Audit Logs

Log Types

  • Admin Activity audit logs:
    • Contains log entries for API calls or other administrative actions that modify the configuration or metadata of resources
    • We must have the IAM role Logging/Logs Viewer or Project/Viewer to view these logs
    • Admin Activity audit logs are always written and we can’t configure or disable them
  • Data Access audit logs:
    • Contains API calls that read the configuration or metadata of resources, including user-driven API calls that create, modify, or read user-provided resource data
    • We must have the IAM roles Logging/Private Logs Viewer or Project/Owner to view these logs
    • We must explicitly enable Data Access audit logs to be written. They are disabled by default because they are large
  • System Event audit logs:
    • Contains log entries for administrative actions taken by Google Cloud that modify the configuration of resources
    • We must have the IAM role Logging/Logs Viewer or Project/Viewer to view these logs
    • System Event audit logs are always written so we can’t configure or disable them
    • There is no additional charge for our System Event audit logs
  • Policy Denied audit logs:
    • Contains logs when a Google Cloud service denies access to a user or service account triggered by a security policy violation.
    • We must have the IAM role Logging/Logs Viewer or Project/Viewer to view these logs.
    • Policy Denied audit logs are generated by default. Our cloud project is charged for the logs storage

Exporting Audit Logs

  • Log entries received by Logging can be exported to Cloud Storage buckets, BigQuery datasets, and Pub/Sub topics
  • To export audit log entries outside of Logging:
    • Create a logs sink
    • Give the sink a query that specifies the audit log types we want to export
    • If we want to export audit log entries for a Google Cloud organization, folder, or billing account, we should review Aggregated sinks

Pricing

  • All features of Cloud Logging are free to use, and the charge is only applicable for ingested log volume over the free allotment