3:21 p.m.
I've been looking into tuning an audit events analysis tool which
receives audit records over the network from a large number of systems.
It turns out that the most significant overhead (by far) on the
collection system is in stitching records from a single event back
together. This has lead me to explore combining records on the host
before sending them out. I'm currently intending to produce messages
like this:
audit(1235768839.011:68): type=SYSCALL arch=40000003 syscall=5
success=yes exit=3 a0=ad9c00 a1=8000 a2=1 a3=bfefd2d0 items=1 pid=6312
auid=500 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0
comm="echo" exe="/bin/echo" | type=CWD cwd="/root" |
type=PATH
name="/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive" flags=101 inode=126312 dev=03:01
mode=0100644 ouid=0 ogid=0 rdev=00:00
This seems considerably nicer than snare:
cent4.intersectalliance.com LinuxKAudit criticality,3
event,execve,20080613 16:06:29
uid,0,root gid,0,root euid,0,root egid,0,ro ot
process,2971,ls
return,0,yes a0,8775a68 a1,875ec80 a2,8759448
a3,875ec80
arch,40000003 auid,40000003 cwd,/var/log/audit
dev,fd:00 dev:1,fd:00
exe,/bin/ls flags,101 flags:1,101 fsgid,0,root
fsuid,0,root
inode,97968 inode:1,146913 items,2 mode,0100755
mode:1,0100755 name,/bin/ls ogid,0,root
ogid:1,0,root ouid,0,root
ouid:1,0,root rdev,00:00 rdev:1,00:00 sgid,0,root
suid,0,root
which just munges all the fields together. It also has the advantage of
being extremely fast to generate from the existing messages without any
memory allocation or copying. Has anybody given this any thought? Has
anybody else got a similar format in the works/field?
Thanks,
Matt
--
Matthew Booth, RHCA, RHCSS
Red Hat, Global Professional Services
M: +44 (0)7977 267231
GPG ID: D33C3490
GPG FPR: 3733 612D 2D05 5458 8A8A 1600 3441 EA19 D33C 3490
3:28 p.m.
On Friday 27 February 2009 04:21:37 pm Matthew Booth wrote:
This has lead me to explore combining records on the host
before sending them out. I'm currently intending to produce messages
like this
Combining like this means adding a new character '|' to the decision about
what constitutes an encoded field. Personally, I am not in favor of any
radical changes in the next 3-4 months. Just some slow evolution.
-Steve
3:32 p.m.
Steve Grubb wrote:
On Friday 27 February 2009 04:21:37 pm Matthew Booth wrote:
> This has lead me to explore combining records on the host
> before sending them out. I'm currently intending to produce messages
> like this
Combining like this means adding a new character '|' to the decision about
what constitutes an encoded field. Personally, I am not in favor of any
radical changes in the next 3-4 months. Just some slow evolution.
-Steve
A good point. What are the existing characters? Maybe one of them would
be suitable.
I'm going to make this change to austream. However, if anybody else has
anything similar on their roadmap, or has given thought to this problem
before I'd like to align with that. Ultimately I want to deprecate austream.
Matt
--
Matthew Booth, RHCA, RHCSS
Red Hat, Global Professional Services
M: +44 (0)7977 267231
GPG ID: D33C3490
GPG FPR: 3733 612D 2D05 5458 8A8A 1600 3441 EA19 D33C 3490
3:51 p.m.
Steve Grubb wrote:
On Friday 27 February 2009 04:21:37 pm Matthew Booth wrote:
> This has lead me to explore combining records on the host
> before sending them out. I'm currently intending to produce messages
> like this
Combining like this means adding a new character '|' to the decision about
what constitutes an encoded field. Personally, I am not in favor of any
radical changes in the next 3-4 months. Just some slow evolution.
Thinking about it, I'm using a combination of space (which presumably is
escaped) and a pipe. The space should mean that escaping isn't a
problem, while the pipe indicates the end of a record. '|' is just like
a field name in this respect. Have I missed something?
Matt
--
Matthew Booth, RHCA, RHCSS
Red Hat, Global Professional Services
M: +44 (0)7977 267231
GPG ID: D33C3490
GPG FPR: 3733 612D 2D05 5458 8A8A 1600 3441 EA19 D33C 3490
4:12 p.m.
On Fri, 2009-02-27 at 21:21 +0000, Matthew Booth wrote:
I've been looking into tuning an audit events analysis tool
which
receives audit records over the network from a large number of systems.
It turns out that the most significant overhead (by far) on the
collection system is in stitching records from a single event back
together. This has lead me to explore combining records on the host
before sending them out. I'm currently intending to produce messages
like this:
audit(1235768839.011:68): type=SYSCALL arch=40000003 syscall=5
success=yes exit=3 a0=ad9c00 a1=8000 a2=1 a3=bfefd2d0 items=1 pid=6312
auid=500 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0
comm="echo" exe="/bin/echo" | type=CWD cwd="/root" |
type=PATH
name="/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive" flags=101 inode=126312 dev=03:01
mode=0100644 ouid=0 ogid=0 rdev=00:00
Matt,
If you don't mind indulging me a moment...I am very interested in the
ultimate goal you stated, "tuning an audit events analysis tool which
receives audit records over the network from a large number of systems",
since that is where I am headed...
For example I see the following from an ausearch :
...
----
node=jcdx type=PATH msg=audit(02/27/2009 15:32:41.747:2986) : item=0
name=/var/log/audit/audit.log inode=375 dev=fd:00 mode=file,600
ouid=root ogid=root rdev=00:00
obj=system_u:object_r:auditd_log_t:s15:c0.c1023
node=jcdx type=CWD msg=audit(02/27/2009 15:32:41.747:2986) : cwd=/root
node=jcdx type=SYSCALL msg=audit(02/27/2009 15:32:41.747:2986) :
arch=x86_64 syscall=open success=yes exit=4 a0=7fffe635efeb a1=0
a2=f71a60 a3=f71a58 items=1 ppid=9014 pid=9492 auid=root uid=root
gid=root euid=root suid=root fsuid=root egid=root sgid=root fsgid=root
tty=pts1 ses=8 comm=ausearch exe=/sbin/ausearch
subj=root:auditadm_r:auditadm_t:s0-s15:c0.c1023 key=(null)
node=jcdx type=AVC msg=audit(02/27/2009 15:32:41.747:2986) : avc:
denied { read } for pid=9492 comm=ausearch name=audit.log dev=dm-0
ino=375 scontext=root:auditadm_r:auditadm_t:s0-s15:c0.c1023
tcontext=system_u:object_r:auditd_log_t:s15:c0.c1023 tclass=file
node=jcdx type=AVC msg=audit(02/27/2009 15:32:41.747:2986) : avc:
denied { search } for pid=9492 comm=ausearch name=audit dev=dm-0
ino=33885 scontext=root:auditadm_r:auditadm_t:s0-s15:c0.c1023
tcontext=system_u:object_r:auditd_log_t:s15:c0.c1023 tclass=dir
And the corresponding raw file has this:
...
node=jcdx type=AVC msg=audit(1235770361.747:2986): avc: denied
{ search } for pid=9492 comm="ausearch" name="audit" dev=dm-0
ino=33885
scontext=root:auditadm_r:auditadm_t:s0-s15:c0.c1023
tcontext=system_u:object_r:auditd_log_t:s15:c0.c1023 tclass=dir
node=jcdx type=AVC msg=audit(1235770361.747:2986): avc: denied
{ read } for pid=9492 comm="ausearch" name="audit.log" dev=dm-0
ino=375
scontext=root:auditadm_r:auditadm_t:s0-s15:c0.c1023
tcontext=system_u:object_r:auditd_log_t:s15:c0.c1023 tclass=file
node=jcdx type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1235770361.747:2986): arch=c000003e
syscall=2 success=yes exit=4 a0=7fffe635efeb a1=0 a2=f71a60 a3=f71a58
items=1 ppid=9014 pid=9492 auid=0 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0
egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 tty=pts1 ses=8 comm="ausearch"
exe="/sbin/ausearch" subj=root:auditadm_r:auditadm_t:s0-s15:c0.c1023
key=(null)
node=jcdx type=CWD msg=audit(1235770361.747:2986): cwd="/root"
node=jcdx type=PATH msg=audit(1235770361.747:2986): item=0
name="/var/log/audit/audit.log" inode=375 dev=fd:00 mode=0100600 ouid=0
ogid=0 rdev=00:00 obj=system_u:object_r:auditd_log_t:s15:c0.c1023
And what you are saying is that rather than use the ausearch equivalent
(or whatever tool which uses auparse library) on the receiving end, it
is more expedient to combine the record into one event prior to sending?
IIUC, is it because of the reduced amount of data flowing or less
processing needed on the receiving end (or both)?
Thx,
LCB.
--
LC (Lenny) Bruzenak
lenny(a)magitekltd.com
4:27 p.m.
LC Bruzenak wrote:
And what you are saying is that rather than use the ausearch
equivalent
(or whatever tool which uses auparse library) on the receiving end, it
is more expedient to combine the record into one event prior to sending?
IIUC, is it because of the reduced amount of data flowing or less
processing needed on the receiving end (or both)?
Well, I'm tuning for the particular tool in use by my customer. This
particular tool has problems with this workload. I can't back up a
generalisation with numbers.
However, architecturally the host seems like the right place to do this.
It's much cheaper to do on the host as you don't have to filter out
events from other hosts, and you're also distributing the load somewhat.
Interestingly on the host load point, I quite unexpectedly saw an
improvement in host performance when sending combined messages. Run time
of a pathological test case improved about 5%. The code isn't production
quality yet, and I haven't done any major analysis of that, but my guess
is that the slight increase in work to stitch the messages together is
outweighed by the reduction in the number of network system calls.
Matt
--
Matthew Booth, RHCA, RHCSS
Red Hat, Global Professional Services
M: +44 (0)7977 267231
GPG ID: D33C3490
GPG FPR: 3733 612D 2D05 5458 8A8A 1600 3441 EA19 D33C 3490
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5 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
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LC Bruzenak -
Matthew Booth -
Steve Grubb