NetBackup™ Web UI Security Administrator's Guide
- Introducing the NetBackup web user interface
- Managing role-based access control
- Steps to create an object group
- Adding AD or LDAP domains
- Security events and audit logs
- Managing hosts
- Managing security certificates
- Managing user sessions
- Managing master server security settings
- Creating and using API keys
- Configuring smart card authentication
- Troubleshooting access to the web UI
About NetBackup auditing
Auditing is enabled by default in new installations. NetBackup auditing can be configured directly on a NetBackup master server.
Auditing of NetBackup operations provides the following benefits:
Customers can gain insight from audit trails while they investigate unexpected changes in a NetBackup environment.
Regulatory compliance.
The record complies with guidelines such as those required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).
A method for customers to adhere to internal change management policies.
Help for NetBackup Support in troubleshooting problems for customers.
The NetBackup Audit Manager (nbaudit) runs on the master server and audit records are maintained in the Enterprise Media Manager (EMM) database.
An administrator can search specifically for:
When an action occurred
Failed actions in certain situations
The actions that a specific user performed
The actions that were performed in a specific content area
Changes to the audit configuration
Note the following:
The audit record truncates any entries greater than 4096 characters. (For example, policy name.)
The audit record truncates any restore image IDs greater than 1024 characters.
NetBackup records the following user-initiated actions.
Activity monitor actions | Canceling, suspending, resuming, restarting, or deleting any type of job creates an audit record. |
Alerts and email notifications | If an alert cannot be generated or an email notification cannot be sent for NetBackup configuration settings. For example, SMTP server configuration and the list of excluded status codes for alerts. |
Asset actions | Deleting an asset, such as a vCenter server, as part of the asset cleanup process with the Asset Database API is audited and logged. Creating, modifying, or deleting an asset group as well any action on an asset group for which a user is not authorized is audited and logged. |
Authorization failure | Authorization failure is audited when you use the NetBackup web UI, the NetBackup APIs, or Enhanced Auditing. |
Catalog information | This information includes:
|
Certificate management | Creating, revoking, renewing, and deploying of NetBackup certificates and specific NetBackup certificate failures. |
Certificate Verification Failures (CVFs) | Any failed connection attempts that involve SSL handshake errors, revoked certificates, or host name validation failures. For certificate verification failures (CVFs) that involve SSL handshakes and revoked certificates, the timestamp indicates when the audit record is posted to the master server. (Rather than when an individual certificate verification fails.) A CVF audit record represents a group of CVF events over a time period. The record details provide the start and the end times of the time period as well as the total number of CVFs that occurred in that period. |
Disk pools and Volume pools actions | Adding, deleting, or updating disk or volume pools. |
Hold operations | Creating, modifying, and deleting hold operations. |
Host database | NetBackup host database-related operations. |
Logon attempts | Any successful or any failed logon attempts for the NetBackup Administration Console, the NetBackup web UI or the NetBackup APIs. |
Policies actions | Adding, deleting, or updating policy attributes, clients, schedules, and backup selections lists. |
Restore and browse image user actions | All the restore and browse image content (bplist) operations that a user performs are audited with the user identity. |
Security configuration | Information that is related to changes that are made to the security configuration settings. |
Starting a restore job | NetBackup does not audit when other types of jobs begin. For example, NetBackup does not audit when a backup job begins. |
Starting and stopping the NetBackup Audit Manager (nbaudit). | Starting and stopping of the nbaudit manager is always audited, even if auditing is disabled. |
Storage lifecycle policy actions | Attempts to create, modify, or delete a storage lifecycle policy (SLP) are audited and logged. However, activating and suspending an SLP using the command nbstlutil are not audited. These operations are audited only when they are initiated from a NetBackup graphical user interface or API. |
Storage servers actions |
Adding, deleting, or updating storage servers. |
Storage units actions | Adding, deleting, or updating storage units. Note: Actions that are related to storage lifecycle policies are not audited. |
Token management | Creating, deleting, and cleanup of tokens and specific token issuing failures. |
User management | Adding and deleting Enhanced Auditing users in the Enhanced Auditing mode. |
User action that fails to create an audit record | If auditing is enabled but a user action fails to create an audit record, the audit failure is
captured in the |
The following actions are not audited and do not display in the audit report:
Any failed actions. | NetBackup logs failed actions in NetBackup error logs. Failed actions do not display in audit reports because a failed attempt does not bring about a change in the NetBackup system state. |
The effect of a configuration change | The results of a change to the NetBackup configuration are not audited. For example, the creation of a policy is audited, but the jobs that result from its creation are not. |
The completion status of a manually initiated restore job | While the act of initiating a restore job is audited, the completion status of the job is not audited. Nor is the completion status of any other job type, whether initiated manually or not. The completion status is displayed in the Activity Monitor (Administration Console) and in the Jobs (web UI). |
Internally initiated actions | NetBackup-initiated internal actions are not audited. For example, the scheduled deletion of expired images, scheduled backups, or periodic image database cleanup is not audited. |
Rollback operations |
Some operations are carried out as multiple steps. For example, creating an MSDP-based storage server consists of multiple steps. Every successful step is audited. Failure in any of the steps results in a rollback, or rather, the successful steps may need to be undone. The audit record does not contain details about rollback operations. |
Host properties actions | Changes made using the bpsetconfig or the nbsetconfig commands, or the equivalent property in the Host Properties utility, are not audited. Changes that are made directly to the bp.conf file or to the registry are not audited. |