Encrypting security audit data using scripting

You can use the wsadmin tool to configure the security auditing system to encrypt security audit records. Security auditing provides tracking and archiving of auditable events.

Before you begin

Before configuring encryption, set up your security auditing subsystem. You can enable security auditing before or after completing the steps in this topic.

Verify that you have the appropriate administrative role. To complete this topic, you must have the auditor administrative role. If you are importing a certificate from a keystore that exists in the security.xml file, you must have the auditor and administrator administrative roles.

About this task

When configuring encryption, the auditor can select one of the following choices:
  • Allow the application server to automatically generate a certificate or use an existing self-signed certificate generated by the auditor.
  • Use an existing keystore to store this certificate, or create a new keystore to store this certificate.
Avoid trouble: To ensure that there is a separation of privileges between the administrator role and the auditor role, the auditor can create a self-signed certificate outside of the application server process and maintain the private key of that certificate.

Use the following task steps to encrypt security audit data:

Procedure

  1. Launch the wsadmin scripting tool using the Jython scripting language. See the Starting the wsadmin scripting client article for more information.
  2. Configure encryption settings for security audit data.
    Use the createAuditEncryptionConfig command and the following parameters to create the audit encryption model to encrypt your audit records. You must specify the -enableAuditEncryption, -certAlias, and -encryptionKeyStoreRef parameters, and either the -autogenCert or -importCert parameters.
    Table 1. Command parameters. This table describes the createAuditEncryptionConfig command and its parameters:
    Parameter Description Data Type Required
    -enableAuditEncryption Specifies whether to encrypt audit records. This parameter modifies your audit policy configuration. Boolean Yes
    -certAlias Specifies the alias name that identifies the generated or imported certificate. String Yes
    -encryptionKeyStoreRef Specifies the reference ID of the keystore to import the certificate to. String Yes
    -autogenCert Specifies whether to automatically generate the certificate used to encrypt the audit records. You must specify either this parameter or the -importCert parameter, but you cannot specify both. Boolean No
    -importCert Specifies whether to import an existing certificate to encrypt the audit records. You must specify either this parameter or the -autogenCert parameter, but you cannot specify both. Boolean No
    -certKeyFileName Specifies the unique name of the key file from which the certificate is imported. String No
    -certKeyFilePath Specifies the key file location from which the certificate is imported. String No
    -certKeyFileType Specifies the key file type from which the certificate is imported. String No
    -certKeyFilePassword Specifies the key file password from which the certificate is imported. String No
    -certAliasToImport Specifies the alias from which the certificate is imported. String No
    The following command example configures encryption and supports the system to automatically generate the certificate:
    AdminTask.createAuditEncryptionConfig('-enableAuditEncryption true -certAlias auditCertificate 
    -autogenCert true -encryptionKeyStoreRef auditKeyStore') 
    The following command example configures encryption and imports a certificate:
    AdminTask.createAuditEncryptionConfig('-enableAuditEncryption true -certAlias auditCertificate 
    -importCert true -certKeyFileName MyServerKeyFile.p12 -certKeyFilePath 
    install_root/etc/MyServerKeyFile.p12 -certKeyFileType PKCS12 -certKeyFilePassword password4key 
    -certAliasToImport defaultCertificate -encryptionKeyStoreRef auditKeyStore') 
  3. You must restart the server to apply configuration changes.

Results

Encryption is configured for security audit data. If you set the -enableAuditEncryption parameter to true, then your security auditing system encrypts security audit data when security auditing is enabled.

What to do next

After you configure the encryption model for the first time, then you may use the enableAuditEncryption and disableAuditEncryption commands to turn encryption on and off.

The following example uses the enableAuditEncryption command to turn on encryption:
AdminTask.enableAuditEncryption()
The following example uses the disableAuditEncryption command to turn off encryption:
AdminTask.disableAuditEncryption()