Audit and report performance

Although OneSpan Authentication Server offers a variety of audit methods, for reporting it is required to audit to a database (ODBC Database audit method). This will be the case by default if you install the embedded MariaDB database shipped with OneSpan Authentication Server. With other audit methods, e.g. auditing to a text file, you will not be able to use the OneSpan Authentication Server reporting features.

If your organization is impacted by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ensure that GDPR-compliance is met when auditing with OneSpan Authentication Server by doing the following:

  • Encrypting the database and connections to it if database auditing is used.
  • Encrypting the folder or disk containing the audit text file if text file auditing is used.
  • Encrypting the Windows Event Logs folder (also on remote machines if remote logging is enabled).
  • Encrypting the Linux syslog folder (also on remote machine if remote logging is enabled).

For more information about GDPR, refer to the OneSpan Authentication Server General Data Protection Regulation Compliance Guide.

Auditing to ODBC database requires the following database tables:

  • vdsAuditMsg. Contains the basic audit messages, including mandatory audit message fields. It contains one record per audit message generated, with additional information stored in the vdsAuditMsgField table.
  • vdsAuditMsgField. Contains extra (non-mandatory) audit message fields that may be included in an audit message. It may contain several records for a single audit message.

To enhance authentication, auditing, and reporting performance, you can create indexes on searchable fields as needed.

For more information about setting up indexing, refer to the OneSpan Authentication Server Administrator Guide. That guide contains indexing level recommendations that will optimize authentication and audit/report performance if you intend to work with the User Dashboard, view recent user and authenticator activity, and use OneSpan Authentication Server reporting.

Recommendations for ODBC basic and advanced deployment models

If you use the basic or the advanced deployment model (see Basic deployment model and Advanced deployment model), we recommend that you set the indexing levels as follows:

  • vdsAuditMsg: Indexing level set to 1.
  • vdsAuditMsgField: Indexing level set to 0.

Note that these are the default indexing levels for new installations.

Recommendations for ODBC high-availability deployment models

The following are considered high-availability deployment models:

If you use one of these deployment models, we recommend that you set the indexing levels as follows:

  • For dedicated administration and reporting servers:

    • vdsAuditMsg: Indexing level set to 2.
    • vdsAuditMsgField: Indexing level set to 0.

  • For dedicated authentication servers:

    • vdsAuditMsg: Indexing level set to 0.
    • vdsAuditMsgField: Indexing level set to 0.

Additional considerations

When working with OneSpan Authentication Server auditing and reporting, you should also consider the following:

  • If you do not want to use the User Dashboard or the reporting features, or view recent user and authenticator activity, we recommend that you set the indexing level for the vdsAuditMsg table to 0, to further enhance authentication performance.
  • Changing the indexing level for the vdsAuditMsgField table is not required for OneSpan Authentication Server auditing and reporting to work properly.