Enable security auditing

Use this task to enable and configure security auditing in the environment with wsadmin.sh. Security auditing provides tracking and archiving of auditable events.

Before enabling security auditing, enable administrative security in the environment.

If we previously configured security auditing and do not want to modify configuration settings, use the enableAudit and disableAudit commands to start and stop security auditing. After enabling or disabling security auditing, restart the server to apply the configuration changes.

Security auditing ensures the integrity of a security computing environment. Security auditing collects and logs authentication, authorization, system management, security, and audit policy events in audit event records. We can analyze audit event records to determine possible security breaches, threats, attacks, and potential weaknesses in the security configuration of the environment.

Use the following steps to enable and configure security auditing in our environment:

1. Launch the wsadmin scripting tool using the Jython scripting language. See the Starting the wsadmin scripting client article for more information.

2. Verify that the security auditing subsystem is configured.

   To enable security auditing, configure event filters, an audit emitter, and an audit event factory. Event filters specify which event types the system audits and records, and the outcome of the event. The audit service provider writes the audit records to the backend repository that is associated with the implementation. The audit event factory generates security events.

   By default, the security auditing system includes one audit service provider and one audit event factory.

   The audit command groups provide several commands to query for event filters, audit emitters, event factories, and their respective configuration attributes. Use the audit command reference to use specific query commands. The following example commands query the security auditing configuration at a high level.

   • Use the getAuditFilters command to display a list of references to all audit filters defined in the configuration:
     AdminTask.getAuditFilters()

   • Use the listAuditEmitters command to display a list of all audit emitters in the configuration:
     AdminTask.listAuditEmitters()

   • Use the listAuditEventFactories command to display a list of all audit event factories in the configuration:
     AdminTask.listAuditEventFactories()

3. Enable security auditing in the environment. Use the modifyAuditPolicy command to enable security auditing in our environment.

   Parameter	Description	Data type	Required
   -auditEnabled	Whether to enable security auditing.	Boolean	No
   -auditPolicy	Behavior of the server process if the audit subsystem fails. Valid values are: WARN, NOWARN and FATAL. The WARN setting notifies the auditor when an error occurs and ceases auditing when an error occurs in the audit sub-system, but continues to run the application server process. The NOWARN setting does not notify the auditor when an error occurs and ceases auditing, but continues to run the application server process. The FATAL setting notifies the auditor of the error and stops the application server process. By default, the command assigns the NOWARN setting.	String	No
   -auditorId	ID of the user to assign to the auditor role.	String	No
   -auditorPwd	Password for the auditor role.	String	No
   -sign	Whether to sign audit records. By default, the security auditing system does not sign audit records. We must configure the signing of audit records before we can specify this parameter.	Boolean	No
   -encrypt	Whether to encrypt audit records. By default, the security auditing system does not encrypt audit records. We must configure encryption for audit records before we can specify this parameter.	Boolean	No
   -verbose	Whether to capture verbose audit data. By default, the security auditing system does not capture verbose audit data.	Boolean	No
   -encryptionCert	Reference ID of the certificate to use for encryption. Specify this parameter if set the -encrypt parameter to true.	String	No

   The following example command enables security auditing, and identifies the primary auditor by assigning a user and password.

   AdminTask.modifyAuditPolicy('-auditEnabled true -auditorId securityAdmin -auditorPwd security4you')

4. Save the configuration changes.

   Use the following command example to save the configuration changes:

   AdminConfig.save()

5. Restart the server.

Results

After completing the steps to enable and configure security auditing, the profile of interest audits the security configurations for specific auditable event types.

What to do next

After you configure the audit policy for the first time, use the enableAudit and disableAudit commands to turn the security auditing system on and off. The system maintains the settings defined with the modifyAuditPolicy command when you enable and disable the security auditing system.

We must restart the server to apply the configuration changes.

Related tasks

Configure auditable events

Encrypting security audit data

Signing security audit data

Configure security audit notifications

Configure security auditing

Start the wsadmin scripting client

AuditKeyStoreCommands (AdminTask)

AuditEmitterCommands (AdminTask)

AuditSigningCommands (AdminTask)

AuditEncryptionCommands (AdminTask)

AuditEventFactoryCommands (AdminTask)

AuditFilterCommands (AdminTask)

AuditNotificationCommands (AdminTask)

AuditPolicyCommands (AdminTask)

AuditEventFormatterCommands (AdminTask)