[role="xpack"] [[auditing-settings]] === Auditing Security Settings ++++ Auditing Settings ++++ All of these settings can be added to the `elasticsearch.yml` configuration file. For more information, see {xpack-ref}/auditing.html[Auditing Security Events]. [[general-audit-settings]] ==== General Auditing Settings `xpack.security.audit.enabled`:: Set to `true` to enable auditing on the node. The default value is `false`. `xpack.security.audit.outputs`:: Specifies where audit logs are output. For example: `[ index, logfile ]`. The default value is `logfile`, which puts the auditing events in a dedicated file named `_audit.log` on each node. You can also specify `index`, which puts the auditing events in an {es} index that is prefixed with `.security_audit_log`. The index can reside on the same cluster or a separate cluster. + For backwards compatibility reasons, if you use the logfile output type, a `_access.log` file is also created. It contains the same information, but it uses the older (pre-6.5.0) formatting style. If the backwards compatible format is not required, it should be disabled. To do that, change its logger level to `off` in the `log4j2.properties` file. For more information, see <>. + -- TIP: 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 the `logfile` output type and the latter should be the official record of events. -- [[event-audit-settings]] ==== Audited Event Settings The 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 is `false`. + -- IMPORTANT: No filtering is performed when auditing, so sensitive data may be audited in plain text when including the request body in audit events. -- [[node-audit-settings]] ==== Local Node Info Settings `xpack.security.audit.logfile.emit_node_name`:: Specifies whether to include the <> as a field in each audit event. The default value is `true`. `xpack.security.audit.logfile.emit_node_host_address`:: Specifies whether to include the node's IP address as a field in each audit event. The default value is `false`. `xpack.security.audit.logfile.emit_node_host_name`:: Specifies whether to include the node's host name as a field in each audit event. The default value is `false`. `xpack.security.audit.logfile.emit_node_id`:: Specifies whether to include the node id as a field in each audit event. This is available for the new format only. That is to say, this information does not exist in the `_access.log` file. Unlike <>, whose value might change if the administrator changes the setting in the config file, the node id will persist across cluster restarts and the administrator cannot change it. The default value is `true`. [[index-audit-settings]] ==== Audit Log Indexing Configuration Settings `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`, or `monthly`. The default value is `daily`. `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 {xpack-ref}/audit-event-types.html[Audit Entry 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 is `false`. `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: + -- [source,yaml] ---------------------------- xpack.security.audit.index.settings: index: number_of_shards: 1 number_of_replicas: 1 ---------------------------- -- + -- NOTE: These settings apply to the local audit indices, as well as to the <>, but only if the remote cluster does *not* have {security} installed, or the {es} versions are different. If the remote cluster has {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-settings]] ==== Remote Audit Log Indexing Configuration Settings To index audit events to a remote {es} 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 the <> setting, you can omit the `port` value. Otherwise, it must match the `transport.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 {es} 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 <>. 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 <> and <> 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: [source,yaml] ---------------------------- xpack.security.audit.index.client.transport.sniff: true ----------------------------