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I have a forum script running on server and somehow small number of attachments begin to get lost. I want to find out what is deleting them and at what time. How can I setup Linux auditd (auditctl) to watch directory tree (attachments are stored inside multi-level directory tree) to watch for file deletions there?

May be I should use some other tool for this?

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This is an answer i wrote to a previous question:

Generally if you wish to know what a process/user/file is doing without having to run lsof against it 24/7 you use auditctl.

Assuming you have a recent-ish kernel audit control should be a simple operation. (This is in Debian-fu, if you're running Red Hat translate as appropriate)

# apt-get install auditd

Make sure that its running (/etc/init.d/auditd status).

auditctl -a entry,always -F arch=b64 -S open -F pid=<process id>

Replace b64 with b32 if you're running 32-bit arch, open can be replaced by any system call or the word 'all'

For more read the auditctl manpage.

You can use this method and ask it to watch for the 'unlink' system call.

The -w parameter is useful for watching files/directories, but the as the man page explains there are caveats.

-w path Insert a watch for the file system object at path. You cannot insert a watch to the top level directory. This is prohibited by the kernel. Wildcards are not supported either and will generate a warning. The way that watches work is by tracking the inode internally. This means that if you put a watch on a directory, you will see what appears to be file events, but it is really just the updating of meta data. You might miss a few events by doing this. If you need to watch all files in a directory, its recommended to place an individual watch on each file. Unlike syscall auditing rules, watches do not impact performance based on the number of rules sent to the kernel.

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  • I cannot :( I have PHP running in CGI mode. It's always a new process there. Also, I want not to watch a single process, but watch a particular part of the file system for alterations. May 24, 2010 at 11:45
  • Yes, see the edit, i made, there are parameters for watching filesystem directories, but with caveats, or files.
    – Aaron Tate
    May 24, 2010 at 11:47
  • There are about 1000 folders and about 50k of files. So this is also not gonna work... :( May 24, 2010 at 11:57
  • Generally as long as you're aware of the caveats, you should be able to just go ahead and place the watch on the top level directory that contains the folders you want to watch.
    – Aaron Tate
    May 24, 2010 at 22:19
  • I need to do the same thing (watch a folder for deletions so that I can find the PID/process name that did it), but this doesn't seem to work (at least on a 3.x kernel). If I run "auditctl -a entry,always -F arch=b64 -S unlink -w /path/to/dir" to track deletions then I get "watch option can't be given with a syscall". Anyone got any ideas?
    – IBBoard
    Jul 25, 2012 at 19:39
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Maybe incron could be used?

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  • It does not allow watching the tree in a whole. Only per-directory as I can see. May 28, 2010 at 6:44
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A couple of ideas. You can use strace to see what your application is doing, but it may generate a log of logs and may slow down the system.

Another idea is to use inotifywait, then lsof/fuser on the file to see what is using it. You can try run this script at high priority (if you can) to have information as accurate as possible. It will probably not catch the unlink call, since the file will be gone before the event is delivered.

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  • I cannot. I don't know which process to run strace on because I find deleted files after some time. inotifywait will not also work because PHP is running as CGI and there are many PHP processes with different IDs out there. May 24, 2010 at 15:03
  • inotify is used to monitor the filesystem, not the running processes. For strace, you have to trace the master parent process with the -f flag, to follow the children. May 24, 2010 at 19:19
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While fenix's auditd recommendation seems ideal, you may find a filesystem IDS such as AIDE helpful. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to be fine-grained enough for what you're attempting to isolate.

I'll often write scripts as a solution for problems like what you describe. If you cannot accomplish what you want with solutions recommended, write something yourself. It's often not very complicated.

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  • It seems, it is only for locating file changes. Not for realtime monitoring. May 24, 2010 at 15:02

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