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Audit device: Clarifications based on feedback (#16881)
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- Update blocked audit device to use feedback from #6484
- This PR supersedes #6484
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brianshumate authored Aug 26, 2022
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Expand Up @@ -74,20 +74,15 @@ The existing logs that it did store are untouched.

## Blocked Audit Devices

If there are any audit devices enabled, Vault requires that at least
one be able to persist the log before completing a Vault request.
Audit device logs are critically important and ignoring auditing failures opens an avenue for attack. Vault will not respond to requests when no enabled audit devices can record them.

!> If you have only one audit device enabled, and it is blocking (network
block, etc.), then Vault will be _unresponsive_. Vault **will not** complete
any requests until the audit device can write.
Vault can distinguish between two types of audit device failures.

If you have more than one audit device, then Vault will complete the request
as long as one audit device persists the log.
- A blocking failure is one where an attempt to write to the audit device never completes. This is unlikely with a local disk device, but could occure with a network-based audit device.

Vault will not respond to requests if audit devices are blocked because
audit logs are critically important and ignoring blocked requests opens
an avenue for attack. Be absolutely certain that your audit devices cannot
block.
- When multiple audit devices are enabled, if any of them fail in a non-blocking fashion, Vault requests can still complete successfully provided at least one audit device successfully writes the audit record. If any of the audit devices fail in a blocking fashion however, Vault requests will hang until the blocking is resolved.

In other words, Vault will not complete any requests until the blocked audit device can write.

## Tutorial

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