Re: the meaning of this audit entry

Bill Tangren
2007-11-20T15:37:16Z

On DATE, the author spaketh: Steve Grubb
> On Monday 19 November 2007 04:22:12 pm Bill Tangren wrote:
>> I'd like to know what this audit log entry means:
>
> It is easier to understand these when you give the '-i' option to
> ausearch. It
> changes things from numeric to text values. It also grounds all records
> that
> make up the event so that you can see all of it.

For this event:

type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1195572240.060:2971371): arch=40000003 syscall=3
success=no exit=-11 a0=12 a1=97721e8 a2=1000 a3=9782c18 items=0 pid=3538
auid=517 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 comm="X"
exe="/usr/X11R6/bin/Xorg"

I issued this command:

# ausearch -i -a 2971371

type=SYSCALL msg=audit(11/20/2007 10:24:00.060:2971371) : arch=i386
syscall=read success=no exit=-11(Resource temporarily unavailable) a0=12
a1=97721e8 a2=1000 a3=9782c18 items=0 pid=3538 auid=bjt uid=root gid=root
euid=root suid=root fsuid=root egid=root sgid=root fsgid=root comm=X
exe=/usr/X11R6/bin/Xorg

Now, this system is plugged into a KVM switch, and sometimes the sysadmin
who logs into the GUI stays logged in for days (he forgots to log out),
and the switch is changed to some other system. I don't know if any of
this has anything to do with why I'm getting 500MB worth of logs every
day, but I have noticed that the logs are this big whenever someone is
logged into the GUI.

BTW, this is a RHEL ES 4.6 system.

--
Bill Tangren
U.S. Naval Observatory