PostgreSQL must be able to generate audit records when privileges/permissions are retrieved.

Under some circumstances, it may be useful to monitor who/what is reading privilege/permission/role information. Therefore, it must be possible to configure auditing to do this. PostgreSQLs typically make such information available through views or functions.

This requirement addresses explicit requests for privilege/permission/role membership information. It does not refer to the implicit retrieval of privileges/permissions/role memberships that PostgreSQL continually performs to determine if any and every action on the database is permitted.

Note: The following instructions use the PGLOG environment variable. See supplementary content APPENDIX-I for instructions on configuring PGLOG.

First, as the database administrator (shown here as "postgres"), check if pgaudit is enabled by running the following SQL:

$ sudo su - postgres
$ psql -c "SHOW shared_preload_libraries"

If pgaudit is not found in the results, this is a finding.

Next, as the database administrator (shown here as "postgres"), list all role memberships for the database:

$ sudo su - postgres
$ psql -c "\du"

Next, verify the query was logged:

$ sudo su - postgres
$ cat ${PGLOG?}/<latest_log>

This should, as an example, return (among other rows): 2016-01-28 19:43:12.126 UTC postgres postgres: >LOG: AUDIT: SESSION,1,1,READ,SELECT,,,"SELECT r.rolname, r.rolsuper, r.rolinherit, r.rolcreaterole, r.rolcreatedb, r.rolcanlogin, r.rolconnlimit, r.rolvaliduntil, ARRAY(SELECT b.rolname FROM pg_catalog.pg_auth_members m JOIN pg_catalog.pg_roles b ON (m.roleid = b.oid) WHERE m.member = r.oid) as memberof , r.rolreplication , r.rolbypassrls FROM pg_catalog.pg_roles r ORDER BY 1;",<none>

If audit records are not produced, this is a finding.

Note: The following instructions use the PGDATA and PGVER environment variables. See supplementary content APPENDIX-F for instructions on configuring PGDATA and APPENDIX-H for PGVER.

Using pgaudit PostgreSQL can be configured to audit these requests. See supplementary content APPENDIX-B for documentation on installing pgaudit.

With pgaudit installed the following configurations can be made:

$ sudo su - postgres
$ vi ${PGDATA?}/postgresql.conf

Add the following parameters (or edit existing parameters): 

pgaudit.log_catalog = 'on' pgaudit.log = 'read'

Now, as the system administrator, reload the server with the new configuration:

$ sudo systemctl reload postgresql-${PGVER?}