SQL audit logging gives you detailed information about queries being executed against your system. This feature is especially useful when you want to log all queries that are run against a table containing personally identifiable information (PII).
This page has an example showing:
- How to turn audit logging on and off.
- Where the audit log files live.
- What the audit log files look like.
For reference material, including a detailed description of the audit log file format, see ALTER TABLE ... EXPERIMENTAL_AUDIT.
This is an experimental feature. The interface and output are subject to change.
Step 1. Create sample tables
Use the statements below to create:
- A
customerstable which contains PII such as name, address, etc. - An
orderstable with a foreign key intocustomers, which does not expose any PII
Later, we'll show how to turn on audit logs for the customers table.
> CREATE TABLE customers (
id UUID PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT gen_random_uuid(),
name STRING NOT NULL,
address STRING NOT NULL,
national_id INT NOT NULL,
telephone INT NOT NULL,
email STRING UNIQUE NOT NULL
);
> CREATE TABLE orders (
id UUID PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT gen_random_uuid(),
product_id INT NOT NULL,
delivery_status STRING check (delivery_status='processing' or delivery_status='in-transit' or delivery_status='delivered') NOT NULL,
customer_id UUID NOT NULL REFERENCES customers (id)
);
Step 2. Turn on auditing for the customers table
We turn on auditing for a table using the EXPERIMENTAL_AUDIT subcommand of ALTER TABLE.
> ALTER TABLE customers EXPERIMENTAL_AUDIT SET READ WRITE;
To turn on auditing for more than one table, issue a separate ALTER statement for each table.
Step 3. Populate the customers table
Now that we have auditing turned on, let's add some customer data:
> INSERT INTO customers (name, address, national_id, telephone, email) VALUES (
'Pritchard M. Cleveland',
'23 Crooked Lane, Garden City, NY USA 11536',
778124477,
12125552000,
'pritchmeister@aol.com'
);
> INSERT INTO customers (name, address, national_id, telephone, email) VALUES (
'Vainglorious K. Snerptwiddle III',
'44 Straight Narrows, Garden City, NY USA 11536',
899127890,
16465552000,
'snerp@snerpy.net'
);
Now let's verify that our customers were added successfully:
> SELECT * FROM customers;
+--------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------+
| id | name | address | national_id | telephone | email |
+--------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------+
| 4bd266fc-0b62-4cc4-8c51-6997675884cd | Vainglorious K. Snerptwiddle III | 44 Straight Narrows, Garden City, NY USA 11536 | 899127890 | 16465552000 | snerp@snerpy.net |
| 988f54f0-b4a5-439b-a1f7-284358633250 | Pritchard M. Cleveland | 23 Crooked Lane, Garden City, NY USA 11536 | 778124477 | 12125552000 | pritchmeister@aol.com |
+--------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------+
(2 rows)
Step 4. Check the audit log
By default, the active audit log file is named cockroach-sql-audit.log and is stored in CockroachDB's standard log directory. To store the audit log files in a specific directory, pass the --sql-audit-dir flag to cockroach start. Like the other log files, it's rotated according to the --log-file-max-size setting.
When we look at the audit log for this example, we see the following lines showing every command we've run so far, as expected.
I180321 20:54:21.381565 351 sql/exec_log.go:163 [n1,client=127.0.0.1:60754,user=root] 2 exec "cockroach sql" {"customers"[76]:READWRITE} "ALTER TABLE customers EXPERIMENTAL_AUDIT SET READ WRITE" {} 4.811 0 OK
I180321 20:54:26.315985 351 sql/exec_log.go:163 [n1,client=127.0.0.1:60754,user=root] 3 exec "cockroach sql" {"customers"[76]:READWRITE} "INSERT INTO customers(\"name\", address, national_id, telephone, email) VALUES ('Pritchard M. Cleveland', '23 Crooked Lane, Garden City, NY USA 11536', 778124477, 12125552000, 'pritchmeister@aol.com')" {} 6.319 1 OK
I180321 20:54:30.080592 351 sql/exec_log.go:163 [n1,client=127.0.0.1:60754,user=root] 4 exec "cockroach sql" {"customers"[76]:READWRITE} "INSERT INTO customers(\"name\", address, national_id, telephone, email) VALUES ('Vainglorious K. Snerptwiddle III', '44 Straight Narrows, Garden City, NY USA 11536', 899127890, 16465552000, 'snerp@snerpy.net')" {} 2.809 1 OK
I180321 20:54:39.377395 351 sql/exec_log.go:163 [n1,client=127.0.0.1:60754,user=root] 5 exec "cockroach sql" {"customers"[76]:READ} "SELECT * FROM customers" {} 1.236 2 OK
For reference documentation of the audit log file format, see ALTER TABLE ... EXPERIMENTAL_AUDIT.
Step 5. Populate the orders table
Unlike the customers table, orders doesn't have any PII, just a Product ID and a delivery status. (Note the use of the CHECK constraint as a workaround for the as-yet-unimplemented ENUM - see SQL feature support for more information.)
Let's populate the orders table with some placeholder data using CREATE SEQUENCE:
> CREATE SEQUENCE product_ids_asc START 1 INCREMENT 1;
Evaluate the below a few times to generate data; note that this would error if SELECT returned multiple results, but it doesn't in this case.
> INSERT INTO orders (product_id, delivery_status, customer_id) VALUES (
nextval('product_ids_asc'),
'processing',
(SELECT id FROM customers WHERE name ~ 'Cleve')
);
Let's verify that our orders were added successfully:
> SELECT * FROM orders ORDER BY product_id;
+--------------------------------------+------------+-----------------+--------------------------------------+
| id | product_id | delivery_status | customer_id |
+--------------------------------------+------------+-----------------+--------------------------------------+
| 6e85c390-3bbf-48da-9c2f-a73a0ab9c2ce | 1 | processing | df053c68-fcb0-4a80-ad25-fef9d3b408ca |
| e93cdaee-d5eb-428c-bc1b-a7367f334f99 | 2 | processing | df053c68-fcb0-4a80-ad25-fef9d3b408ca |
| f05a1b0f-5847-424d-b8c8-07faa6b6e46b | 3 | processing | df053c68-fcb0-4a80-ad25-fef9d3b408ca |
| 86f619d6-9f18-4c84-8ead-68cd07a1ee37 | 4 | processing | df053c68-fcb0-4a80-ad25-fef9d3b408ca |
| 882c0fc8-64e7-4fab-959d-a4ff74f170c0 | 5 | processing | df053c68-fcb0-4a80-ad25-fef9d3b408ca |
+--------------------------------------+------------+-----------------+--------------------------------------+
(5 rows)
Step 6. Check the audit log again
Because we used a SELECT against the customers table to generate the placeholder data for orders, those queries will also show up in the audit log as follows:
I180321 21:01:59.677273 351 sql/exec_log.go:163 [n1,client=127.0.0.1:60754,user=root] 7 exec "cockroach sql" {"customers"[76]:READ, "customers"[76]:READ} "INSERT INTO orders(product_id, delivery_status, customer_id) VALUES (nextval('product_ids_asc'), 'processing', (SELECT id FROM customers WHERE \"name\" ~ 'Cleve'))" {} 5.183 1 OK
I180321 21:04:07.497555 351 sql/exec_log.go:163 [n1,client=127.0.0.1:60754,user=root] 8 exec "cockroach sql" {"customers"[76]:READ, "customers"[76]:READ} "INSERT INTO orders(product_id, delivery_status, customer_id) VALUES (nextval('product_ids_asc'), 'processing', (SELECT id FROM customers WHERE \"name\" ~ 'Cleve'))" {} 5.219 1 OK
I180321 21:04:08.730379 351 sql/exec_log.go:163 [n1,client=127.0.0.1:60754,user=root] 9 exec "cockroach sql" {"customers"[76]:READ, "customers"[76]:READ} "INSERT INTO orders(product_id, delivery_status, customer_id) VALUES (nextval('product_ids_asc'), 'processing', (SELECT id FROM customers WHERE \"name\" ~ 'Cleve'))" {} 5.392 1 OK
For reference documentation of the audit log file format, see ALTER TABLE ... EXPERIMENTAL_AUDIT.
See also
ALTER TABLE ... EXPERIMENTAL_AUDITcockroach startlogging flags- SQL FAQ - generating unique row IDs
CREATE SEQUENCE- SQL Feature Support
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