Introduction to the Transaction Audit Log Trail Using Oracle GoldenGate for PostgreSQL

Change Data Capture (CDC) in PostgreSQL records the insert, update, and delete operations that are performed on the data in the tables of the PostgreSQL server.

The Transaction Log collector takes advantage of Oracle GoldenGate’s Extract process (CDC Capture) to pull CDC table data into XML files. Oracle Oracle Database Security Central’s Transaction Log collector for PostgreSQL collects transaction log records from generated XML files. These logs are forwarded to the Audit Vault Server to show the before and after values that are changed in the Data Modification Before-After Values report. The DML changes are available in the Data Modification Before-After Values report.

The Data Modification Before-After Values report has additional information about key columns. GoldenGate, by default, uses the primary key columns of the table as key columns. If no primary keys are defined for the table, or if you want to use some other columns as key columns, then GoldenGate provides an option to specify key columns in the parameter file.

Figure G-1 Transaction Log Collection Process

Description of the illustration transaction_log_collector_process.png

Note: Oracle GoldenGate for PostgreSQL does not capture certain details, such as the program name, database username, OS username, OS terminal, client host name, client ID, process ID, and proxy session ID for transactions committed in the database. As a result, this limitation will cause the Oracle Oracle Database Security Central’s Data Modification Before-After Values report to display empty values for these fields.