Reference Guide › Audit Log Records › Audit Event Types › Resource Access Event

Resource Access Event

Resource access events describe access attempts to resources, for example, FILE, TERMINAL, PROGRAM and more. The audit records' data in this event can appear in other records, for example, a LOGIN event when an accessor attempts to access a TERMINAL resource. Although the event record in this case is of the LOGIN type, the audit records' data that appears in the record is one of the Resource Access Event messages.

Audit records in this event have the following format:

Date Time Status Class UserName SessionID Access Details Reason Resource Program Terminal EffectiveUserName AuditFlags

Date

Identifies the date the event occurred.

Format: DD MMM YYYY

Note: CA Access Control Endpoint Management formats the date display according to your computer's settings.

Time

Identifies the time the event occurred.

Format: HH:MM:SS

Note: CA Access Control Endpoint Management formats the time display according to your computer's settings.

Status

Indicates the return code for the event.

Values: Can be one of:

• D (Denied)—Denied the event because of insufficient authorization.
• P (Permitted)—Permitted the event.
• W (Warning)—Permitted the event because Warning mode is set although the access request violates an access rule.

Class

Identifies the class that the resource being accessed belongs to.

User Name

Identifies the name of the accessor that performed the action that triggered this event.

User Logon Session ID

Identifies the accessor's session ID.

Note: By default this field does not appear in a non-detailed seaudit output. To display this field in a non-detailed seaudit output, specify the -sessionid option in the seaudit command.

Access

Identifies the type of attempted access that triggered this event.

Example: Read

Note: Access values depend on the class the intercepted resource belongs to. For more information on the access authority for each class, see the selang Reference Guide.

Details

Indicates at which stage CA Access Control decided what action to take for this event.

Note: The audit record you see in a non-detailed seaudit output displays a number in this field. This number is known as the authorization stage code. In a detailed output or in CA Access Control Endpoint Management, the audit record displays the message associated with the authorization stage code. For a complete list of stage codes, run seaudit -t.

Reason

Indicates the reason that CA Access Control wrote an audit record.

Note: This field does not display in a detailed seaudit output or in CA Access Control Endpoint Management. The audit record you see in a non-detailed seaudit output displays a number in this field. This number is known as the reason code. For a complete list of reason codes, run seaudit -t.

Resource

Identifies the name of the actual resource that is being accessed or updated.

Program

Identifies the name of the program that triggered the event. That is, the program that the accessor used to try to access the resource.

Terminal

Identifies the name of the terminal that the accessor used to connect to the host. (UNIX only.)

Effective User Name

(UNIX only) Identifies the name of the native OS effective user that triggered this event. This is different from the user name if the user substitutes (surrogates) to a different user or runs a setuid program.

Note: This field does not appear in the KBL audit output.

Audit Flags

Indicates whether the accessor is internal (CA Access Control database user) or an enterprise user.

Note: If the accessor is an enterprise user, the audit record you see in a non-detailed seaudit output displays the string "(OS user)" in this field. Otherwise, this field remains empty.

Example: Resource Access Event Message

The following audit record was taken from a detailed seaudit output.

18 Nov 2008 15:23:56 D FILE         admabc  4922ae61:00000132 Read       69  3 /tmp/one             /usr/local/bin/tcsh  localhost      admabc
Event type: Resource access
Status: Denied
Class: FILE
Resource: /tmp/one
Access: Read
User name: admabc
Terminal: localhost
Program: /usr/local/bin/tcsh
Date: 18 Nov 2008
Time: 15:23
Details: No Step that allowed access
User Logon Session ID: 4922ae61:00000132
Audit flags: AC database user
Effective user name: admabc

This audit record indicates that on November 18th 2008, at 15:23:56 user admabc used UNIX tcsh shell program from the local computer to try and read the protected /tmp/one file resource. CA Access Control denied the operation because there are no rules in the database that authorize this type of access (authorization stage code 69—No step that allowed access). CA Access Control logged this event because the resource's audit mode specifies that this event should be logged (reason code 3—Resource audit mode required logging).

More information:

Authorization Stage Codes for Resource Access Events

Access Authority by Class

Reason Codes That Specify Why a Record Was Created