The kernel metricset receives audit events from the Linux Audit Framework that is a part of the Linux kernel.

This metricset is available only for Linux.

How it worksedit

This metricset establishes a subscription to the kernel to receive the events as they occur. So unlike most other metricsets, the period configuration option is unused because it is not implemented using polling.

The Linux Audit Framework can send multiple messages for a single auditable event. For example, a rename syscall causes the kernel to send eight separate messages. Each message describes a different aspect of the activity that is occurring (the syscall itself, file paths, current working directory, process title). This metricset will combine all of the data from each of the messages into a single event.

Messages for one event can be interleaved with messages from another event. This metricset will buffer the messages in order to combine related messages into a single event even if they arrive interleaved or out of order.

Useful commandsedit

When running Auditbeat with the kernel metricset enabled, you might find that other monitoring systems interfere with Auditbeat.

For example, you might encounter errors if another process, such as auditd, is registered to receive data from the Linux Audit Framework. You can use these commands to see if the auditd service is running and stop it:

To save CPU usage and disk space, you can use this command to stop journald from listening to audit messages:

systemctl mask systemd-journald-audit.socket

Configuration optionsedit

This metricset has some configuration options for tuning its behavior. The following example shows all configuration options with their default values.

- module: audit
  metricsets: ["kernel"]
  kernel.resolve_ids: true
  kernel.failure_mode: silent
  kernel.backlog_limit: 8196
  kernel.rate_limit: 0
  kernel.include_raw_message: false
  kernel.include_warnings: false

Audit rulesedit

The audit rules are where you configure the activities that are audited. These rules are configured as either syscalls or files that should be monitored. For example you can track all connect syscalls or file system writes to /etc/passwd.

Auditing a large number of syscalls can place a heavy load on the system so consider carefully the rules you define and try to apply filters in the rules themselves to be as selective as possible.

The kernel evaluates the rules in the order in which they were defined so place the most active rules first in order to speed up evaluation.

You can assign keys to each rule for better identification of the rule that triggered an event and easier filtering later in Elasticsearch.

Defining any audit rules in the config causes Auditbeat to purge all existing audit rules prior to adding the rules specified in the config. Therefore it is unnecessary and unsupported to include a -D (delete all) rule.

auditbeat.modules:
- module: audit
  metricsets: ["kernel"]
  kernel.audit_rules: |
    # Things that affect identity.
    -w /etc/group -p wa -k identity
    -w /etc/passwd -p wa -k identity
    -w /etc/gshadow -p wa -k identity
    -w /etc/shadow -p wa -k identity

    # Unauthorized access attempts to files (unsuccessful).
    -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S open,creat,truncate,ftruncate,openat,open_by_handle_at -F exit=-EACCES -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=4294967295 -F key=access
    -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S open,creat,truncate,ftruncate,openat,open_by_handle_at -F exit=-EPERM -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=4294967295 -F key=access
    -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S open,truncate,ftruncate,creat,openat,open_by_handle_at -F exit=-EACCES -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=4294967295 -F key=access
    -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S open,truncate,ftruncate,creat,openat,open_by_handle_at -F exit=-EPERM -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=4294967295 -F key=access

{
    "@timestamp": "2017-04-22T21:25:01.818Z",
    "audit": {
        "kernel": {
            "action": "logged-in",
            "actor": {
                "attrs": {
                    "auid": "unset",
                    "uid": "root"
                },
                "primary": "unset",
                "secondary": "(invalid user)"
            },
            "category": "user-login",
            "data": {
                "acct": "(invalid user)",
                "addr": "179.38.151.221",
                "exe": "/usr/sbin/sshd",
                "op": "login",
                "pid": "12635",
                "terminal": "sshd"
            },
            "how": "/usr/sbin/sshd",
            "record_type": "user_login",
            "result": "fail",
            "sequence": 19955,
            "session": "unset",
            "thing": {
                "primary": "sshd",
                "secondary": "179.38.151.221",
                "what": "user-session"
            }
        }
    },
    "beat": {
        "hostname": "host.example.com",
        "name": "host.example.com"
    },
    "metricset": {
        "module": "audit",
        "name": "kernel",
        "rtt": 115
    },
    "type": "metricsets"
}