Audit event types

When you are auditing security events, each request can generate multiple audit events.

The following is a list of the events that can be generated:

Audit event attributes

In 6.5.0, there is a new logfile audit output format. This format also brings in a few changes for audit event attributes.

The new format is output to the <clustername>_audit.json file. The audit entries are formatted as flat JSON documents (that is to say, no nested objects), one per line. Hence, the attribute names are JSON keys and they follow a dotted name syntax. Any attributes that lack a value (null) are not output.

The following list shows attributes that are common to all audit events. Their names and values are analogous to those in the deprecated logfile or index output formats. However, it is expected that the formats will evolve independently during the 6.x releases, so it is advisable to follow the attribute descriptions for the format that you are using.

@timestamp

The time, in ISO9601 format, when the event occurred.

node.name

The name of the node. This can be changed in the elasticsearch.yml config file.

node.id

The node id. This is automatically generated and is persistent across full cluster restarts.

host.ip

The bound IP address of the node, with which the node can be communicated with.

host.name

The unresolved node’s hostname.

origin.address

The source IP address of the request associated with this event. This could be the address of the remote client, the address of another cluster node, or the local node’s bound address, if the request originated locally. Unless the remote client connects directly to the cluster, the client address will actually be the address of the first OSI layer 3 proxy in front of the cluster.

origin.type

The origin type of the request associated with this event: rest (request originated from a REST API request), transport (request was received on the transport channel), or local_node (the local node issued the request).

event.type

The internal processing layer that generated the event: rest, transport or ip_filter. This is different from origin.type because a request originating from the REST API is translated to a number of transport messages, generating audit events with origin.type: rest and event.type: transport.

event.action

The type of event that occurred: anonymous_access_denied, authentication_failed, authentication_success, realm_authentication_failed, access_denied, access_granted, connection_denied, connection_granted, tampered_request, run_as_denied, or run_as_granted.

opaque_id

The value of the X-Opaque-Id HTTP header (if present) of the request associated with this event. This header can be used freely by the client to mark API calls, as it has no semantics in Elasticsearch.

x_forwarded_for

The verbatim value of the X-Forwarded-For HTTP request header (if present) of the request associated with the audit event. This header is commonly added by proxies when they forward requests and the value is the address of the proxied client. When a request crosses multiple proxies the header is a comma delimited list with the last value being the address of the second to last proxy server (the address of the last proxy server is designated by the origin.address field).

Audit event attributes of the REST event type

The events with event.type equal to rest have one of the following event.action attribute values: authentication_success, anonymous_access_denied, authentication_failed, realm_authentication_failed, tampered_request or run_as_denied. These event types also have the following extra attributes (in addition to the common ones):

url.path

The path part of the URL (between the port and the query string) of the REST request associated with this event. This is URL encoded.

url.query

The query part of the URL (after “?”, if present) of the REST request associated with this event. This is URL encoded.

request.method

The HTTP method of the REST request associated with this event. It is one of GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS, HEAD, PATCH, TRACE and CONNECT.

request.body

The full content of the REST request associated with this event, if enabled. This contains the query body. The body is escaped according to the JSON RFC 4627.

Audit event attributes of the transport event type

The events with event.type equal to transport have one of the following event.action attribute values: authentication_success, anonymous_access_denied, authentication_failed, realm_authentication_failed, access_granted, access_denied, run_as_granted, run_as_denied, or tampered_request. These event types also have the following extra attributes (in addition to the common ones):

action

The name of the transport action that was executed. This is like the URL for a REST request.

indices

The indices names array that the request associated with this event pertains to (when applicable).

request.name

The name of the request handler that was executed.

Audit event attributes of the ip_filter event type

The events with event.type equal to ip_filter have one of the following event.action attribute values: connection_granted or connection_denied. These event types also have the following extra attributes (in addition to the common ones):

transport_profile

The transport profile the request targeted.

rule

The IP filtering rule that denied the request.

Extra audit event attributes for specific events

There are a few events that have some more attributes in addition to those that have been previously described:

• authentication_success:

  realm

  The name of the realm that successfully authenticated the user. If authenticated using an API key, this is the special value of _es_api_key. This is a shorthand attribute for the same information that is described by the user.realm, user.run_by.realm and authentication.type attributes.

  user.name

  The name of the effective user. This is usually the same as the authenticated user, but if using the run as authorization functionality this instead denotes the name of the impersonated user. If authenticated using an API key, this is the name of the API key owner.

  user.realm

  Name of the the realm to which the effective user belongs. If authenticated using an API key, this is the name of the realm to which the API key owner belongs.

  user.run_by.name

  This attribute is present only if the request is using the run as authorization functionality and denotes the name of the authenticated user, which is also known as the impersonator.

  user.run_by.realm

  Name of the realm to which the authenticated (impersonator) user belongs. This attribute is provided only if the request uses the run as authorization functionality.

  authentication.type

  Method used to authenticate the user. Possible values are REALM, API_KEY, TOKEN, ANONYMOUS or INTERNAL.

  api_key.id

  API key ID returned by the create API key request. This attribute is only provided for authentication using an API key.

  api_key.name

  API key name provided in the create API key request. This attribute is only provided for authentication using an API key.

• authentication_failed:

  user.name

  The name of the user that failed authentication. If the request authentication token is invalid or unparsable, this information might be missing.

• realm_authentication_failed:

  user.name

  The name of the user that failed authentication.

  realm

  The name of the realm that rejected this authentication. This event is generated for each consulted realm in the chain.

• run_as_denied and run_as_granted:

  user.roles

  The role names of the user as an array.

  user.name

  The name of the authenticated user which is being granted or denied the impersonation action.

  user.realm

  The realm name that the authenticated user belongs to.

  user.run_as.name

  The name of the user as which the impersonation action is granted or denied.

  user.run_as.realm

  The realm name of that the impersonated user belongs to.

• access_granted and access_denied:

  user.roles

  The role names of the user as an array. If authenticated using an API key, this contains the role names of the API key owner.

  user.name

  The name of the effective user. This is usually the same as the authenticated user, but if using the run as authorization functionality this instead denotes the name of the impersonated user. If authenticated using an API key, this is the name of the API key owner.

  user.realm

  Name of the the realm to which the effective user belongs. If authenticated using an API key, this is the name of the realm to which the API key owner belongs.

  user.run_by.name

  This attribute is present only if the request is using the run as authorization functionality and denoted the name of the authenticated user, which is also known as the impersonator.

  user.run_by.realm

  This attribute is present only if the request is using the run as authorization functionality and denotes the name of the realm that the authenticated (impersonator) user belongs to.

  authentication.type

  Method used to authenticate the user. Possible values are REALM, API_KEY, TOKEN, ANONYMOUS or INTERNAL.

  api_key.id

  API key ID returned by the create API key request. This attribute is only provided for authentication using an API key.

  api_key.name

  API key name provided in the create API key request. This attribute is only provided for authentication using an API key.

Audit event attributes for the deprecated formats

The following table shows the common attributes that can be associated with every event, when it is output to the <clustername>_access.log file.

Table 73. Common attributes

These are positional attributes, which are printed at the beginning of each log line and are not adjoined by the attribute name.

The attribute origin_address is also common to every audit event. It is always named, that is, it is not positional. It denotes the source IP address of the request associated with this event. This might be the address of the client, the address of another cluster node, or the local node’s bound address (if the request originated locally). Unless the client connects directly to the cluster, the client address is the address of the first OSI layer 3 proxy in front of the cluster.

In addition, every event might have the opaque_id attribute, with the value as it has been passed in by the X-Opaque-Id HTTP request header. This header can be used freely by the client to mark API calls, as it has no semantics in Elasticsearch. Every audit event, generated as part of handling a request thus marked, contains the opaque_id attribute.

The following tables show the attributes that can are associated with each type of event, in addition to the common ones previously described:

Table 74. REST anonymous_access_denied attributes

Table 75. REST authentication_success attributes

Table 76. REST authentication_failed attributes

Table 77. REST realm_authentication_failed attributes

Table 78. REST tampered_request attributes

Table 79. Transport anonymous_access_denied attributes

Table 80. Transport authentication_success attributes

Table 81. Transport authentication_failed attributes

Table 82. Transport realm_authentication_failed attributes

Table 83. Transport access_granted attributes

Table 84. Transport access_denied attributes

Table 85. Transport run_as_granted attributes

Table 86. Transport run_as_denied attributes

Table 87. Transport tampered_request attributes

Table 88. IP filter connection_granted attributes

Table 89. IP filter connection_denied attributes