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Change Auditor - For Advanced Users 7.3 - Technical Insight Guide

Change Auditor Services Change Auditor licensing processes Component Start-up Considerations Change Auditor network communications Coordinator internal tasks Registry Settings Change Auditor built-in fault tolerance Change Auditor protection Database Considerations Account exclusions best practices

Agent to coordinator connection (version 7.0.2)

Change Auditor 7.0.2 agents connect in the same way as 6.x agents, however encryption and decryption for database storage and communications are upgraded to meet the requirements of FIPS 140-2 and its annexes.

1
The Change Auditor 7.0.2 agent connects to a coordinator using WCF with Windows authentication and TCP transport security, which negotiates Kerberos for both authentication and encryption. Only Kerberos encryption algorithms allowed by the “Network security: Configure encryption types allowed for Kerberos” group policy.
2
The coordinator encrypts and decrypts protected data in database storage using the “Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic Provider v1.0” (CNG or Crypto Next Generation) provider with a provider type of PROV_RSA_FULL and the new storage scheme described under Secure password storage.
3
The agent decrypts protected data in configuration data from the coordinator using the “Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic Provider v1.0” (CNG or Crypto Next Generation) provider with a provider type of PROV_RSA_FULL.
4
Security for data sent from the coordinator to the agent and from agent to coordinator is provided by WCF TCP transport security using the “Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic Provider v1.0”.
5
The Change Auditor 7.0.2 agent cannot connect to a coordinator version 7.0.1 or earlier.

Coordinator to SQL Server connection

1
Coordinators read the encrypted database connection string from the ChangeAuditor.Service.exe.config file which includes the SQL Server name \ Instance, User name, Password, and Domain if Windows authentication is selected.
This can be configured using the Security page on the Coordinator Configuration Tool, which is accessed by right-clicking the coordinator system tray icon and selecting Coordinator Configuration.
2
By default, connections to the SQL server are not encrypted; however to encrypt all data transmitted between an application computer and a computer running a SQL server instance, you can use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
For more details on configuring client network protocols, see the following Microsoft article: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190425.aspx.
 

 

Coordinator internal tasks

The following table lists the internal scheduled tasks that the coordinator performs, including when the task initially starts and how often the task is repeated. This section also provides a description of each of these tasks, and if configurable the page of the client used to configure it.

Table 8. Coordinator internal tasks
Task name
Initial Start Time
Default Run Frequency
Configurable

Forest topology collection

30 seconds after startup

Every 3 hours

No

Group expansion

3 hours after startup

Every 6 hours

Yes

Alert processing – Send SMTP

30 seconds after startup

Every 60 seconds

No

Alert processing – Send SNMP

45 seconds after startup

Every 30 seconds

No

Alert processing – Send WMI

30 seconds after startup

Every 30 seconds

No

License check

30 seconds after startup

Every 5 minutes

No

Remote deployment

1 minute after startup

Every 5 minutes

No

Agent heartbeat check

10 minutes after startup

Every 5 minute

No

Refresh coordinator statistics

At startup

Every 15 seconds

No

Event aggregator

10 seconds after startup

Every 10 seconds

No

SQL upgrade monitor

15 seconds after startup

Every 15 seconds

No

Open handle

300 seconds after startup

Every 300 seconds

No

Scheduled purge job

60 seconds after startup

Every 5 minutes

No

Scheduled archive job

60 seconds after startup

Every 5 minutes

No

Scheduled report job

60 seconds after startup

Every 5 minutes

No

Forest topology collection

Change Auditor maintains a view of Active Directory in the database. Each event that Change Auditor captures is linked with a forest, domain, or server (or workgroup server) found in the topology collection. When the coordinator service starts, the topology collection begins. The following Active Directory objects are collected and stored:

•
Domain Objects (crossref objects) found in CN=Partitions,CN=Configuration,<Forest Root Distinguished Name>
•
Site Objects (site objects) found in CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,<Forest Root Distinguished Name>
•
Exchange Servers (msExchExchangeServer objects) found in CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration, <Forest Root Distinguished Name>
•
Server Objects (computer objects) – For each domain found, Change Auditor searches the domain for the following types of server objects:
•
Exchange servers found in the following groups:
•
Exchange Install Domain Servers
•
Exchange Servers
•
All computer objects found using the following filter:
•
(&(objectCategory=computer)(|(operatingSystem=*Windows*))
* 
NOTE: If the operatingSystem field contains ‘server’, the computer is a server object. If the operatingSystem field does not contain ‘server’, the computer is a workstation object.
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