auditing access to directories with restricted access

[jon.bird at generaldynamics.uk.com]

On 2014-06-04, Steve Grubb wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> On Wednesday, June 04, 2014 12:13:02 PM jon.bird at generaldynamics.uk.com
> wrote:
>> I am trying to set up some audit rules to monitor failed accesses to
>> a given folder - here is the basics:
>> 
[...]

> 
> This is a kernel problem. I recall seeing a patch on this mail list
> over a year ago purporting to allow audit events when path resolution
> failed. The issue as I remember goes something like this...
> 
> Files are really identified by device and inode number. In order to be
> more user friendly, we allow watches which pass a path name. The
> kernel really converts that to device and inode and watches for that.
> When an access gets denied such that the path cannot be converted to
> the device and inode to see if it matches a rule, then you won't get an event.
> 
> Like I said, I have seen a patch that supposedly fixed it by Eric
> Paris. But I don't know if it got replaced during some re-writes, or
> it didn't make it upstream, or it only provides results some of the
> time. But I really think its reasonable to expect to get a denied
> event as you described above. Maybe Eric can chime in about this.
> 
> -Steve

Thanks for the update, apparently it used to work in the 2.6.3x kernels.. Would be useful to know about that patch anyway, we are building our system up from scratch so it may be possible to apply it to our kernel sources. I did have a quick trawl through the archives but nothing obvious leapt out at me.

Rgs,


Jon.

--
Jon Bird, CEng MBCS
Software Engineer
Electronic Systems
General Dynamics United Kingdom Ltd.
Castleham Road, St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex, TN38 9NJ

Telephone: +441424798278
Email: jon.bird at generaldynamics.uk.com
Website: www.generaldynamics.uk.com      






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