pgAudit Log to File

pgAudit Log to File is an addon to pgAudit than will redirect audit log lines to an independent file, instead of using PostgreSQL server logger.

This will allow us to have an audit file that we can easily rotate without polluting server logs with those messages.

Audit logs in heavily used systems can grow very fast. This extension allows to automatically rotate the files based in a number of minutes.

Build

make install USE_PGXS=1

Installation

• Build the extension
• Add pgauditlogtofile to "shared_preload_libraries" in postgresql.conf
• Restart PostgreSQL to reload new shared library
• Create extension in postgres database (like pgaudit we don't need to create it in all the databases)

postgres=# CREATE EXTENSION pgauditlogtofile;

Configuration

pgaudit.log_directory

Name of the directory where the audit file will be created.

Scope: System

Default: 'log'

Empty or NULL will disable the extension and the audit logging will be done to PostgreSQL server logger.

pgaudit.log_filename

Name of the file where the audit will be written. Writing to an existing file will append the new entries.

This variable can contain time patterns up to minute to allow automatic rotation.

Scope: System

Default: 'audit-%Y%m%d_%H%M.log'

Empty or NULL will disable the extension and the audit logging will be done to PostgreSQL server logger.

pgaudit.log_rotation_age

Number of minutes after which the audit file will be rotated.

Scope: System

Default: 1440 minutes (1 day)

Performance Notes:

• If log_rotation_age < 60 the rotation background worker will wake up every 10 seconds.
• If log_rotation_age > 60 the rotation background worker will wake up every 1 minute.

pgaudit.log_connections

Intercepts server log messages emited when log_connections is on

Scope: System

Default: off

Requires: log_connections = on

pgaudit.log_disconnections

Intercepts server log messages emited when log_disconnections is on

Scope: System

Default: off

Requires: log_disconnections = on

pgaudit.log_autoclose_minutes

EXPERIMENTAL: automatically closes the audit log file handler kept by a backend after N minutes of inactivity.

This features creates a background thread that will sleep in the background and close the file handler.

Scope: System

Default: 0

pgAudit Log To File - Record format

CREATE FOREIGN TABLE pgauditlogtofile_extern (
  ----fields from postgresql session----
  log_time timestamptz(3) NULL,
  user_name text NULL,
  database_name text NULL,
  process_id int4 NULL,
  remote_client text NULL,
  remote_port text NULL,
  session_id text NULL,
  session_line_num int8 NULL,
  command_tag text NULL,
  session_start_time timestamptz NULL,
  virtual_transaction_id text NULL,
  transaction_id int8 NULL,
  sql_state_code text NULL,
  -----fields from pgaudit record-------
  audit_type text NULL,
  statement_id text NULL,
  substatement_id text NULL,
  "class" text NULL,
  command text NULL,
  object_type text NULL,
  object_name text NULL,
  "statement" text NULL,
  "parameter" text NULL,
  ----additional fields--------
  detail text NULL,
  hint text NULL,
  internal_query text NULL,
  internal_query_pos int4 NULL,
  context text NULL,
  debug_query text NULL,
  cursor_pos int4 NULL,
  function_name text NULL,
  filename_linenum text NULL,
  application_name text NULL
)
SERVER your_server
OPTIONS (filename 'audit_log.csv', format 'csv');

Test

cd test
vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest
vagrant up