Description

Enable audit_log_enabled on MySQL flexible servers.

Rationale

Enabling audit_log_enabled helps MySQL Database to log items such as connection attempts to the server, DDL/DML access, and more. Log data can be used to identify, troubleshoot, and repair configuration errors and suboptimal performance.

Impact

There are further costs incurred for storage of logs. For high traffic databases these logs will be significant. Determine your organization's needs before enabling.

Audit

From Azure Portal

1. Login to Azure Portal using https://portal.azure.com.
2. Select Azure Database for MySQL Servers.
3. For each database, under the Settings, click Server parameters.
4. In the filter bar, type audit_log_enabled.
5. Ensure that the VALUE for audit_log_enabled is ON.

From Azure CLI

Ensure the below command returns a value of on:

az mysql flexible-server parameter show --resource-group <resourceGroup> --server-name <serverName> --name audit_log_enabled

From PowerShell

Ensure the below command returns a value of on:

Get-AzMySqlFlexibleServerConfiguration -ResourceGroupName <resourceGroup> -ServerName <serverName> -Name audit_log_enabled

Default Value

audit_log_enabled is set to OFF by default.

References

1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/mysql/flexible-server/tutorial-configure-audit
2. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/benchmark/azure/mcsb-logging-threat-detection#lt-3-enable-logging-for-security-investigation
3. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/mysql/flexible-server/tutorial-configure-audit#configure-auditing-by-using-the-azure-cli