BSM Terminology

The following terms are used to describe the BSM service. Some definitions include pointers to more complete descriptions.

Audit Events

Security-relevant system actions can be audited. These auditable actions are defined as audit events. Audit events are listed in the /etc/security/audit_event file. Each auditable event is defined in the file by a symbolic name, an event number, a set of preselection classes, and a short description. See the audit_event(4) man page.

There are several categories of audit events. The primary distinction is between kernel-level events and user-level events. Events that are generated by the kernel are called kernel-level events. Events that are generated by applications are called user-level events. Kernel-level events have a lower audit event number than a user-level event, as shown in the following table.

Kernel-Level Audit Events

Events that are generated by the kernel are system calls. System calls have audit event numbers between 1 and 2047. The event names for kernel events begin with AUE_, followed by an uppercase mnemonic for the event. For example, the event number for the creat() system call is 4, and the event name is AUE_CREAT.

User-Level Audit Events

Events that are generated by application software are outside the kernel. Application software generates user-level events. User-level events range in number from 2048 to 65535. The event names begin with AUE_, followed by a lowercase mnemonic for the event. For example, the event number for the rlogin command is 6155, and the event name is AUE_rlogin. Table 20–2 shows general categories of user-related events.

Nonattributable Audit Events

Most events are attributable to an individual user, but some events are not. Events are nonattributable if the events occur at the kernel-interrupt level, or if the events occur before a user is identified and authenticated. Nonattributable events are auditable. The following example lists two nonattributable events from the /etc/security/audit_event file:

153:AUE_ENTERPROM:enter prom:na
6156:AUE_mountd_mount:mount:na

AUE_ENTERPROM is a kernel-level na event. AUE_mountd_mount is a user-level na event.

Audit Classes

Each audit event is also defined as belonging to an audit class or classes. Audit classes are convenient containers for large numbers of audit events. When you preselect a class to be audited, you preselect for auditing all the events in that class. Audit classes are defined in the /etc/security/audit_class file. Each entry contains the name of the class, its audit mask, and its short name.

0x00000010:fc:file create
0x00000400:na:non-attribute

The mapping of audit events to classes is configurable. These configuration changes are made in the audit_event file.

An auditable event is recorded in the audit trail when you preselect an audit class for auditing that includes the specific event. There are 32 possible audit classes. The classes include the two global classes: all and no. The audit classes are described in Table 23–1. See also the audit_class(4) man page.

Audit Flags

Audit flags are the short names for audit classes. Audit flags are used in the audit_control file to specify machine-wide defaults for auditing on the machine. The audit_control file is described in The audit_control File.

You can make exceptions to the machine-wide auditing defaults for individual users. You put audit flags in a user's entry in the audit_user file. The audit flags are also used as arguments to the auditconfig command. See the auditconfig(1M) and audit_user(4) man pages.

Audit Records and Audit Tokens

Each audit record describes the occurrence of a single audited event. The record includes information such as who did the action, which files were affected, what action was attempted, and where and when the action occurred. For example, the following line shows an audit record when processed by the praudit command:

header,81,2,login - local,,Mon May  6 16:55:48 PDT 2002, + 486 msec
subject,root,root,other,root,other,378,378,0 0 example_machine
text,successful login
return,success,0

Audit records are collected in an audit file. The set of audit files from a machine or site is called the audit trail. For a description of how audit files are handled, see the audit.log(4) man page. Audit records can be converted to a readable format by the praudit command. For examples of praudit output, see The praudit Command. See also the praudit(1M) man page.

The type of information that is saved for each audit event is defined in a set of audit tokens. Each time an audit record is created for an event, the record contains some or all of the tokens that are defined for the event. The nature of the event determines which tokens are recorded. You can generate audit record descriptions with the bsmrecord command. The following output shows the structure of the audit record that is generated when the creat() system call is used. The lines beginning with header are the audit tokens.

creat
  system call creat                see creat(2)
  event ID    4                    AUE_CREAT
  class       fc                   (0x00000010)
      header
      path
      [attribute]
      subject
      return

For more information, see How to Display Audit Record Formats. For a description of the structure of each audit token, see Audit Token Formats. The audit.log(4) man page also lists the audit tokens.

Audit Directory

An audit directory holds a collection of audit files. A typical installation uses many audit directories. The three types of audit directories are as follows:

• Primary audit directory – A directory where the audit files for a system are placed under normal conditions.

• Secondary audit directory – A directory where the audit files for a system are placed if the primary directory is full or not available.

• Directory of last resort – A local audit directory that is used if the primary audit directory and all secondary audit directories are not available.