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Version: v4.9

Send Cyral logs to ELK stack

Follow the steps below to configure Cyral to output repository activity logs to ELK.

Set up an ELK stack​

Deploy AWS Elasticsearch Service​

Contact your Cyral support representative to get the deployment template for your cloud environment, and then follow the steps below.

Use the ELK CloudFormation template provided by the Cyral support team to deploy the AWS Elasticsearch service using AWS CloudFormation, taking note of the following steps:

First, set the RemoteAccessCIDR range to your corporate IP addresses while deploying the stack to restrict access to Kibana.

Next, the IAM role AWSServiceRoleForAmazonElasticsearchService is required to install the ELK template. If it does not yet exist, create it with the following command:

aws iam create-service-linked-role --aws-service-name es.amazonaws.com

Note:

If you’d like to make the ELK deployment more robust and enable HA, we suggest making the following changes to the template:

       ElasticsearchClusterConfig:
           DedicatedMasterEnabled: false
           InstanceCount: 2
           InstanceType: t3.medium.elasticsearch
           WarmEnabled: false
           ZoneAwarenessEnabled: true
       EBSOptions:
           EBSEnabled: true
           VolumeType: gp2
           VolumeSize: 50

Connect Cyral to your ELK stack​

Now that the AWS Elasticsearch service is deployed, let's integrate it with Cyral.

  1. Navigate to the Integrations page in the sidebar.

  2. Click Setup or Configure on the Logging card, and click the New Integration button.

  3. Select ELK from the list of integration platforms.

  4. In the ELK configuration form, you will be prompted to enter the following:

    • Name: A unique, recognizable name of your choice.
    • Elasticsearch URL: Address where Elasticsearch is available. If you're using CloudFormation, this matches the ElasticsearchURL output parameter.
    • Elasticsearch User: (Optional) The username of the Elasticsearch user to use, if applicable.
    • Elasticsearch Password: (Optional) The password of the Elasticsearch user, if applicable.
    • Kibana URL: (Optional) The Kibana server's hostname. If you're using CloudFormation, this matches the KibanaURL output parameter.

  1. Click Create.

  2. For each sidecar that will send logs to this destination, configure the sidecar's advanced logging settings and select this integration for Data Activity Logs and/or Diagnostic Logs. For more information, see "Manage Sidecars -> Logging".

Monitor data activity in Kibana​

Once the ELK integration is configured, administrators will be able to view and monitor data repository activity logs in Kibana. Data activity logs will be indexed under the Elasticsearch index pattern cyral-data-activity-logs-<YYYY-MM-dd>.

Prerequisites​

Generate sample log data​

If you haven't already done so, run a few queries to generate query logs.

  • If your repository is set to log all activity, any query will do.
  • If you have a policy that logs only certain types of activity, run a query that falls within the scope of the policy.

View logs​

Access the Kibana dashboard as shown here for your cloud platform:

In your browser, visit the Kibana dashboard address provided in the Terraform or Cloudformation output from your deployment. See Set up an ELK stack for deployment details.

To limit the view to show only query logs by, search for the log field endUser in the search bar.

Import the performance insights dashboard into Kibana​

Cyral provides a dashboard you can import into your Kibana to observe performance insights based on the query logs generated by your sidecars. Importing this also creates an index matching the pattern filebeat*,cyral* to capture logs produced by sidecars.

To import the dashboard, follow the steps on the Kibana Dashboards and Elastic Index Templates quickstart guide.

Next steps​