RHELU4 versus RHELU5

RHELU4 versus RHELU5

[Kirkwood, David A.]

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I have not looked at the audit capability on RHELU5, but from the mail
on this list I get a sense that it is, from the configuration and review
tools significantly different that used in the previous release. First,
Is this a correct assumption? I need to get approval to use systems and
verify audit capabilities for those systems, but I don't want to have to
go through the whole thing all over again.

 

Thanks,

David A. Kirkwood
SAIC

david.a.kirkwood@saic.com
kirkwoodd@saic.com

Phone: (727) 502-8310
Fax:   (727) 822-7776 

 


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Re: RHELU4 versus RHELU5

[Stephen Smalley]

On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 11:34 -0500, Kirkwood, David A. wrote:
> I have not looked at the audit capability on RHELU5, but from the mail
> on this list I get a sense that it is, from the configuration and
> review tools significantly different that used in the previous
> release. First, Is this a correct assumption? I need to get approval
> to use systems and verify audit capabilities for those systems, but I
> don’t want to have to go through the whole thing all over again.

Do you mean RHEL 4 vs. RHEL 5 (i.e. two successive releases of RHEL)? Or
RHEL 4 Update 4 vs. RHEL 4 Update 5 (i.e. two successive updates for
RHEL 4)?

-- 
Stephen Smalley
National Security Agency

RE: RHELU4 versus RHELU5

[Kirkwood, David A.]

I was referring to the differences between RHEL update 4 and RHEL update
5 but the question is probably better posed as: Is the auditing used in
RHEL4 update 4 a dead end with respect to either RHEL4 update 5 or
RHEL5? The reason for the question is that I need to write some scripts
or graphical programs to tie some of the pieces together to construct
meaningful auditablity for disjoint items. If I have to do this all over
again, are the items going to be the same or completely different or
somewhat the same? I can use the system as it is now, but I would have
to run many ausearches and / or aureports with different parameters to
get the information I want. When I need to look at 10's of systems, it
is much easier to consolidate everything into a combined output and view
the whole thing. But if the auditing is going to change, I will delay
this part and put up with doing the systems individually until things
are stable. I'm not being a critic, just trying to allocate my time
efficiently.

Thanks, 

David A. Kirkwood
-----Original Message-----
From: linux-audit-bounces@redhat.com
[mailto:linux-audit-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Smalley
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 11:39 AM
To: Kirkwood, David A.
Cc: linux-audit@redhat.com
Subject: Re: RHELU4 versus RHELU5

On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 11:34 -0500, Kirkwood, David A. wrote:
> I have not looked at the audit capability on RHELU5, but from the mail
> on this list I get a sense that it is, from the configuration and
> review tools significantly different that used in the previous
> release. First, Is this a correct assumption? I need to get approval
> to use systems and verify audit capabilities for those systems, but I
> don't want to have to go through the whole thing all over again.

Do you mean RHEL 4 vs. RHEL 5 (i.e. two successive releases of RHEL)? Or
RHEL 4 Update 4 vs. RHEL 4 Update 5 (i.e. two successive updates for
RHEL 4)?

-- 
Stephen Smalley
National Security Agency

--
Linux-audit mailing list
Linux-audit@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-audit

Re: RHELU4 versus RHELU5

[Steve Grubb]

On Thursday 08 February 2007 12:06, Kirkwood, David A. wrote:
> Is the auditing used in RHEL4 update 4 a dead end with respect to either
> RHEL4 update 5 or RHEL5?

Within RHEL4, they are very much the same. But some improvements with each 
release. Between RHEL4 & 5, the user interfaces at the program level are the 
same. The audit utilities understand the same parameters, audit.rules has the 
same syntax, etc. The API at the library level has changed somewhat due to 
new capabilities in RHEL5 and the kernel.

> The reason for the question is that I need to write some scripts or
> graphical programs to tie some of the pieces together to construct 
> meaningful auditablity for disjoint items. If I have to do this all over 
> again, are the items going to be the same or completely different or
> somewhat the same?

Between RHEL4 & 5 they are mostly the same. I'd have to know exactly what you 
are trying to do to answer it, but we've worked hard to preserve the same 
command set. IOW, "audit -w /etc/shadow -p wa" runs on each platform. The 
audit records are slightly different format, but contain nearly the same 
information.

> I can use the system as it is now, but I would have to run many ausearches
> and / or aureports with different parameters to get the information I want.
> When I need to look at 10's of systems, it is much easier to consolidate
> everything into a combined output and view the whole thing. 

This is the area that we are working in right now. RHEL4U5 has a realtime 
interface which can be used for log aggregation. We are starting to turn 
attention to that and should start fleshing something out in the coming 
weeks.

-Steve

Re: RHELU4 versus RHELU5

[Steve Grubb]

On Thursday 08 February 2007 11:34, Kirkwood, David A. wrote:
> I have not looked at the audit capability on RHELU5, but from the mail
> on this list I get a sense that it is, from the configuration and review
> tools significantly different that used in the previous release.

There are a lot of updates. RHEL4U5 will be using the 1.0.15 release. This was 
announced:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/linux-audit/2006-November/msg00033.html

> First, Is this a correct assumption? 

U4 was 1.0.14, U5 will be 1.0.15. There's not  a huge difference between them, 
look at the changelog/announcement. But there are improvements and some new 
capabilities.

-Steve