community.windows.win_audit_rule module – Adds an audit rule to files, folders, or registry keys

Note

This module is part of the community.windows collection (version 1.13.0).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.windows.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.windows.win_audit_rule.

Synopsis

  • Used to apply audit rules to files, folders or registry keys.

  • Once applied, it will begin recording the user who performed the operation defined into the Security Log in the Event viewer.

  • The behavior is designed to ignore inherited rules since those cannot be adjusted without first disabling the inheritance behavior. It will still print inherited rules in the output though for debugging purposes.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

audit_flags

list / elements=string / required

Defines whether to log on failure, success, or both.

To log both define as comma separated list “Success, Failure”.

Choices:

  • "Failure"

  • "Success"

inheritance_flags

list / elements=string

Defines what objects inside of a folder or registry key will inherit the settings.

If you are setting a rule on a file, this value has to be changed to none.

For more information on the choices see MSDN PropagationFlags enumeration at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.inheritanceflags.aspx.

Choices:

  • "ContainerInherit" ← (default)

  • "ObjectInherit" ← (default)

Default: ["ContainerInherit", "ObjectInherit"]

path

aliases: dest, destination

path / required

Path to the file, folder, or registry key.

Registry paths should be in Powershell format, beginning with an abbreviation for the root such as, HKLM:\Software.

propagation_flags

string

Propagation flag on the audit rules.

This value is ignored when the path type is a file.

For more information on the choices see MSDN PropagationFlags enumeration at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.propagationflags.aspx.

Choices:

  • "None" ← (default)

  • "InherityOnly"

  • "NoPropagateInherit"

rights

list / elements=string / required

Comma separated list of the rights desired. Only required for adding a rule.

If path is a file or directory, rights can be any right under MSDN FileSystemRights https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.filesystemrights.aspx.

If path is a registry key, rights can be any right under MSDN RegistryRights https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.registryrights.aspx.

state

string

Whether the rule should be present or absent.

For absent, only path, user, and state are required.

Specifying absent will remove all rules matching the defined user.

Choices:

  • "absent"

  • "present" ← (default)

user

string / required

The user or group to adjust rules for.

See Also

See also

community.windows.win_audit_policy_system

The official documentation on the community.windows.win_audit_policy_system module.

Examples

- name: Add filesystem audit rule for a folder
  community.windows.win_audit_rule:
    path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\website
    user: BUILTIN\Users
    rights: write,delete,changepermissions
    audit_flags: success,failure
    inheritance_flags: ContainerInherit,ObjectInherit

- name: Add filesystem audit rule for a file
  community.windows.win_audit_rule:
    path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\website\web.config
    user: BUILTIN\Users
    rights: write,delete,changepermissions
    audit_flags: success,failure
    inheritance_flags: None

- name: Add registry audit rule
  community.windows.win_audit_rule:
    path: HKLM:\software
    user: BUILTIN\Users
    rights: delete
    audit_flags: 'success'

- name: Remove filesystem audit rule
  community.windows.win_audit_rule:
    path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\website
    user: BUILTIN\Users
    state: absent

- name: Remove registry audit rule
  community.windows.win_audit_rule:
    path: HKLM:\software
    user: BUILTIN\Users
    state: absent

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key

Description

current_audit_rules

dictionary

The current rules on the defined path

Will return “No audit rules defined on path“

Returned: always

Sample: {"audit_flags": "Success", "inheritance_flags": "False", "is_inherited": "False", "propagation_flags": "None", "rights": "Delete", "user": "Everyone"}

path_type

string

The type of path being targetted.

Will be one of file, directory, registry.

Returned: always

Authors

  • Noah Sparks (@nwsparks)