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Oracle® Audit Vault Server Installation Guide
10g Release 2 (10.2.2) for AIX 5L Based Systems (64-Bit)

Part Number E10120-01
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1 Oracle Audit Vault Server Installation Overview

Oracle Audit Vault is a powerful enterprisewide audit solution that efficiently consolidates, detects, monitors, alerts, and reports on audit data for security auditing and compliance. Oracle Audit Vault provides the ability to consolidate audit data and critical events into a centralized and secure audit warehouse.

1.1 Overview of Oracle Audit Vault

Compliance regulations and legislations such as the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), U.S. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), U.S. Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, Japan privacy laws, and European Union privacy directives require businesses to secure business and personal data related to customers, employees, and partners, and to demonstrate compliance with these regulations by auditing users, activities, and associated data.

Businesses use a wide variety of systems, databases, and applications that produce vast quantities of audit log data and must consolidate and monitor this data for a holistic view of enterprise data access. Auditors must analyze the audit log data in a timely fashion across disparate and heterogeneous systems. To facilitate the process, it is essential that audit data from multiple systems reside in a single audit data warehouse that is secure, scalable, reliable, and highly available.

Oracle Audit Vault solves these security and audit problems by:

Figure 1-1 shows an overview of the Oracle Audit Vault architecture. The architecture consists of a set of services and its collection system working within an enterprise. This set of services helps to facilitate storage management, policy enforcement, alerting, analysis, and reporting activities. The collection infrastructure enables the utilization of audit collectors that function as adaptors between an audit source and Oracle Audit Vault.

Figure 1-1 Oracle Audit Vault Architecture

Description of Figure 1-1 follows
Description of "Figure 1-1 Oracle Audit Vault Architecture"

Oracle Audit Vault Components

Oracle Audit Vault consists of:

Audit Vault Server

Audit Vault Server consists of:

Audit Vault Agents

Audit Vault Agents consists of:

Oracle Audit Vault Interfaces and Administrator Access

Oracle Audit Vault provides a GUI interface and the Audit Vault Configuration Assistant (AVCA), Audit Vault Control (AVCTL), and Audit Vault Oracle Database (AVORCLDB) command-line utilities to manage the system. These components provide the ability to manage and monitor agents and collectors, and populate the data warehouse. See Oracle Audit Vault Administrator's Guide for information about these interfaces.

Auditors, compliance, and information technology (IT) security can use built-in reports based on user access and activity such as failed login attempts, use of system privileges, and changes to database structures. The drill-down capability offered through the Oracle Audit Vault Console provides full visibility into the details of the "what", the "where", the "when", and the "who" of the audit events. In addition, the Audit Vault Console can be used to monitor the alerts and the audit events across the enterprise.

Administrators are assigned different roles and gain access to Audit Vault to manage various components based on the role assigned. Table 1-1 describes the various Audit Vault administrator roles and the tasks permitted for each role.

Oracle Database Vault is used to protect the audit data warehouse from unauthorized access. See Oracle Database Vault Administrator's Guide for more information. Oracle Database Vault roles are essential for creating database user accounts and granting roles to Audit Vault administrators.

Table 1-1 Audit Vault Administrator Roles and Their Assigned Tasks

Role When Is Role Granted Role Is Granted To Whom Description

AV_ADMIN

During Server installation

Audit Vault administrator

Accesses Oracle Audit Vault services to administer, configure, and manage a running Oracle Audit Vault system. A user granted this role configures and manages audit sources, agents, collectors, the set up of the source with the agent, and the warehouse. A user is created and granted this role during the Audit Vault Server installation.

AV_AUDITOR

During Server installation

Audit Vault auditor

Accesses Audit Vault reporting and analysis services to monitor components, detect security risks, create and evaluate alert scenarios, create detail and summary reports of events across systems, and manage the reports. A user granted this role manages central audit settings and alerts. This user also uses the data warehouse services to further analyze the audit data to assist in looking for trends, intrusions, anomalies, and other items of interest. A user is created and granted this role during the Audit Vault Server installation.

AV_AGENT

Before agent installation

Agent software component

Manages agents and collectors by starting, stopping, and resetting them. A user is created and granted this role prior to an agent installation. The Agent software uses this role at run time to query Audit Vault for configuration information

AV_SOURCE

Before source registration

Collector software component

Manages the setting up of the sources for audit data collection. A user is created and granted this role prior to source and collector configuration. The collector software uses this role at run time to send audit data to Audit Vault

AV_ARCHIVER

Before archiving audit data

Audit Vault archiver

Archives and deletes audit data from Audit Vault and cleans up old unused metadata and alerts that have already been processed. A user granted this role can archive raw audit data.

DV_OWNER

During Server installation

Database Vault owner

Manages Database Vault roles and configuration and grants Audit Vault roles.

DV_ACCTMGR

During Server installation

Database Vault account manager

Manages database user accounts.


It is important to protect and ensure the integrity of the audit trail data against modification and tampering. Either external or internal intruders may try to "cover their tracks" by modifying audit trail records. Oracle Audit Vault delivers a "locked-down" audit warehouse that has been designed for the sole purpose of protecting and securing audit data. Access to the Oracle Audit Vault is only allowed for the predefined roles described in Table 1-1. All other roles, including the database administrator (DBA), are denied access to the audit data.

Figure 1-2 shows a detailed view of the various Audit Vault usage scenarios for which each of the Oracle Audit Vault administrator roles described in Table 1-1 plays an important role.

Figure 1-2 Usage Scenario Showing Important Roles of Audit Vault Administrators

Description of Figure 1-2 follows
Description of "Figure 1-2 Usage Scenario Showing Important Roles of Audit Vault Administrators"

1.2 Overview of the Oracle Audit Vault Installation Process

This chapter provides an overview of the Oracle Audit Vault installation process. This chapter includes the following sections:

1.3 Audit Vault Installation Components

Oracle Audit Vault software installation consists of two parts:

1.4 Audit Vault Installation Methods

You can choose different installation methods to install Oracle Audit Vault, as follows:

1.4.1 Interactive Installation Methods

When you use the interactive method to install Oracle Audit Vault, Oracle Universal Installer displays a series of screens that enable you to specify all of the required information to install the Oracle Audit Vault software.

1.4.2 Automated Installation Methods Using Response Files

Audit Vault provides a response file template for Audit Vault Server (av.rsp). The response template file can be found in the <AV installer location>/response directory on the Audit Vault Server installation media.

When you start Oracle Universal Installer and specify a response file, you can automate all of the Oracle Audit Vault Server installation. These automated installation methods are useful if you need to perform multiple installations on similarly configured systems or if the system where you want to install the software does not have X Window system software installed.

For Audit Vault, Oracle Universal Installer can run in silent or non-interactive mode. In silent mode, specify both the -silent and -responseFile options followed by the path of the response file on the command line when you invoke Oracle Universal Installer. For example:

./runInstaller -silent -responseFile <Path of response file>

Oracle Universal Installer runs in silent mode if you use a response file that specifies all required information. None of the Oracle Universal Installer screens are displayed and all interaction (standard output and error messages) and install logs appear on the command line.

Prepare the response file by entering values for all parameters that are missing in the first part of the response file, then save the file. Do not edit any values in the second part of either response file.

See Section 3.6 for information about performing an Audit Vault silent installation:

Note:

The Basic installation is not supported in silent mode. Silent installation is only supported for the Advanced installation.

1.5 Audit Vault Server Installation

The server installation consists of two options:

The Audit Vault Console uses a wallet in the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/avwallet directory. An Oracle wallet is a password-protected container that stores credentials, such as certificates, authentication credentials, and private keys, all of which are used by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for strong authentication. Oracle wallets are managed through the Oracle Wallet Manager. The Oracle Wallet Manager can perform tasks such as creating wallets, requesting certificate generation, and importing certificates into the wallet.

The wallet is used to store the user name and password of the user granted the AV_ADMIN role. This user name is used by the Audit Vault Console to allow communication with Audit Vault. Audit Vault Console provides the management service that initiates the communication with agents using HTTP. Audit Vault Configuration Assistant (AVCA) modifies the Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control console server.xml file and other related files to enable Audit Vault management through the Audit Vault Console.

If certificate-based authentication is used for communication with any agent, the Audit Vault Administrator must acquire the necessary server-side certificates and set up Oracle Wallet for storing the certificates on the server. This server-side certificate is used for authenticating the Audit Vault Server to the agent. Similarly, agents must each have a certificate to authenticate each agent to the Audit Vault Server.

Communication at the management level between Audit Vault Server and Audit Vault Agent can be secured after the installation is complete. This is done as part of the postinstallation configuration, in which SSL is configured for the mutual authentication between the Audit Vault Management Service on the server side and each agent over HTTPS.

After checking the requirements described in Section 1.6, the general steps to install Oracle Audit Vault Server include these tasks:

  1. Run Oracle Universal Installer to perform Audit Vault Server installation.

  2. Run postinstallation and configuration tasks using AVCA.

1.6 Installation Considerations

This section contains information that you should consider before deciding how to install this product. It contains the following sections:

1.6.1 Hardware and Software Considerations

The platform-specific hardware and software requirements included in this installation guide were current at the time this guide was published. However, because new platforms and operating system versions might be certified after this guide is published, review the certification matrix on the OracleMetaLink Web site for the most up-to-date list of certified hardware platforms and operating system versions. The OracleMetaLink Web site is available at:

http://metalink.oracle.com

If you do not have a current Oracle Support Services contract, then you can access the same information at:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/support/metalink/content.html

1.6.2 Multiple Oracle Homes

This product supports multiple Oracle homes. This means that you can install this release of the software more than once on the same system, in different Oracle home directories.