PostgreSQL must be able to generate audit records when security objects are accessed.

Changes to the security configuration must be tracked.

This requirement applies to situations where security data is retrieved or modified via data manipulation operations, as opposed to via specialized security functionality.

In a SQL environment, types of access include, but are not necessarily limited to:

CREATE SELECT INSERT UPDATE DELETE PREPARE EXECUTE ALTER DROP

First, as the database administrator, verify pgaudit is enabled by running the following SQL:

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

If the output does not contain pgaudit, this is a finding.

Next, verify that role, read, write, and ddl auditing are enabled:

$ psql -c "SHOW pgaudit.log"

If the output does not contain role, read, write, and ddl, 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='ddl, role, read, write'

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

$ sudo systemctl reload postgresql-${PGVER?}