F5BI-FW-300012 - In the event that communication with the central audit server is lost, the F5 BIG-IP appliance must continue to queue traffic log records locally.

Information

It is critical that when the network element is at risk of failing to process traffic logs as required, it takes action to mitigate the failure. Audit processing failures include software/hardware errors, failures in the audit capturing mechanisms, and audit storage capacity being reached or exceeded. Responses to audit failure depend on the nature of the failure mode.

In accordance with DOD policy, the traffic log must be sent to a central audit server. When logging functions are lost, system processing cannot be shut down because firewall availability is an overriding concern given the role of the firewall in the enterprise. The system must either be configured to log events to an alternative server or queue log records locally. Upon restoration of the connection to the central audit server, action must be taken to synchronize the local log data with the central audit server.

If the central audit server uses UDP communications instead of a connection oriented protocol such as TCP, a method for detecting a lost connection must be implemented.

NOTE: Nessus has not performed this check. Please review the benchmark to ensure target compliance.

Solution

If using Remote High Speed Logging (recommended):
From the BIG-IP GUI:
1. Local Traffic.
2. Pools.
3. Pool List.
4. <Logging Pool Name>
5. Verify that "Enable Request Queueing" is set to "Yes".
Note: Configuration must be set to "Advanced" to view this option.

From the BIG-IP Console, type the following commands:

tmsh modify ltm pool <Logging Pool Name> queue-on-connection-limit enabled
tmsh save sys config

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_F5_BIG-IP_TMOS_Y24M09_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: AUDIT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

References: 800-53|AU-5b., CAT|III, CCI|CCI-000140, Rule-ID|SV-266257r1024871_rule, STIG-ID|F5BI-FW-300012, Vuln-ID|V-266257

Plugin: F5

Control ID: 0ae6fb4ee7aaae8e07f75bc61d19a24dae1398b6cf53a110c7bfa08e0124887f