Working with Audit Logs

Auditing is a primary requirement when it comes to monitoring production servers. For examples, DevOps need to have a clear mechanism for identifying who did what, and to filter possible system violations or breaches.
Audit logs or audit trails contain a set of log entries that describe a sequence of actions that occurred over a period of time. Audit logs allow you to trace all the actions of a single user, or all the actions or changes introduced to a certain module in the system etc. over a period of time. For example, it captures all the actions of a single user from the first point of logging in to the server.

Audit logs are enabled by default in WSO2 API Manager (WSO2 API-M) via the following configurations, which are in the <API-M-HOME>/repository/conf/log4j.properties file.

# Configure audit log for auditing purposeslog4j.logger.AUDIT_LOG=INFO, AUDIT_LOGFILE
log4j.appender.AUDIT_LOGFILE=org.apache.log4j.DailyRollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.AUDIT_LOGFILE.File=${carbon.home}/repository/logs/audit.log
log4j.appender.AUDIT_LOGFILE.Append=true
log4j.appender.AUDIT_LOGFILE.layout=org.wso2.carbon.utils.logging.TenantAwarePatternLayout
log4j.appender.AUDIT_LOGFILE.layout.ConversionPattern=[%d] %P%5p - %x %m %n
log4j.appender.AUDIT_LOGFILE.layout.TenantPattern=%U%@%D [%T] [%S]
log4j.appender.AUDIT_LOGFILE.threshold=INFO
log4j.additivity.AUDIT_LOG=false

The audit logs that get created when running WSO2 API-M are stored in the audit.log file, which is located in the <API-M_HOME>/repository/logs directory.

Audit log actions

In WSO2 API-M, audit logs can be enabled for the following user actions in the Publisher and Store.

Publisher

Action	Sample Format
Sign in to the Publisher	`[2017-06-07 22:26:22,506] INFO - 'devona@carbon.super [-1234]' logged in at [2017-06-07 22:26:22,501+0530]`
Create an API	`[2017-06-07 22:28:06,027] INFO - {"performedBy":"admin","action":"created","typ":"API","info":"{\"provider\":\"admin\",\"name\":\"PhoneVerification\",\"context\":\"\\\/phoneverify\\\/1.0.0\",\"version\":\"1.0.0\"}"}`
Update an API	`[2017-06-08 10:22:49,657] INFO - {"performedBy":"admin","action":"updated","typ":"API","info":"{\"provider\":\"admin\",\"name\":\"PhoneVerification\",\"context\":\"\\\/phoneverify\\\/1.0.0\",\"version\":\"1.0.0\"}"}`
Delete an API	`[2017-06-08 10:15:55,369] INFO - {"performedBy":"admin","action":"deleted","typ":"API","info":"{\"provider\":\"admin\",\"name\":\"PhoneVerification\",\"version\":\"1.0.0\"}"}`

Store

Action	Sample Format
Sign in to the Store	`[2017-06-07 22:34:54,684] INFO - 'admin@carbon.super [-1234]' logged in at [2017-06-07 22:34:54,682+0530]`
Sign up via the Store	`[2017-06-07 22:55:34,054] INFO - Initiator : admin@carbon.super \| Action : Update Roles of User \| Target : Kimmmy \| Data : { Roles : [] } \| Result : Success`
Create an application	`[2017-06-07 22:40:17,625] INFO - {"performedBy":"admin","action":"created","typ":"Application","info":"{\"tier\":\"20PerMin\",\"name\":\"TestApp\",\"callbackURL\":null}"}`
Update an application	`[2017-06-07 22:44:25,931] INFO - {"performedBy":"admin","action":"updated","typ":"Application","info":"{\"tier\":\"20PerMin\",\"name\":\"MobileApp\",\"callbackURL\":\"\",\"status\":\"APPROVED\"}"}`
Delete an application	`[2017-06-07 22:45:59,093] INFO - {"performedBy":"admin","action":"deleted","typ":"Application","info":"{\"tier\":\"20PerMin\",\"name\":\"MobileApp\",\"callbackURL\":\"\"}"}`
Subscribe to an application	`[2017-06-07 22:36:48,826] INFO - {"performedBy":"admin","action":"created","typ":"Subscription","info":"{\"application_name\":\"DefaultApplication\",\"tier\":\"Gold\",\"provider\":\"admin\",\"api_name\":\"PhoneVerification\",\"application_id\":1}"}`
Unsubscribe from an application	`[2017-06-07 22:38:08,277] INFO - {"performedBy":"admin","action":"deleted","typ":"Subscription","info":"{\"application_name\":\"DefaultApplication\",\"provider\":\"admin\",\"api_name\":\"PhoneVerification\",\"application_id\":1}"}`