Auditing security settings
editAuditing security settings
editAll of these settings can be added to the elasticsearch.yml
configuration
file. For more information, see
Auditing security events.
General Auditing Settings
edit-
xpack.security.audit.enabled
-
Set to
true
to enable auditing on the node. The default value isfalse
. -
xpack.security.audit.outputs
-
Specifies where audit logs are output. For example:
[ index, logfile ]
. The default value islogfile
, which puts the auditing events in a dedicated<clustername>_access.log
file on the node. You can also specifyindex
, which puts the auditing events in an Elasticsearch index that is prefixed with.security_audit_log
. The index can reside on the same cluster or a separate cluster.If the index is unavailable, it is possible for auditing events to be lost. The
index
output type should therefore be used in conjunction with thelogfile
output type and the latter should be the official record of events.
Audited Event Settings
editThe events and some other information about what gets logged can be controlled by using the following settings:
-
xpack.security.audit.logfile.events.include
-
Specifies which events to include in the auditing output. The default value is:
access_denied, access_granted, anonymous_access_denied, authentication_failed, connection_denied, tampered_request, run_as_denied, run_as_granted
. -
xpack.security.audit.logfile.events.exclude
- Excludes the specified events from the output. By default, no events are excluded.
-
xpack.security.audit.logfile.events.emit_request_body
-
Specifies whether to include the request body from REST requests on certain event types such as
authentication_failed
. The default value isfalse
.No filtering is performed when auditing, so sensitive data may be audited in plain text when including the request body in audit events.
Local Node Info Settings
edit-
xpack.security.audit.logfile.prefix.emit_node_name
-
Specifies whether to include the node’s name in the local node info. The
default value is
true
. -
xpack.security.audit.logfile.prefix.emit_node_host_address
-
Specifies whether to include the node’s IP address in the local node info. The
default value is
false
. -
xpack.security.audit.logfile.prefix.emit_node_host_name
-
Specifies whether to include the node’s host name in the local node info. The
default value is
false
.
Audit Log Indexing Configuration Settings
edit-
xpack.security.audit.index.bulk_size
-
Controls how many audit events are batched into a single write. The default
value is
1000
. -
xpack.security.audit.index.flush_interval
-
Controls how often buffered events are flushed to the index. The default value
is
1s
. -
xpack.security.audit.index.rollover
-
Controls how often to roll over to a new index:
hourly
,daily
,weekly
, ormonthly
. The default value isdaily
. -
xpack.security.audit.index.events.include
-
Specifies the audit events to be indexed. The default value is
anonymous_access_denied, authentication_failed, realm_authentication_failed, access_granted, access_denied, tampered_request, connection_granted, connection_denied, run_as_granted, run_as_denied
. See Audit event types for the complete list. -
xpack.security.audit.index.events.exclude
- Excludes the specified auditing events from indexing. By default, no events are excluded.
-
xpack.security.audit.index.events.emit_request_body
-
Specifies whether to include the request body from REST requests on certain
event types such as
authentication_failed
. The default value isfalse
. -
xpack.security.audit.index.settings
-
Specifies settings for the indices that the events are stored in. For example, the following configuration sets the number of shards and replicas to 1 for the audit indices:
xpack.security.audit.index.settings: index: number_of_shards: 1 number_of_replicas: 1
These settings apply to the local audit indices, as well as to the remote audit indices, but only if the remote cluster does not have X-Pack security installed, or the Elasticsearch versions are different. If the remote cluster has X-Pack security installed, and the versions coincide, the settings for the audit indices there will take precedence, even if they are unspecified (i.e. left to defaults).
Remote Audit Log Indexing Configuration Settings
editTo index audit events to a remote Elasticsearch cluster, you configure the following
xpack.security.audit.index.client
settings:
-
xpack.security.audit.index.client.hosts
-
Specifies a comma-separated list of
host:port
pairs. These hosts should be nodes in the remote cluster. If you are using default values for thetransport.tcp.port
setting, you can omit theport
value. Otherwise, it must match thetransport.tcp.port
setting. -
xpack.security.audit.index.client.cluster.name
- Specifies the name of the remote cluster.
-
xpack.security.audit.index.client.xpack.security.user
-
Specifies the
username:password
pair that is used to authenticate with the remote cluster. This user must have authority to create the.security-audit
index on the remote cluster.
If the remote Elasticsearch cluster has Transport Layer Security (TLS/SSL) enabled, you
must set the following setting to true
:
-
xpack.security.audit.index.client.xpack.security.transport.ssl.enabled
-
Used to enable or disable TLS/SSL for the transport client that forwards audit
logs to the remote cluster. The default is
false
.
You must also specify the information necessary to access certificates. See Auditing TLS/SSL Settings.
You can pass additional settings to the remote client by specifying them in the
xpack.security.audit.index.client
namespace. For example, you can add
transport settings and
advanced TCP settings in that namespace. To allow the remote
client to discover all of the nodes in the remote cluster you can specify the
client.transport.sniff
setting:
xpack.security.audit.index.client.transport.sniff: true