About Audit Collection Plug-ins
Find out about the different types of collection plug-ins: What they do, how they collect audit trails, and where to find out more about them.
Collection plug-ins can retrieve audit data stored in either database tables or XML file audit trails, without the need for writing code.
Collection plug-ins are template-based generalized collectors. Users must provide a mapper file to collect audit data from a trail.
These collection plug-ins are created by preparing an XML Mapper file that supplies the mapping information for target fields to Audit Vault Server fields and other details for target types and audit trails.
This process does not require any coding. Audit Vault contains all the code necessary to interpret Mapper files and use them to collect the audit data from the audit trail appropriately.
Collection plug-ins support two types of audit trails:
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Database Table: database table collection plug-ins can collect audit data from an audit table, using the information from the Mapper file.
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XML File: XML file collection plug-ins can collect audit data from XML audit files present in a single directory, using the information from the Mapper file.
To use the collection plug-in for Database tables or XML file trails, you perform the following steps:
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Create an XML Mapper file for a target audit trail. This chapter discusses Mapper files in general and focuses on their creation.
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Create a plugin-manifest file for this target type.
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Create the collection plug-in by packaging the mapper file and plugin-manifest file.
You can now deploy this collection plug-in at the Audit Vault Server and use it to collect audit data after adding the target and any necessary collection attributes for this target.