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Audit event streaming (ULTIMATE)

Event streaming allows owners of top-level groups to set an HTTP endpoint to receive all audit events about the group, and its subgroups and projects as structured JSON.

Top-level group owners can manage their audit logs in third-party systems such as Splunk, using the Splunk HTTP Event Collector. Any service that can receive structured JSON data can be used as the endpoint.

NOTE: GitLab can stream a single event more than once to the same destination. Use the id key in the payload to deduplicate incoming data.

Add a new event streaming destination

WARNING: Event streaming destinations receive all audit event data, which could include sensitive information. Make sure you trust the destination endpoint.

Use the GitLab UI

Users with at least the Owner role for a group can add event streaming destinations for it:

  1. On the top bar, select Menu > Groups and find your group.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Security & Compliance > Audit events
  3. On the main area, select Streams tab.
    • When the destination list is empty, select Add stream activate edit mode and add a new destination.
    • When the destination list is not empty, select {plus} under the Streams tab to activate edit mode.
  4. Enter the endpoint you wish to add and select Add.

Event streaming is enabled if:

  • No warning is shown.
  • The added endpoint is displayed in the UI.

Use the API

To enable event streaming and add a destination, users with at least the Owner role for a group must use the externalAuditEventDestinationCreate mutation in the GraphQL API.

mutation {
  externalAuditEventDestinationCreate(input: { destinationUrl: "https://mydomain.io/endpoint/ingest", groupPath: "my-group" } ) {
    errors
    externalAuditEventDestination {
      destinationUrl
      verificationToken
      group {
        name
      }
    }
  }
}

Event streaming is enabled if:

  • The returned errors object is empty.
  • The API responds with 200 OK.

List streaming destinations

Users with at least the Owner role for a group can list event streaming destinations.

Use the GitLab UI

Introduced in GitLab 14.9.

Users with at least the Owner role for a group can list event streaming destinations:

  1. On the top bar, select Menu > Groups and find your group.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Security & Compliance > Audit events
  3. On the main area, select Streams tab.

Use the API

Users with at least the Owner role for a group can view a list of event streaming destinations at any time using the externalAuditEventDestinations query type.

query {
  group(fullPath: "my-group") {
    id
    externalAuditEventDestinations {
      nodes {
        destinationUrl
        verificationToken
        id
      }
    }
  }
}

If the resulting list is empty, then audit event streaming is not enabled for that group.

Delete streaming destinations

Users with at least the Owner role for a group can delete event streaming destinations using the deleteAuditEventDestinations mutation type.

When the last destination is successfully deleted, event streaming is disabled for the group.

Use the GitLab UI

Introduced in GitLab 14.9.

Users with at least the Owner role for a group can delete event streaming destinations.

  1. On the top bar, select Menu > Groups and find your group.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Security & Compliance > Audit events
  3. On the main area, select Streams tab.
  4. Select {remove} at the right side of each item.

The external streaming destination is deleted when:

  • No warning is shown.
  • The deleted endpoint is not displayed in the UI.

Use the API

Delete an event streaming destination by specifying an ID. Get the required ID by listing the details of event streaming destinations.


mutation{ 
  externalAuditEventDestinationDestroy(input: { id: destination }) {
    errors
  }
}

Destination is deleted if:

  • The returned errors object is empty.
  • The API responds with 200 OK.

Verify event authenticity

Introduced in GitLab 14.8.

Each streaming destination has a unique verification token (verificationToken) that can be used to verify the authenticity of the event. This token is generated when the event destination is created and cannot be changed.

Each streamed event contains a random alphanumeric identifier for the X-Gitlab-Event-Streaming-Token HTTP header that can be verified against the destination's value when listing streaming destinations.

Audit event streaming on Git operations

Introduced in GitLab 14.9 with a flag named audit_event_streaming_git_operations. Disabled by default.

FLAG: On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is not available. To make it available, ask an administrator to enable the feature flag named audit_event_streaming_git_operations. On GitLab.com, this feature is not available.

Streaming audit events can be sent when signed-in users push or pull a project's remote Git repositories:

  • Using SSH.
  • Using HTTP or HTTPS.
  • Using the Download button ({download}) in GitLab UI.

Audit events are not captured for users that are not signed in. For example, when downloading a public project.

To configure streaming audit events for Git operations, see Add a new event streaming destination.

Headers

Headers are formatted as follows:

POST /logs HTTP/1.1
Host: <DESTINATION_HOST>
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
X-Gitlab-Event-Streaming-Token: <DESTINATION_TOKEN>

Example payloads for SSH events

Fetch:

{
  "id": 1,
  "author_id": 1,
  "entity_id": 29,
  "entity_type": "Project",
  "details": {
    "author_name": "Administrator",
    "target_id": 29,
    "target_type": "Project",
    "target_details": "example-project",
    "custom_message": {
      "protocol": "ssh",
      "action": "git-upload-pack"
    },
    "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
    "entity_path": "example-group/example-project"
  },
  "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
  "author_name": "Administrator",
  "entity_path": "example-group/example-project",
  "target_details": "example-project",
  "created_at": "2022-02-23T06:21:05.283Z",
  "target_type": "Project",
  "target_id": 29
}

Push:

{
  "id": 1,
  "author_id": 1,
  "entity_id": 29,
  "entity_type": "Project",
  "details": {
    "author_name": "Administrator",
    "target_id": 29,
    "target_type": "Project",
    "target_details": "example-project",
    "custom_message": {
      "protocol": "ssh",
      "action": "git-receive-pack"
    },
    "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
    "entity_path": "example-group/example-project"
  },
  "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
  "author_name": "Administrator",
  "entity_path": "example-group/example-project",
  "target_details": "example-project",
  "created_at": "2022-02-23T06:23:08.746Z",
  "target_type": "Project",
  "target_id": 29
}

Example payloads for HTTP and HTTPS events

Fetch:

{
  "id": 1,
  "author_id": 1,
  "entity_id": 29,
  "entity_type": "Project",
  "details": {
    "author_name": "Administrator",
    "target_id": 29,
    "target_type": "Project",
    "target_details": "example-project",
    "custom_message": {
      "protocol": "http",
      "action": "git-upload-pack"
    },
    "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
    "entity_path": "example-group/example-project"
  },
  "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
  "author_name": "Administrator",
  "entity_path": "example-group/example-project",
  "target_details": "example-project",
  "created_at": "2022-02-23T06:25:43.938Z",
  "target_type": "Project",
  "target_id": 29
}

Push:

{
  "id": 1,
  "author_id": 1,
  "entity_id": 29,
  "entity_type": "Project",
  "details": {
    "author_name": "Administrator",
    "target_id": 29,
    "target_type": "Project",
    "target_details": "example-project",
    "custom_message": {
      "protocol": "http",
      "action": "git-receive-pack"
    },
    "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
    "entity_path": "example-group/example-project"
  },
  "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
  "author_name": "Administrator",
  "entity_path": "example-group/example-project",
  "target_details": "example-project",
  "created_at": "2022-02-23T06:26:29.294Z",
  "target_type": "Project",
  "target_id": 29
}

Example payloads for events from GitLab UI download button

Fetch:

{
  "id": 1,
  "author_id": 99,
  "entity_id": 29,
  "entity_type": "Project",
  "details": {
    "custom_message": "Repository Download Started",
    "author_name": "example_username",
    "target_id": 29,
    "target_type": "Project",
    "target_details": "example-group/example-project",
    "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
    "entity_path": "example-group/example-project"
  },
  "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
  "author_name": "example_username",
  "entity_path": "example-group/example-project",
  "target_details": "example-group/example-project",
  "created_at": "2022-02-23T06:27:17.873Z",
  "target_type": "Project",
  "target_id": 29
}

Audit event streaming on merge request approval actions

Introduced in GitLab 14.9.

Stream audit events that relate to merge approval actions performed within a project.

Headers

Headers are formatted as follows:

POST /logs HTTP/1.1
Host: <DESTINATION_HOST>
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
X-Gitlab-Event-Streaming-Token: <DESTINATION_TOKEN>

Example payload

{
  "id": 1,
  "author_id": 1,
  "entity_id": 6,
  "entity_type": "Project",
  "details": {
    "author_name": "example_username",
    "target_id": 20,
    "target_type": "MergeRequest",
    "target_details": "merge request title",
    "custom_message": "Approved merge request",
    "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
    "entity_path": "example-group/example-project"
  },
  "ip_address": "127.0.0.1",
  "author_name": "example_username",
  "entity_path": "example-group/example-project",
  "target_details": "merge request title",
  "created_at": "2022-03-09T06:53:11.181Z",
  "target_type": "MergeRequest",
  "target_id": 20
}