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FileSystemAuditRule Class

Visual Studio 2008

Represents an abstraction of an access control entry (ACE) that defines an audit rule for a file or directory. This class cannot be inherited.

Namespace:  System.Security.AccessControl
Assembly:  mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

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'Declaration
Public NotInheritable Class FileSystemAuditRule _
	Inherits AuditRule
'Usage
Dim instance As FileSystemAuditRule

The FileSystemAuditRule class represents an abstraction of an underlying access control entry (ACE) that specifies a user account, the type of access to provide (read, write, and so on), and whether to perform auditing. This class can also specify how audit rules are inherited from and propagated to objects.

To permit file and directory auditing on Microsoft Windows NT or later, you must enable Audit Access Security policy on your machine. By default, this policy is set to No Auditing.

To enable the Audit Access Security policy, perform the following steps:

  1. Open the Local Security Settings Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in, located in the Administrative Tools folder.

  2. Expand the Local Policies folder and left-click the Audit Policy folder.

  3. Double-click the Audit object access entry on the right pane of the MMC snap-in, or right-click and select the properties option to display the Audit object access Properties dialog.

  4. Select the Success or Failure boxes to log successes or failures.

Note that an audit rule for a user account requires a corresponding access rule for the same user account.

Use the FileSystemAuditRule class to create a new audit rule. You can persist this rule using the FileSecurity or DirectorySecurity class.

The following code example uses the FileSystemAuditRule class to add and then remove an audit rule from a file. You must supply a valid user or group account to run this example.

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Imports System
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Security.AccessControl



Module FileExample

    Sub Main()
        Try 
            Dim FileName As String = "test.xml"

            Console.WriteLine("Adding access control entry for " + FileName)

            ' Add the access control entry to the file.
            AddFileAuditRule(FileName, "MYDOMAIN\MyAccount", FileSystemRights.ReadData, AuditFlags.Failure)

            Console.WriteLine("Removing access control entry from " + FileName)

            ' Remove the access control entry from the file.
            RemoveFileAuditRule(FileName, "MYDOMAIN\MyAccount", FileSystemRights.ReadData, AuditFlags.Failure)

            Console.WriteLine("Done.")
        Catch e As Exception
            Console.WriteLine(e)
        End Try

        Console.ReadLine()

    End Sub 


    ' Adds an ACL entry on the specified file for the specified account. 
    Sub AddFileAuditRule(ByVal FileName As String, ByVal Account As String, ByVal Rights As FileSystemRights, ByVal AuditRule As AuditFlags)


        ' Get a FileSecurity object that represents the  
        ' current security settings. 
        Dim fSecurity As FileSecurity = File.GetAccessControl(FileName)

        ' Add the FileSystemAuditRule to the security settings. 
        fSecurity.AddAuditRule(New FileSystemAuditRule(Account, Rights, AuditRule))

        ' Set the new access settings.
        File.SetAccessControl(FileName, fSecurity)

    End Sub 


    ' Removes an ACL entry on the specified file for the specified account. 
    Sub RemoveFileAuditRule(ByVal FileName As String, ByVal Account As String, ByVal Rights As FileSystemRights, ByVal AuditRule As AuditFlags)

        ' Get a FileSecurity object that represents the  
        ' current security settings. 
        Dim fSecurity As FileSecurity = File.GetAccessControl(FileName)

        ' Add the FileSystemAuditRule to the security settings. 
        fSecurity.RemoveAuditRule(New FileSystemAuditRule(Account, Rights, AuditRule))

        ' Set the new access settings.
        File.SetAccessControl(FileName, fSecurity)

    End Sub 
End Module

Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98

The .NET Framework and .NET Compact Framework do not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.

.NET Framework

Supported in: 3.5, 3.0, 2.0
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