auditd(8)

1AUDITD(8)               System Administration Utilities              AUDITD(8)
2
3
4

NAME

6       auditd - The Linux Audit daemon
7

SYNOPSIS

9       auditd [-f] [-l] [-n] [-s disable|enable|nochange] [-c <config_dir>]
10

DESCRIPTION

12       auditd  is  the  userspace component to the Linux Auditing System. It's
13       responsible for writing audit records to the disk. Viewing the logs  is
14       done  with  the  ausearch  or aureport utilities. Configuring the audit
15       system or loading rules is  done  with  the  auditctl  utility.  During
16       startup,  the  rules in /etc/audit/audit.rules are read by auditctl and
17       loaded into the kernel. Alternately, there is also an  augenrules  pro‐
18       gram  that reads rules located in /etc/audit/rules.d/ and compiles them
19       into an audit.rules file. The audit daemon itself has  some  configura‐
20       tion  options  that  the admin may wish to customize. They are found in
21       the auditd.conf file.
22

OPTIONS

24       -f     leave the audit daemon in the foreground for debugging. Messages
25              also go to stderr rather than the audit log.
26
27       -l     allow the audit daemon to follow symlinks for config files.
28
29       -n     no fork. This is useful for running off of inittab or systemd.
30
31       -s=ENABLE_STATE
32              specify  when starting if auditd should change the current value
33              for the kernel enabled flag. Valid values for  ENABLE_STATE  are
34              "disable", "enable" or "nochange". The default is to enable (and
35              disable when auditd terminates). The value of the  enabled  flag
36              may  be  changed  during  the lifetime of auditd using 'auditctl
37              -e'.
38
39       -c     Specify alternate config file directory. Note that this same di‐
40              rectory will be passed to the dispatcher. (default: /etc/audit/)
41

SIGNALS

43       SIGHUP causes  auditd  to  reconfigure. This means that auditd re-reads
44              the configuration file. If there are no syntax errors,  it  will
45              proceed  to  implement the requested changes. If the reconfigure
46              is successful, a DAEMON_CONFIG event is recorded in the logs. If
47              not  successful,  error handling is controlled by space_left_ac‐
48              tion, admin_space_left_action,  disk_full_action,  and  disk_er‐
49              ror_action parameters in auditd.conf.
50
51
52       SIGTERM
53              caused  auditd  to  discontinue processing audit events, write a
54              shutdown audit event, and exit.
55
56
57       SIGUSR1
58              causes auditd to immediately rotate the logs.  It  will  consult
59              the  max_log_file_action  to  see  if it should keep the logs or
60              not.
61
62
63       SIGUSR2
64              causes auditd to attempt to resume logging and passing events to
65              plugins. This is usually needed after logging has been suspended
66              or the internal queue is overflowed. Either of these  conditions
67              depends on the applicable configuration settings.
68
69       SIGCONT
70              causes auditd to dump a report of internal state to /var/run/au‐
71              ditd.state.
72
73

EXIT CODES

75       1      Cannot adjust priority, daemonize, open audit netlink, write the
76              pid  file, start up plugins, resolve the machine name, set audit
77              pid, or other initialization tasks.
78
79
80       2      Invalid or excessive command line arguments
81
82
83       4      The audit daemon doesn't have sufficient privilege
84
85
86       6      There is an error in the configuration file
87
88

FILES

90       /etc/audit/auditd.conf - configuration file for audit daemon
91
92       /etc/audit/audit.rules - audit rules to be loaded at startup
93
94       /etc/audit/rules.d/ - directory holding individual sets of rules to  be
95       compiled into one file by augenrules.
96
97       /etc/audit/plugins.d/  - directory holding individual plugin configura‐
98       tion files.
99
100       /etc/audit/audit-stop - These rules are loaded when  the  audit  daemon
101       stops.
102
103       /var/run/auditd.state - report about internal state.
104
105

NOTES

107       A  boot  param  of audit=1 should be added to ensure that all processes
108       that run before the audit daemon starts is marked as auditable  by  the
109       kernel. Not doing that will make a few processes impossible to properly
110       audit.
111
112       The audit daemon can receive audit events from other audit daemons  via
113       the audisp-remote plugin. The audit daemon may be linked with tcp_wrap‐
114       pers to control which machines can connect. If this is  the  case,  you
115       can add an entry to hosts.allow and deny.
116
117

AUTHOR

124       Steve Grubb
125
126
127
128Red Hat                            Sept 2021                         AUDITD(8)