I look at /var/log/audit/audit.log on the central server I can only see audit data for that server. So my question is, where does the audit data from the client server get stored?
* When I connect a very simple program to the auditd daemon (instead of the default dispatcher) it doesn't seem to receive any input at the moment, even though "aureport --tty" is showing that the daemon has been receiving data in the mean time...

Any help or pointers would be highly appreciated :)


Many thanks in advance,

Wouter
 		 	   		  
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