From Linux Man Pages
auditctl - a utility to assist controlling the kernel's audit system
auditctl [options]
DESCRIPTION
The auditctl program is used to control the behavior, get status, and add or delete rules into the 2.6 kernel's
audit system.
OPTIONS
-b <backlog>
Set max number of outstanding audit buffers allowed (Kernel Default=64) If all buffers are full, the fail-
ure flag is consulted by the kernel for action.
-e [0|1]
Set enabled flag. This can be used to temporarily disable auditing or re-enable it.
-f [0..2]
Set failure flag 0=silent 1=printk 2=panic. This option lets you determine how you want the kernel to han-
dle critical errors. Example conditions where this flag is consulted includes: transmission errors to
userspace audit daemon, backlog limit exceeded, out of kernel memory, and rate limit exceeded. The default
value is 1. Secure environments will probably want to set this to 2.
-h Help
-i Ignore errors when reading rules from a file
-l List all rules 1 per line.
-k <key>
Set a filter key on an audit rule. The filter key is an arbitrary string of text that can be up to 31
bytes long. It can uniquely identify the audit records produced by the watch.
-m text
Send a user space message into the audit system. This can only be done by the root user.
-p [r|w|x|a]
Set permissions filter for a file system watch. r=read, w=write, x=execute, a=attribute change. These per-
missions are not the standard file permissions, but rather the kind of syscall that would do this kind of
thing. The read & write syscalls are omitted from this set since they would overwhelm the logs. But rather
for reads or writes, the open flags are looked at to see what permission was requested.
-r <rate>
Set limit in messages/sec (0=none). If this rate is non-zero and is exceeded, the failure flag is con-
sulted by the kernel for action. The default value is 0.
-R <file>
Read rules from a file. The rules must be 1 per line and in the order that they are to be executed in. The
rule file must be owned by root and not readable by other users or it will be rejected. The rule file may
have comments embedded by starting the line with a '#' character. Rules that are read from a file are
identical to what you would type on a command line except they are not preceeded by auditctl (since
auditctl is the one executing the file).
-s Report status
-a <l,a>
Append rule to the end of <l>ist with <a>ction. Please note the comma separating the two values. Omitting
it will cause errors. The following describes the valid list names:
task Add a rule to the per task list. This rule list is used only at the time a task is created --
when fork() or clone() are called by the parent task. When using this list, you should only
use fields that are known at task creation time, such as the uid, gid, etc.
entry Add a rule to the syscall entry list. This list is used upon entry to a system call to deter-
mine if an audit event should be created.
exit Add a rule to the syscall exit list. This list is used upon exit from a system call to deter-
mine if an audit event should be created.
user Add a rule to the user message filter list. This list is used by the kernel to filter events
originating in user space before relaying them to the audit daemon. It should be noted that
the only fields that are valid are: uid, auid, gid, and pid. All other fields will be treated
as non-matching.
exclude Add a rule to the event type exclusion filter list. This list is used to filter events that
you do not want to see. For example, if you do not want to see any avc messages, you would
using this list to record that. The message type that you do not wish to see is given with the
msgtype field.
The following describes the valid actions for the rule:
never No audit records will be generated. This can be used to suppress event generation. In general,
you want suppressions at the top of the list instead of the bottom. This is because the event
triggers on the first matching rule.
always Allocate an audit context, always fill it in at syscall entry time, and always write out a
record at syscall exit time.
-A <l,a>
Add rule to the beginning <l>ist with <a>ction
-d <l,a>
Delete rule from <l>ist with <a>ction. The rule is deleted only if it exactly matches syscall name and
field names.
-D Delete all rules and watches.
-S [Syscall name or number|all]
Any syscall name or number may be used. The word 'all' may also be used. If this syscall is made by a
program, then start an audit record. If a field rule is given and no syscall is specified, it will default
to all syscalls. You may also specify multiple syscalls in the same rule. Doing so improves performance
since fewer rules need to be evaluated.
-F [n=v | n!=v | n<v | n>v | n<=v | n>=v]
Build a rule field: name, operation, value. You may have up to 64 fields passed on a single command line.
Each one must start with -F. Each field equation is anded with each other to trigger an audit record.
There are 6 operators supported - equal, not equal, less than, greater than, less than or equal, and
greater than or equal. Fields that take a user ID may instead have the user's name; the program will con-
vert the name to user ID. The same is true of group names. Valid fields are:
a0, a1, a2, a3
Respectively, the first 4 arguments to a syscall. Note that string arguments are not sup-
ported. This is because the kernel is passed a pointer to the string. Triggering on a pointer
address value is not likely to work. So, when using this, you should only use on numeric val-
ues. This is most likely to be used on platforms that multiplex socket or IPC operations.
arch The CPU architecture of the syscall. The arch can be found doing 'uname -m'. If you do not
know the arch of your machine but you want to use the 32 bit syscall table and your machine
supports 32 bit, you can also use
auid The original ID the user logged in with. Its an abbreviation of audit uid.
b32 for the arch. The same applies to the 64 bit syscall table, you can use
b64.
devmajor Device Major Number
devminor Device Minor Number
egid Effective Group ID
euid Effective User ID
exit Exit value from a syscall
fsgid Filesystem Group ID
fsuid Filesystem User ID
gid Group ID
inode Inode Number
key This is another way of setting a filter key. See discussion above for -k option.
msgtype This is used to match the message type number. It should only be used on the exclude filter
list.
obj_user Resource's SE Linux User
obj_role Resource's SE Linux Role
obj_type Resource's SE Linux Type
obj_lev_low Resource's SE Linux Low Level
obj_lev_high
Resource's SE Linux High Level
path Full Path of File to watch. Should only be used on exit list.
pers OS Personality Number
pid Process ID
ppid Parent's Process ID
subj_user Program's SE Linux User
subj_role Program's SE Linux Role
subj_type Program's SE Linux Type
subj_sen Program's SE Linux Sensitivity
subj_clr Program's SE Linux Clearance
sgid Set Group ID
success If the exit value is >= 0 this is true/yes otherwise its false/no. When writing a rule, use a
1 for true/yes and a 0 for false/no
suid Set User ID
uid User ID
-w <path>
Insert a watch for the file system object at <path>. You cannot insert a watch to the top level directory.
This is prohibited by the kernel. Wildcards are not supported either and will generate a warning. The way
that watches work is by tracking the inode internally. This means that if you put a watch on a directory,
you will see what appears to be file events, but it is really just the updating of meta data. You might
miss a few events by doing this. If you need to watch all files in a directory, its recommended to place
an individual watch on each file. Unlike syscall auditing rules, watches do not impact performance based
on the number of rules sent to the kernel.
-W <path>
Remove a watch for the file system object at <path>
EXAMPLES
To see all syscalls made by a program:
auditctl -a entry,always -S all -F pid=1005
To see files opened by a specific user:
auditctl -a exit,always -S open -F auid=510
To see unsuccessful open call's:
auditctl -a exit,always -S open -F success!=0
RELATED
auditd(8)
CATEGORY