STIGUI
V-258162CAT II — Medium severitySV-258162r1184331_rule

RHEL 9 must take appropriate action when the internal event queue is full.

Rule version RHEL-09-653065 · STIG v2 · 2026-09-17

Discussion

The audit system should have an action setup in the event the internal event queue becomes full so that no data is lost. Information stored in one location is vulnerable to accidental or incidental deletion or alteration.

Offloading is a common process in information systems with limited audit storage capacity.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000342-GPOS-00133, SRG-OS-000479-GPOS-00224

Check

Verify that RHEL 9 audit system is configured to take an appropriate action when the internal event queue is full:

$ sudo grep -i overflow_action /etc/audit/auditd.conf 

overflow_action = syslog

If the value of the "overflow_action" option is not set to "syslog", "single", "halt" or the line is commented out, ask the system administrator (SA) to indicate how the audit logs are offloaded to a different system or media.

If there is no evidence that the audit system is configured to off-load the audit logs to another system or media and if the overflow action is not set to take appropriate action if the internal event queue becomes full, this is a finding.

Fix

Edit the /etc/audit/auditd.conf file and add or update the "overflow_action" option:

overflow_action = syslog

The audit daemon must be restarted for changes to take effect.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-258162
Group title
SRG-OS-000342-GPOS-00133
Rule ID
SV-258162r1184331_rule
Check ID
C-61903r1184330_chk
Fix ID
F-61827r926472_fix