Using Audit Profiles

Audit Profiles cause Ignition to record details about specific events that occurred. Audit Profiles are simple to set-up, and immediately start to record events. By default, only Tag writes, SQL UPDATE, SQL INSERT, and SQL DELETE statements are recorded. This allows you to keep track of which user wrote to which Tag, or modified which table. Furthermore, a time-stamp is recorded, so you can easily track the changes and outline an order of events. 

Ignition Gateways can now create an Internal Audit Profile, allowing an Ignition Gateway to store audit records without an external SQL database. The only way to interact with the Internal Audit Profile is via the Status page of the Gateway webpage. There are only two settings for the Internal Audit Profile type: Name and Description (which are identical to those same properties on the Database type).

Audit Profile Types

There are two different types of audit profiles: Database and Internal. Database type stores audit events in an external database. Internal type stores audit events in a local SQLite database file.

To Create an Audit Profile for a Database Profile Type

1. Go to the Configure section of the Gateway.

2. Choose Security > Auditing from the menu on the left.
   

3. The Audit Profiles page is displayed, and click Create new Audit Profile link.
4. Select Database or Internal audit profile type. This example uses the Database type, then click Next. 
   
   
   
   
5. Enter the Name of the audit log and Description (optional).
6. Under the Database Settings, select the Database where the table will be stored, select the Auto Create check box, and enter the desired Table Name.
7. Click Create New Audit Profile.
   
   Audit Profile - Database Type
   
   
   

Once some changes have been made to a Tag or a Database table, Ignition will begin recording.
 

Auditing Project Events

A project can be assigned to an Audit Profile. Once configured, Ignition will track changes made to the Designer, as well as keep track of when users logged in or logged out of a client. Additionally, the hostname of the computer used will be recorded. 

To Assign an Audit Profile to a Project

1. Go to the Designer, open the project that you want to enable auditing on, and go to Project > Properties.
2. Go to the General section, select the Enable Auditing check box, and select your Audit Profile from the drop-down menu. The audit profile is used to record audit actions for your project. If the new audit profile does not show up, click Refresh. 
3. Click OK.
4. Save your Project. 
   
   
   
   

To View Information in an Audit Log

There are a few ways to view audit information: using a Table component, interface on the Gateway, or the Database Query Browser. Here is one example of viewing an Audit Log using the Database Query Browser.    

1. Go to Tools > Database Query Browser.
2. Under the Schema area, double click on a table, and it will expand the query in the Database Query Browser area. 
3. Click Execute, and all the audit log data will be displayed in the Resultset1 area.  

Refer to the Database Query Browser to learn more about how it works.