Chapter 18 Trusted Extensions Auditing (Overview)

This chapter describes the additions to auditing that Solaris Trusted Extensions provides.

• Trusted Extensions and Auditing

• Audit Management by Role in Trusted Extensions

• Trusted Extensions Audit Reference

Trusted Extensions and Auditing

On a system that is configured with Trusted Extensions software, auditing is configured and is administered similarly to auditing on a Solaris system. However, the following are some differences.

• Trusted Extensions software adds audit classes, audit events, audit tokens, and audit policy options to the system.

• By default, auditing is enabled in Trusted Extensions software.

• Solaris per-zone auditing is not supported. In Trusted Extensions, all zones are audited identically.

• Trusted Extensions provides administrative tools to administer the users' audit characteristics and to edit audit files.

• Two roles, System Administrator and Security Administrator, are used to configure and administer auditing in Trusted Extensions.

  The security administrator plans what to audit and any site-specific, event-to-class mappings. As in the Solaris OS, the system administrator plans disk space requirements for the audit files, creates an audit administration server, and installs audit configuration files.

Audit Management by Role in Trusted Extensions

Auditing in Trusted Extensions requires the same planning as in the Solaris OS. For details about planning, see Chapter 29, Planning for Solaris Auditing, in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

Role Setup for Audit Administration

In Trusted Extensions, auditing is the responsibility of two roles. The System Administrator role sets up the disks and the network of audit storage. The Security Administrator role decides what is to be audited, and specifies the information in the audit configuration files. As in the Solaris OS, you create the roles in software. The rights profiles for these two roles are provided. The initial setup team created the Security Administrator role during initial configuration. For details, see Create the Security Administrator Role in Trusted Extensions in Solaris Trusted Extensions Configuration Guide.

A system only records the security-relevant events that the audit configuration files configure the system to record (that is, by preselection). Therefore, any subsequent audit review can only consider the events that have been recorded. As a result of misconfiguration, attempts to breach the security of the system can go undetected, or the administrator is unable to detect the user who is responsible for an attempted breach of security. Administrators must regularly analyze audit trails to check for breaches of security.

Audit Tasks in Trusted Extensions

The procedures to configure and manage auditing in Trusted Extensions differ slightly from Solaris procedures:

• Audit configuration is performed in the global zone by one of two administrative roles. Then, the system administrator copies specific customized audit files from the global zone to every labeled zone. By following this procedure, user actions are audited identically in the global zone and in labeled zones.

  For details, see Audit Tasks of the Security Administrator and Audit Tasks of the System Administrator

• Trusted Extensions administrators use a trusted editor to edit audit configuration files. In Trusted CDE, Trusted Extensions administrators use CDE actions to invoke the trusted editor. For the list of actions, see Trusted CDE Actions.

• Trusted Extensions administrators use the Solaris Management Console to configure specific users. User-specific audit characteristics can be specified in this tool. Specifying user characteristics is only required when the user's audit characteristics differ from the audit characteristics of the systems on which the user works. For an introduction to the tool, see Solaris Management Console Tools.

Audit Tasks of the Security Administrator

The following tasks are security-relevant, and are therefore the responsibility of the security administrator. Follow the Solaris instructions, but use the Trusted Extensions administrative tools.

Audit Tasks of the System Administrator

The following tasks are the responsibility of the system administrator. Follow the Solaris instructions, but use the Trusted Extensions administrative tools.

Trusted Extensions Audit Reference

Trusted Extensions software adds audit classes, audit events, audit tokens, and audit policy options to the Solaris OS. Several auditing commands are extended to handle labels. Trusted Extensions audit records include a label, as shown in the following figure.

Figure 18–1 Typical Audit Record on a Labeled System

Trusted Extensions Audit Classes

The audit classes that Trusted Extensions software adds to the Solaris OS are listed alphabetically in the following table. The classes are listed in the /etc/security/audit_class file. For more information about audit classes, see the audit_class(4) man page.

The X server audit events are mapped to these classes according to the following criteria:

• xc – This class audits server objects for creation or for destruction. For example, this class audits CreateWindow().

• xp – This class audits for use of privilege. Privilege use can be successful or unsuccessful. For example, ChangeWindowAttributes() is audited when a client attempts to change the attributes of another client's window. This class also includes administrative routines such as SetAccessControl().

• xs – This class audits routines that do not return X error messages to clients on failure when security attributes cause the failure. For example, GetImage() does not return a BadWindow error if it cannot read from a window for lack of privilege.

  These events should be selected for audit on success only. When xs events are selected for failure, the audit trail fills with irrelevant records.

• xx – This class includes all of the X audit classes.

Trusted Extensions Audit Events

Trusted Extensions software adds audit events to the system. The new audit events and the audit classes to which the events belong are listed in the /etc/security/audit_event file. The audit event numbers for Trusted Extensions are between 9000 and 10000. For more information about audit events, see the audit_event(4) man page.

Trusted Extensions Audit Tokens

The audit tokens that Trusted Extensions software adds to the Solaris OS are listed alphabetically in the following table. The tokens are also listed in the audit.log(4) man page.

label Token

The label token contains a sensitivity label. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• A sensitivity label

The following figure shows the token format.

Figure 18–2 label Token Format

A label token is displayed by the praudit command as follows:

sensitivity label,ADMIN_LOW

xatom Token

The xatom token contains information concerning an X atom. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The string length

• A text string that identifies the atom

An xatom token is displayed by praudit as follows:

X atom,_DT_SAVE_MODE

xclient Token

The xclient token contains information concerning the X client. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The client ID

An xclient token is displayed by praudit as follows:

X client,15

xcolormap Token

The xcolormap token contains information about the colormaps. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The X server identifier

• The creator's user ID

The following figure shows the token format.

Figure 18–3 Format for xcolormap, xcursor, xfont, xgc, xpixmap, and xwindow Tokens

An xcolormap token is displayed by praudit as follows:

X color map,0x08c00005,srv

xcursor Token

The xcursor token contains information about the cursors. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The X server identifier

• The creator's user ID

Figure 18–3 shows the token format.

An xcursor token is displayed by praudit as follows:

X cursor,0x0f400006,srv

xfont Token

The xfont token contains information about the fonts. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The X server identifier

• The creator's user ID

Figure 18–3 shows the token format.

An xfont token is displayed by praudit as follows:

X font,0x08c00001,srv

xgc Token

The xgc token contains information about the xgc. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The X server identifier

• The creator's user ID

Figure 18–3 shows the token format.

An xgc token is displayed by praudit as follows:

Xgraphic context,0x002f2ca0,srv

xpixmap Token

The xpixmap token contains information about the pixel mappings. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The X server identifier

• The creator's user ID

Figure 18–3 shows the token format.

An xpixmap token is displayed by praudit as follows:

X pixmap,0x08c00005,srv

xproperty Token

The xproperty token contains information about various properties of a window. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The X server identifier

• The creator's user ID

• A string length

• A text string that identifies the atom

The following figure shows an xproperty token format.

Figure 18–4 xproperty Token Format

An xproperty token is displayed by praudit as follows:

X property,0x000075d5,root,_MOTIF_DEFAULT_BINDINGS

xselect Token

The xselect token contains the data that is moved between windows. This data is a byte stream with no assumed internal structure and a property string. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The length of the property string

• The property string

• The length of the property type

• The property type string

• A length field that gives the number of bytes of data

• A byte string that contains the data

The following figure shows the token format.

Figure 18–5 xselect Token Format

An xselect token is displayed by praudit as follows:

X selection,entryfield,halogen

xwindow Token

The xwindow token contains information about a window. This token contains the following fields:

• A token ID

• The X server identifier

• The creator's user ID

Figure 18–3 shows the token format.

An xwindow token is displayed by praudit as follows:

X window,0x07400001,srv

Trusted Extensions Audit Policy Options

Trusted Extensions adds two audit policy options to existing Solaris auditing policy options. List the policies to see the additions:

$ auditconfig -lspolicy
...
windata_down Include downgraded window information in audit records

windata_up   Include upgraded window information in audit records

Extensions to Auditing Commands in Trusted Extensions

The auditconfig, auditreduce, and bsmrecord commands are extended to handle Trusted Extensions information:

• The auditconfig command includes the Trusted Extensions audit policies. For details, see the auditconfig(1M) man page.

• The auditreduce command adds the -l option for filtering records according to the label. For details, see the auditreduce(1M) man page.

• The bsmrecord command includes the Trusted Extensions audit events. For details, see the bsmrecord(1M) man page.