This page describes the audit logs created by Firebase as part of Cloud Audit Logs.
Overview
Firebase services write audit logs to help you answer the questions, "Who did what, where, and when?". These are Cloud Audit Logs, provided as part of the Google Cloud project connected to your Firebase project.
Your Firebase projects each contain only the audit logs for resources that are directly within the project.
For a general overview of Cloud Audit Logs, see Cloud Audit Logs overview. For a deeper understanding of the audit log format, see Understand audit logs.
Available audit logs
The following types of audit logs are available for Firebase Realtime Database:
-
Admin Activity audit logs
Includes "admin write" operations that write metadata or configuration information.
You can't disable Admin Activity audit logs.
-
Data Access audit logs
Includes "admin read" operations that read metadata or configuration information. Also includes "data read" and "data write" operations that read or write user-provided data.
To receive Data Access audit logs, you must explicitly enable them.
For fuller descriptions of the audit log types, see Types of audit logs.
Audited operations
The following summarizes which API operations correspond to each audit log type in Firebase Realtime Database:
Audit logs category | Firebase Realtime Database operations |
---|---|
Admin Activity Audit Logs (ADMIN_WRITE) |
|
Data Access Audit Logs (ADMIN_READ) |
|
Data Access Audit Logs (DATA_READ or DATA_WRITE) |
|
Data Access Audit Logs (DATA_READ) |
|
Data Access Audit Logs (DATA_WRITE) |
|
Audit authentication information
Audit log entries include information about the identity that performed the logged operation. To identify a request caller, see the following fields within the AuditLog object:
Establishing realtime connections. Realtime Database
Connect
operations do not log authentication data since Realtime Database authenticates after a connection is established. Therefore,Connect
has no authentication info. TheAuthenticationInfo
object contains a placeholderprincipalEmail
ofaudit-pending-auth@firebasedatabase-{REGION_CODE}-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com
.Google Authentication. Realtime Database operations that use standard Google Authentication, such as traffic from Firebase Admin SDK or REST requests authenticated with a standard OAuth token, have an
AuthenticationInfo
object that contains the actual credentials email.Firebase Authentication. Realtime Database operations that use Firebase Authentication have an
AuthenticationInfo
object that contains aprincipalEmail
value ofaudit-third-party-auth@firebasedatabase-{REGION_CODE}-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com
. The same is true if you implement your own authentication solution by minting custom JWTs.- If a JSON Web Token (JWT) was used for third-party authentication, the
thirdPartyPrincipal
field includes the token's header and payload. For example, audit logs for requests authenticated with Firebase Authentication include that request's Firebase Authentication token.
- If a JSON Web Token (JWT) was used for third-party authentication, the
No authentication. Realtime Database operations that do not use any authentication have an
AuthenticationInfo
object that contains aprincipalEmail
value ofaudit-no-auth@firebasedatabase-{REGION_CODE}-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com
A Realtime Database instance with open security rules may grant such requests. We recommend all users secure their databases properly.Legacy secrets tokens. Realtime Database operations using legacy tokens have an
AuthenticationInfo
object that contains a placeholderprincipalEmail
ofaudit-secret-auth@firebasedatabase-{REGION_CODE}-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com
. For secrets-signed JWT,thirdPartyPrincipal
contains the JWT headers and payload.
Audit Firebase Security Rules evaluations
Cloud Audit logs can be used to identify requests that will be potentially affected by Rules changes.
In the AuthorizationInfo object, authorization.permission
can be one of:
firebasedatabase.data.get
: Read access granted at the path specified inresource
.firebasedatabase.data.update
: Write access granted at the path specified inresource
.firebasedatabase.data.connect
: Placeholder forConnect
andDisconnect
. No authorization required to connect to a Realtime Database instance.firebasedatabase.data.cancel
: Used forUnlisten
andOnDisconnectCancel
. Revoking or canceling a previously-authorized operation requires no additional authorization.
Correlate Cloud Audit logs with Realtime Database profiler results
You can perform in-depth performance analysis on Realtime Database using the Realtime Database profiler in combination with Realtime Database audit logging. Each tool has its strengths.
Cloud Audit Logging | Realtime Database profiler |
---|---|
|
|
Audit log contents correspond to profiler metrics as shown below.
Audit Logging operation name | Special values inRealtimeDatabaseAuditMetadata |
Profiler operation name |
---|---|---|
Connect | RequestType is REALTIME |
concurrent-connect |
Disconnect | RequestType is REALTIME |
concurrent-disconnect |
Read | RequestType is REALTIME |
realtime-read |
Read | RequestType is REST |
rest-read |
Write | RequestType is REALTIME |
realtime-write |
Write | RequestType is REST |
rest-write |
Update | RequestType is REALTIME .
Check PreconditionType . |
realtime-update realtime-transaction |
Update | RequestType is REST .
Check PreconditionType . |
rest-update rest-transaction |
ListenerListen | RequestType is REALTIME |
listener-listen |
ListenerUnlisten | RequestType is REALTIME |
listener-unlisten |
OnDisconnectPut | RequestType is REALTIME |
on-disconnect-put |
OnDisconnectUpdate | RequestType is REALTIME |
on-disconnect-update |
OnDisconnectCancel | RequestType is REALTIME |
on-disconnect-cancel |
RunOnDisconnect | RequestType is REALTIME |
run-on-disconnect |
Audit log format
Audit log entries include the following objects:
The log entry itself, which is an object of type
LogEntry
. Useful fields include the following:- The
logName
contains the resource ID and audit log type. - The
resource
contains the target of the audited operation. - The
timestamp
contains the time of the audited operation. - The
protoPayload
contains the audited information.
- The
The audit logging data, which is an
AuditLog
object held in theprotoPayload
field of the log entry.Optional service-specific audit information, which is a service-specific object. For older integrations, this object is held in the
serviceData
field of theAuditLog
object; newer integrations use themetadata
field.
For other fields in these objects, and how to interpret them, review Understand audit logs.
Additional information about fields inprotoPayload.metadata
for DATA_READ
and
DATA_WRITE
operations is available in the reference documentation.
Log name
Cloud Audit Logs resource names indicate the Firebase project or other Google Cloud entity that owns the audit logs, and whether the log contains Admin Activity, Data Access, Policy Denied, or System Event audit logging data. For example, the following shows log names for project-level Admin Activity audit logs and an organization's Data Access audit logs. The variables denote Firebase project and organization identifiers.
projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Factivity
organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fdata_access
Service name
Firebase Realtime Database audit logs use the service name
firebasedatabase.googleapis.com
.
For a full list of all the Cloud Logging API service names and their corresponding monitored resource type, see Map services to resources.
Resource types
Firebase Realtime Database audit logs use
the resource type audited_resource
for all audit logs.
For a list of all the Cloud Logging monitored resource types and descriptive information, see Monitored resource types.
Enable audit logging
Admin Activity audit logs are always enabled; you can't disable them.
Data Access audit logs are disabled by default and aren't written unless explicitly enabled (the exception is Data Access audit logs for BigQuery, which can't be disabled).
Data Access audit logs for Realtime Database are toggled by checkingDATA_READ
and/or DATA_WRITE
in the
GCP Console. There is up to a one hour delay between the time that
logs are enabled/disabled in the GCP Console and the time that logs
start/stop being delivered.
For instructions on enabling some or all of your Data Access audit logs, see Configure Data Access logs.
Permissions and roles
Cloud IAM permissions and roles determine your ability to access audit logs data in Google Cloud resources.
When deciding which Logging-specific permissions and roles apply to your use case, consider the following:
The Logs Viewer role (
roles/logging.viewer
) gives you read-only access to Admin Activity, Policy Denied, and System Event audit logs. If you have just this role, you cannot view Data Access audit logs that are in the_Default
bucket.The Private Logs Viewer role
(roles/logging.privateLogViewer
) includes the permissions contained inroles/logging.viewer
, plus the ability to read Data Access audit logs in the_Default
bucket.Note that if these private logs are stored in user-defined buckets, then any user who has permissions to read logs in those buckets can read the private logs. For more information on log buckets, see Routing and storage overview.
For more information on the Cloud IAM permissions and roles that apply to audit logs data, see Access control.
View logs
To find and view audit logs, you need to know the identifier of the
Firebase project, folder, or organization for which you want to view
audit logging information. You can further specify other indexed
LogEntry
fields, like resource.type
; for details, review
Find log entries quickly.
The following are the audit log names; they include variables for the identifiers of the Firebase project, folder, or organization:
projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Factivity projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fdata_access projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fsystem_event projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fpolicy folders/FOLDER_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Factivity folders/FOLDER_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fdata_access folders/FOLDER_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fsystem_event folders/FOLDER_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fpolicy organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Factivity organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fdata_access organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fsystem_event organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Fpolicy
You can view audit logs in Cloud Logging using the
GCP Console, the gcloud
command-line tool, or the Logging API.
Console
You can use the Logs Explorer in the GCP Console to retrieve your audit log entries for your Firebase project, folder, or organization:
In the GCP Console, go to the Logging > Logs Explorer page.
On the Logs Explorer page, select an existing Firebase project, folder or organization.
In the Query builder pane, do the following:
In Resource type, select the Google Cloud resource whose audit logs you want to see.
In Log name, select the audit log type that you want to see:
- For Admin Activity audit logs, select activity.
- For Data Access audit logs, select data_access.
- For System Event audit logs, select system_event.
- For Policy Denied audit logs, select policy.
If you don't see these options, then there aren't any audit logs of that type available in the Firebase project, folder, or organization.
For more details about querying using the Logs Explorer, see Build log queries.
gcloud
The gcloud
command-line tool provides a command-line interface to the
Cloud Logging API. Supply a valid
PROJECT_ID
, FOLDER_ID
,
or ORGANIZATION_ID
in each of the log names.
To read your Firebase project-level audit log entries, run the following command:
gcloud logging read "logName : projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com" --project=PROJECT_ID
To read your folder-level audit log entries, run the following command:
gcloud logging read "logName : folders/FOLDER_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com" --folder=FOLDER_ID
To read your organization-level audit log entries, run the following command:
gcloud logging read "logName : organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com" --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID
For more information about using the gcloud
tool, see
Read log entries.
API
When building your queries, replace the variables with valid values, substitute the appropriate project-level, folder-level, or organization-level audit log name or identifiers as listed in the audit log names. For example, if your query includes a PROJECT_ID, then the project identifier you supply must refer to the currently selected Firebase project.
To use the Logging API to look at your audit log entries, do the following:
Go to the Try this API section in the documentation for the
entries.list
method.Put the following into the Request body part of the Try this API form. Clicking on this prepopulated form automatically fills the request body, but you need to supply a valid
PROJECT_ID
in each of the log names.{ "resourceNames": [ "projects/PROJECT_ID" ], "pageSize": 5, "filter": "logName : projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com" }
Click Execute.
For more details about querying, see Logging query language.
For an example of an audit log entry and how to find the most important information in it, see Sample audit log entry.
Route audit logs
You can route audit logs to supported destinations in the same way that you can route other kinds of logs. Here are some reasons you might want to route your audit logs:
To keep audit logs for a longer period of time or to use more powerful search capabilities, you can route copies of your audit logs to Google Cloud Storage, BigQuery, or Google Cloud Pub/Sub. Using Cloud Pub/Sub, you can route to other applications, other repositories, and to third parties.
To manage your audit logs across an entire organization, you can create aggregated sinks that can route logs from any or all Firebase projects in the organization.
- If your enabled Data Access audit logs are pushing your Firebase projects over your log allotments, you can create sinks that exclude the Data Access audit logs from Logging.
For instructions on routing logs, see Configure sinks.
Pricing
Admin Activity audit logs and System Event audit logs are no-cost.
Data Access audit logs and Policy Denied audit logs are chargeable.
For more information about Cloud Logging pricing, see Google Cloud's operations suite pricing: Cloud Logging.