AUDITD(8)		System Administration Utilities		     AUDITD(8)

NAME
       auditd - The Linux Audit daemon

SYNOPSIS
       auditd [-f] [-l] [-n] [-s disable|enable|nochange] [-c <config_dir>]

DESCRIPTION
       auditd is the userspace component to the Linux Auditing System. It's
       responsible for writing audit records to the disk. Viewing the logs is
       done with the ausearch or aureport utilities. Configuring the audit
       system or loading rules is done with the auditctl utility. During
       startup, the rules in /etc/audit/audit.rules are read by auditctl and
       loaded into the kernel. Alternately, there is also an augenrules
       program that reads rules located in /etc/audit/rules.d/ and compiles
       them into an audit.rules file. The audit daemon itself has some
       configuration options that the admin may wish to customize. They are
       found in the auditd.conf file.

OPTIONS
       -f     leave the audit daemon in the foreground for debugging. Messages
	      also go to stderr rather than the audit log.

       -l     allow the audit daemon to follow symlinks for config files.

       -n     no fork. This is useful for running off of inittab or systemd.

       -s=ENABLE_STATE
	      specify when starting if auditd should change the current value
	      for the kernel enabled flag. Valid values for ENABLE_STATE are
	      "disable", "enable" or "nochange". The default is to enable (and
	      disable when auditd terminates). The value of the enabled flag
	      may be changed during the lifetime of auditd using 'auditctl
	      -e'.

       -c     Specify alternate config file directory. Note that this same
	      directory will be passed to the dispatcher. (default:
	      /etc/audit/)

SIGNALS
       SIGHUP causes auditd to reconfigure. This means that auditd re-reads
	      the configuration file. If there are no syntax errors, it will
	      proceed to implement the requested changes. If the reconfigure
	      is successful, a DAEMON_CONFIG event is recorded in the logs. If
	      not successful, error handling is controlled by
	      space_left_action, admin_space_left_action, disk_full_action,
	      and disk_error_action parameters in auditd.conf.


       SIGTERM
	      caused auditd to discontinue processing audit events, write a
	      shutdown audit event, and exit.


       SIGUSR1
	      causes auditd to immediately rotate the logs. It will consult
	      the max_log_file_action to see if it should keep the logs or
	      not.


       SIGUSR2
	      causes auditd to attempt to resume logging and passing events to
	      plugins. This is usually needed after logging has been suspended
	      or the internal queue is overflowed. Either of these conditions
	      depends on the applicable configuration settings.

       SIGCONT
	      causes auditd to dump a report of internal state to
	      /var/run/auditd.state.


EXIT CODES
       1      Cannot adjust priority, daemonize, open audit netlink, write the
	      pid file, start up plugins, resolve the machine name, set audit
	      pid, or other initialization tasks.


       2      Invalid or excessive command line arguments


       4      The audit daemon doesn't have sufficient privilege


       6      There is an error in the configuration file


FILES
       /etc/audit/auditd.conf - configuration file for audit daemon

       /etc/audit/audit.rules - audit rules to be loaded at startup

       /etc/audit/rules.d/ - directory holding individual sets of rules to be
       compiled into one file by augenrules.

       /etc/audit/plugins.d/ - directory holding individual plugin
       configuration files.

       /etc/audit/audit-stop.rules - These rules are loaded when the audit
       daemon stops.

       /var/run/auditd.state - report about internal state.


NOTES
       A boot param of audit=1 should be added to ensure that all processes
       that run before the audit daemon starts is marked as auditable by the
       kernel. Not doing that will make a few processes impossible to properly
       audit.

       The audit daemon can receive audit events from other audit daemons via
       the audisp-remote plugin. The audit daemon may be linked with
       tcp_wrappers to control which machines can connect. If this is the
       case, you can add an entry to hosts.allow and deny.


SEE ALSO
       auditd.conf(5), auditd-plugins(5), ausearch(8), aureport(8),
       auditctl(8), augenrules(8), audit.rules(7).


AUTHOR
       Steve Grubb

Red Hat				   Sept 2021			     AUDITD(8)