INTERNET DRAFT J. Abela Expires: July 22, 1997 HSC 22 January 1997 Universal Format for Logger Messages Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as ``work in progress.'' To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the ``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet- Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). Abstract This document presents a format to describe system events for logging purpose. Some of the features presented here are in use with the common syslog facility, but most of them are lost in the crowd of syslog format freedom. Introduction At the beginning, logs were scanned by the administrator after an incident to detect the failure cause. With the increasing concern on computer security, and wide area network manangement, the need for automated log examination, extraction and reporting has grown. The Universal Logger Message (ULM) format presented here is a set of guidelines to formalize the semantics of such messages. Syntax The ABNF for ULM is: log_file = *(log_line LF) log_line = field *(SP field) Abela [Page 1] INTERNET-DRAFT Universal Logger Messages 22 January 1997 field = field_name "=" field_value field_name = ALPHA *(ALPHA_EXT) (Case is not significant) field_value = *(ALPHA_EXT) / string string = QUOTE *(ANY) QUOTE (inside quotes and backslashes must be escaped with a backslash) ANY = ALPHA_EXT = ALPHA / DIGIT / "." / "-" / "_" QUOTE = ALPHA = DIGIT = LF = SP = Due to the verbosity of ULM, field names should be chosen as short as possible: 4 characters are a maximum for a field name element. Here is a correct syslog message: Jan 20 00:05:03 myhost: 10.3.2.1 tuttle from space.foo-bar.com (10.3.3.5) 3456 Its meaning is however context and reader dependant, and could not be parsed successfully without a precise knowledge of all the type of messages wich could happen. An ULM for this could be: DATE=19970120000503 HOST=itesec PRG=foo-gw LVL=debug PS=3456 DST.IP=10.3.2.1 DST.USR=tuttle SRC.IP=10.3.3.5 SRC.FQDN=space.foo- bar.com Mandatory Fields The following fields should be present in any ULM: LVL, HOST, PRG, DATE. This requirement is not enforced through the examples of this Abela [Page 2] INTERNET-DRAFT Universal Logger Messages 22 January 1997 document. LVL value.level = "Emergency" / "Alert" / "Error" / "Warning" / "Auth" / "Security" / "Usage" / "System" / "Important" / "Debug" The level (LVL) field specifies the importance and category of the ULM. The meaning for the different values are: Emergency A panic condition. It should be broadcast to all users. Alert A condition that should be corrected immediately. Error A system error. This level and the previous ones are reserved for system conditions. Warning A program error. A program has detected an incorrect behaviour of his own. To clarify the differences between these last levels: Absence of a system configuration file is an Error, failed assert is a Warning, and erroneous data given by a user is never anything more than a Debug (except when asked for authentication pasphrase, see below). Auth An authentication happened. Potential senders for such an ULM could be su and login. The STAT field may give more informations; if not specified, an authentication failure is assumed, as in: PRG=su LVL=Auth PS=2894 SRC.USR=tuttle DST.USR=root PRG=su LVL=Auth PS=2895 SRC.USR=tuttle DST.USR=root STAT=Success Security A standard protection was raised against what could be an Abela [Page 3] INTERNET-DRAFT Universal Logger Messages 22 January 1997 intrusion. A connection denial based on the remote network address falls into this category. The STAT field may give more informations; if not specified, a failure is assumed, as in: PRG=tcpwrapper LVL=Security SRC.NAME=evil.foo-bar.com Usage Normal, standard, authorized day-to-day usage information. If an application has to report delayed information about what is used, it should be reported as debugging information first (for crashproof logging), then summaried into an only usage message. DATE=19970120000503 PRG=www-client LVL=Debug STAT=Start DATE=19970120000551 PRG=www-client LVL=Debug STAT=End DATE=19970120000551 PRG=www-client LVL=Usage DUR=48 System Tangible usage, but not traceable to any user. Automated processus or system batch jobs fall into this category. PRG=sshd LVL=System PS=175 MSG="RSA key generation" DUR=37 Important Important information which could become critical, but is not yet. A configuration change may be an important information. Debug The Debug level ULMs are not interesting at all in the normal course of life, they add no information when everything is in order. HOST value.host = string The HOST field contains the name of the host which issues the ULM. PROG Abela [Page 4] INTERNET-DRAFT Universal Logger Messages 22 January 1997 value.prog = string The PROG field contains the name of the software component which issues the ULM. If a software component is a member of a software suite, it should be expressed in a hierarchical, as in: "suite.component.subcomponent". DATE value.date =
[ ( '+' / '-' ) ] The DATE field contains the instantaneous date of the event. If the event lasts a sufficient amount of time, different ULM sould be issued, each marked with its own date. The given date must either be in GMT, or include a timezone information. Optional Fields The following fields could be added in any ULM. Any application reading log files should understand them: DUR, PS, ID, SRC.IP, SRC.FQDN, SRC.NAME, SRC.PORT, SRC.USR, SRC.MAIL, DST.*, REL.*, VOL, VOL.SENT, VOL.RCVD, CNT, CNT.SENT, CNT.RCVD, STAT, TTY, DOC, PROT, CMD, MSG. DUR value.duration = integer The DURATION indicates the duration (in seconds) of the event which end is given by the DATE field. This field is mandatory if the ULM announces the end of an event for which another ULM was issued at the beginning. PS value.process = integer In a multi-tasking environment, this field specifies the process id which issued the ULM. On some systems, this id may not be unique, but it should however be unique on the specified HOST, over the specified DUR, if appropriate. Thus, the ULM announcing the end of a session should specify the duration of the session, and guarantee that all the ULM issued between the beginning of the session and this ULM with the same HOST value and the same PS values concern that session. Abela [Page 5] INTERNET-DRAFT Universal Logger Messages 22 January 1997 ID value.id = string The ID field is a system reference to the concerned document. It could be a mail or Usenet news message-id, or an incremented counter. It should not be mistaken with the DOC field, which a user-level name. SRC.IP value.source.ip = ipv4 / ipv6 The SRC.IP field contains the IP number of the source host. Other SRC.* fields could describe network source addresses in other realms (IPX, X25, ...). The SRC.* fields all contain informations about the connected, connecting, or trying to connect host. SRC.FQDN value.source.fqdn = string Fully Qualified Domain Name for the source host. SRC.NAME value.source.name = string Generic name qualifying the source: a host name if fqdn is not available, or a full user name. SRC.PORT value.source.port = integer Port number for TCP, UDP or another protocol. SRC.USR value.source.user = string User name or user id. SRC.MAIL value.source.mail = string Abela [Page 6] INTERNET-DRAFT Universal Logger Messages 22 January 1997 E-mail address. DST.IP DST.FQDN DST.NAME DST.PORT DST.USR DST.MAIL All the DST.* fields have the same meaning as the SRC.* fields, except that they qualify the destination. REL.IP REL.FQDN REL.NAME REL.PORT REL.USR REL.MAIL All the REL.* fields have the same meaning as the SRC.* fields, except that they qualify a proxy, or relayer, or some sort of man-in-the-middle. VOL VOL.SENT VOL.RCVD CNT CNT.SENT CNT.RCVD Volume (number of bytes) and count (of articles, files, events) sent, and received, from the source point of view. CNT=1 is always implicit. These fields allow ULM to be merged together, in which case, the VOL and CNT fields may be added together, if the other ones match. STAT The STAT field describes the state or status of the designed process. Possible values for this field may include "Failure", "Success", "Start", "End". TTY value.tty = string The tty field describes the user's physical connection to the host. DOC value.document = string The document (DOC) field is the name of an accessed document, like the path of an ftp file, the name of a newsgroup, or the non-host part of an URL. PROT value.protocol = string The protocol (PROT) field specifies the protocol used. Abela [Page 7] INTERNET-DRAFT Universal Logger Messages 22 January 1997 PRG=sendmail VOL=2238 PROT=ESMTP PRG=sshd PROT=RSA LVL=Auth STAT=Success CMD value.command = string The command (CMD) field is an issued command, as in: PRG=cron LVL=Usage SRC.USR=news CMD="/local/news/bin/news.daily expireover delayrm" DUR=927 PRG=ftpd LVL=Usage PS=10359 CMD=RETR DOC=x11.tar.gz MSG value.message = string The message (MSG) field is the only field which should contain arbitrary data. Any important information that doesn't fit any of the other standard fields may be stored here. Using the message field for information fitting in standard field is forbidden. Other more fields Any other field of interest could be added, but it should be registered first to the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA). Security Considerations ULM includes no security functions. However, sites should worry about the vulnerabilites of their logging architecture, especially when networks are used to transport ULM, as these messages may be critical for the security. Author's Address Jerome Abela Herve Schauer Consultants 142, rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris France Phone: +33 146 388 990 Fax: +33 146 380 505 Abela [Page 8] INTERNET-DRAFT Universal Logger Messages 22 January 1997 EMail: Jerome.Abela@hsc.fr Abela [Page 9]