Add central log for auditing

Gregoire Detrez reporter

I'll try to implement this but I'd like to get some feedback on how to do it.

Model

I see a log entry as having 3 parts:

The user who performs the action (an optional user id)
The action performed (a mandatory string)
Parameters for the action (a dictionary with submission id, group number, etc)

Actions

Here are the actions that should be logged:

upload, remove file
submit, withdraw
join, leave group
assign, accept, reject submission

Examples

student@chalmers.se upload {lab:2, file:foo.hs}
s@c.s submit {submission: 42}
s@c.s withdraw {submission: 42}
grader@c.s accept {submission:42}
g@c.s reject {submission:42}
g@c.s assign {submission:42, grader:teacher@c.s}

Storage

Where to record event. I see three possibilities:

a file
the course sqlite database
a central database (e.g. elasticsearch)

The first one is the simplest so my plan is to do only the first one for now (i.e. save into a file) but using a publish/subscribe architecture to make it easy to add other backends in the future. (With the event system in pyramid)

Using the database would make it easier to create a web interface to browse the audit log, with basic filtering (e.g. show only one kind of events, or event for a particular user, etc.)

The last one require more work to set-up and configure the central log but then we could do cool stuff like a real-time dashboard of what's happening across all fire instances .

Any comments?

2016-05-19T15:05:31+00:00

Comments (6)

Gregoire Detrez reporter
- changed title to Add central log for auditing
- 2014-03-19T19:50:44+00:00
SLIO
I will make this my pet project in my fork: https://bitbucket.org/bvd/fire-fork
- 2015-02-18T16:30:50+00:00
Evgeny Kotelnikov
That's cool! I would like to help.
- 2015-02-18T17:05:27+00:00
Gregoire Detrez reporter
- assigned issue to
  
  Gregoire Detrez
- 2016-05-19T14:34:58+00:00
Gregoire Detrez reporter
I'll try to implement this but I'd like to get some feedback on how to do it.

Model

I see a log entry as having 3 parts:
- The user who performs the action (an optional user id)
- The action performed (a mandatory string)
- Parameters for the action (a dictionary with submission id, group number, etc)
Actions

Here are the actions that should be logged:
- upload, remove file
- submit, withdraw
- join, leave group
- assign, accept, reject submission
Examples
```
student@chalmers.se upload {lab:2, file:foo.hs}
s@c.s submit {submission: 42}
s@c.s withdraw {submission: 42}
grader@c.s accept {submission:42}
g@c.s reject {submission:42}
g@c.s assign {submission:42, grader:teacher@c.s}
```
Storage

Where to record event. I see three possibilities:
- a file
- the course sqlite database
- a central database (e.g. elasticsearch)
The first one is the simplest so my plan is to do only the first one for now (i.e. save into a file) but using a publish/subscribe architecture to make it easy to add other backends in the future. (With the event system in pyramid)

Using the database would make it easier to create a web interface to browse the audit log, with basic filtering (e.g. show only one kind of events, or event for a particular user, etc.)

The last one require more work to set-up and configure the central log but then we could do cool stuff like a real-time dashboard of what's happening across all fire instances .

Any comments?
- 2016-05-19T15:05:31+00:00
Gregoire Detrez reporter
- removed responsible
- 2016-09-12T14:13:59+00:00
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