Audit Logging Levels
Warning
As of the time of this publication, strict mode is available and licensed only as part of the SingleStoreDB Premium edition.
There are 11 logging levels that can be specified by the auditlog_level variable in a node’s memsql.cnf file. These levels can be organized into three categories, each with increasing verbosity:
Logging is disabled:
OFF
Log only valid statements and queries:
LOGINS-ONLYADMIN-ONLYWRITES-ONLYALL-QUERIESALL-QUERIES-PLAINTEXTALL-RESULTS
Log valid and invalid statements and queries:
ADMIN-ONLY-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILSWRITES-ONLY-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILSALL-QUERIES-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILSALL-QUERIES-PLAINTEXT-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILSALL-RESULTS-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS
A valid statement or query is one that can be successfully parsed by SingleStore. Invalid statements or queries include those with misspellings or improper syntax.
Caution
User credentials and PII information contained in all valid statements and queries is obfuscated in audit logs. When invalid statements cannot be parsed, the literal query text is included in the log entry. This text may contain sensitive information. For example, if a user attempts to connect to the database with an invalid statement that contains their username and password, these values will be logged in plain text.
Before selecting any level that specifies INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS, ensure that the log file location is secured appropriately and that extra precaution is taken when processing the logs.
If your cluster has strict mode enabled, the lowest logging level you can set is ADMIN-ONLY or ADMIN-ONLY-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS.
OFF
The OFF level is the default setting and prevents any logs from being created.
If your cluster has strict mode enabled, this logging level cannot be set because audit logging must also be enabled.
LOGINS-ONLY
The LOGINS-ONLY level logs the successful and failed login attempts into the database. These login activities coexist with audit data from existing levels, but the information about logins follows a different format than database activities. The LOGINS-ONLY level does not include the PARSE-FAILS option for logins, because this option is reserved for queries. The LOGINS-ONLY level is the lowest level of the audit log, i.e. every other audit level is inclusive of the login information. For more information, see the Log Entry Schema for LOGINS-ONLY Level section.
ADMIN-ONLY and ADMIN-ONLY-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS
The ADMIN-ONLY level is inclusive of the LOGINS-ONLY level logs, and it also logs DDL operations such as CREATE, DROP, ALTER, etc. Additionally, if a query contains passwords (such as SET PASSWORD), the password’s value will be omitted from the log.
The ADMIN-ONLY-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS level is inclusive of ADMIN-ONLY but also logs invalid statements that fail to parse. These invalid statements may include sensitive information that would normally be obfuscated in a log entry.
If your cluster has strict mode enabled, you must select either of these levels or a more verbose level.
WRITES-ONLY and WRITES-ONLY-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS
The WRITES-ONLY level is inclusive of ADMIN-ONLY but also logs DML operations such as INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE, with one exception: SELECT queries are not logged.
The WRITES-ONLY-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS level is inclusive of WRITES-ONLY but also logs invalid statements that fail to parse. These invalid statements may include sensitive information that would normally be obfuscated in a log entry.
ALL-QUERIES and ALL-QUERIES-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS
The ALL-QUERIES level is inclusive of WRITES-ONLY but also logs read operations such as SELECT statements.
The ALL-QUERIES-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS level is inclusive of ALL-QUERIES but also logs invalid statements that fail to parse. These invalid statements may include sensitive information that would normally be obfuscated in a log entry.
ALL-QUERIES-PLAINTEXT and ALL-QUERIES-PLAINTEXT-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS
The ALL-QUERIES-PLAINTEXT level is inclusive of ALL-QUERIES but also logs the entire literal query, not just the parameterized version without literal strings and numbers.
The ALL-QUERIES-PLAINTEXT-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS level is inclusive of ALL-QUERIES-PLAINTEXT but also logs invalid statements that fail to parse. These invalid statements may include sensitive information that would normally be obfuscated in a log entry.
ALL-RESULTS and ALL-RESULTS-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS
The ALL-RESULTS level is inclusive of ALL-QUERIES-PLAINTEXT but also logs the database’s responses. This is the most verbose logging level available, and accordingly it produces a large number of log entries.
When this level is selected, the entry ID for a query is shared with the results entries. For more information, see Schema for ALL-RESULTS Database Responses.
The ALL-RESULTS-INCLUDING-PARSE-FAILS level is inclusive of ALL-RESULTS but also logs invalid statements that fail to parse. These invalid statements may include sensitive information that would normally be obfuscated in a log entry.