libvirt: Audit log
Description: libvirt, virtualization, virtualization API

# Audit log

## Introduction

A number of the libvirt virtualization drivers (QEMU/KVM and LXC) include support for logging details of important operations to the host's audit subsystem. This provides administrators / auditors with a canonical historical record of changes to virtual machines' / containers' lifecycle states and their configuration. On hosts which are running the Linux audit daemon, the logs will usually end up in /var/log/audit/audit.log

## Configuration

The libvirt audit integration is enabled by default on any host which has the Linux audit subsystem active, and disabled otherwise. It is possible to alter this behaviour in the /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf configuration file, via the audit_level parameter

- audit_level=0 - libvirt auditing is disabled regardless of host audit subsystem enablement.

- audit_level=1 - libvirt auditing is enabled if the host audit subsystem is enabled, otherwise it is disabled. This is the default behaviour.

- audit_level=2 - libvirt auditing is enabled regardless of host audit subsystem enablement. If the host audit subsystem is disabled, then libvirtd will refuse to complete startup and exit with an error.

In addition to have formal messages sent to the audit subsystem it is possible to tell libvirt to inject messages into its own logging layer. This will result in messages ending up in the systemd journal or /var/log/libvirt/libvirtd.log on non-systemd hosts. This is disabled by default, but can be requested by setting the audit_logging=1 configuration parameter in the same file mentioned above.

## Message types

Libvirt defines three core audit message types each of which will be described below. There are a number of common fields that will be reported for all message types.

pid

  Process ID of the libvirtd daemon generating the audit record.

uid

  User ID of the libvirtd daemon process generating the audit record.

subj

  Security context of the libvirtd daemon process generating the audit record.

msg

  String containing a list of key=value pairs specific to the type of audit record being reported.

Some fields in the msg string are common to audit records

virt

  Type of virtualization driver used. One of qemu or lxc

vm

  Host driver unique name of the guest

uuid

  Globally unique identifier for the guest

exe

  Path of the libvirtd daemon

hostname

  Currently unused

addr

  Currently unused

terminal

  Currently unused

res

  Result of the action, either success or failed

### VIRT_CONTROL

Reports change in the lifecycle state of a virtual machine. The msg field will include the following sub-fields

op

  Type of operation performed. One of start, stop or init

reason

  The reason which caused the operation to happen

vm-pid

  ID of the primary/leading process associated with the guest

init-pid

  ID of the init process in a container. Only if op=init and virt=lxc

pid-ns

  Namespace ID of the init process in a container. Only if op=init and virt=lxc

### VIRT_MACHINE_ID

Reports the association of a security context with a guest. The msg field will include the following sub-fields

model

  The security driver type. One of selinux or apparmor

vm-ctx

  Security context for the guest process

img-ctx

  Security context for the guest disk images and other assigned host resources

### VIRT_RESOURCE

Reports the usage of a host resource by a guest. The fields include will vary according to the type of device being reported. When the guest is initially booted records will be generated for all assigned resources. If any changes are made to the running guest configuration, for example hotplug devices, or adjust resources allocation, further records will be generated.

#### Virtual CPU

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to vcpu

old-vcpu

  Original vCPU count, or 0

new-vcpu

  Updated vCPU count

#### Memory

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to mem

old-mem

  Original memory size in bytes, or 0

new-mem

  Updated memory size in bytes

#### Disk

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to disk

old-disk

  Original host file or device path acting as the disk backing file

new-disk

  Updated host file or device path acting as the disk backing file

#### Network interface

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to net

old-net

  Original MAC address of the guest network interface

new-net

  Updated MAC address of the guest network interface

If there is a host network interface associated with the guest NIC then further records may be generated

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to net

net

  MAC address of the host network interface

rdev

  Name of the host network interface

#### Filesystem

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to fs

old-fs

  Original host directory, file or device path backing the filesystem

new-fs

  Updated host directory, file or device path backing the filesystem

#### Host device

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to hostdev or dev

dev

  The unique bus identifier of the USB, PCI or SCSI device, if resrc=dev

disk

  The path of the block device assigned to the guest, if resrc=hostdev

chardev

  The path of the character device assigned to the guest, if resrc=hostdev

#### TPM

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to tpm or tpm-emulator

device

  The path of the host TPM device assigned to the guest

#### RNG

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to rng

old-rng

  Original path of the host entropy source for the RNG

new-rng

  Updated path of the host entropy source for the RNG

#### console/serial/parallel/channel

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to chardev

old-chardev

  Original path of the backing character device for given emulated device

new-chardev

  Updated path of the backing character device for given emulated device

#### smartcard

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to smartcard

old-smartcard

  Original path of the backing character device, certificate store or "nss-smartcard-device" for host smartcard passthrough.

new-smartcard

  Updated path of the backing character device, certificate store or "nss-smartcard-device" for host smartcard passthrough.

#### Redirected device

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to redir

bus

  The bus type, only usb allowed

device

  The device type, only USB redir allowed

#### Control group

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to cgroup

cgroup

  The name of the cgroup controller

#### Shared memory

The msg field will include the following sub-fields

resrc

  The type of resource assigned. Set to shmem

reason

  The reason which caused the resource to be assigned to happen

size

  The size of the shared memory region

shmem

  Name of the shared memory region

source

  Path of the backing character device for given emulated device