Security Compliance

Enable change monitoring on Cisco devices syslogging to SEM

Enabling configuration change monitoring on your Cisco routers and switches allows you to monitor unauthorized changes to the network devices responsible for your organization’s connectivity.

First published date

10/9/2018 4:05 PM

Last published date

10/9/2018 4:05 PM

Overview

This article applies to Security Event Manager (formerly Log & Event Manager).

Changes made to a Cisco router or switch’s running configuration do not log to the SEM appliance (or any other appliance) by default. These configuration changes also do not log locally on the router or switch itself. Enabling configuration change monitoring on your Cisco routers and switches allows you to monitor unauthorized changes to the network devices responsible for your organization’s connectivity. 

Setting the commands described in this article tells the router to log every command that changes the router’s configuration. (Show commands, for example, are not logged, because they don’t change the router’s configuration.) 

This information is for SEM with Cisco devices.

Product section

Security Event Manager

Resolution

Perform the following steps to enable configuration change monitoring on Cisco devices:

  1. Access the Cisco device via SSH.
  2. Configure the Cisco device for sylogging to the SEM appliance. See the SolarWinds knowledgebase article Integrate Cisco network devices with SolarWinds SEM for instructions on setting up the device to log to your LEM appliance. 
  3. Configure the Cisco device to monitor configuration changes using the following commands:

enable 

Enters Privilege-Exec mode on the router. Some routers put you in Privilege-Exec mode by default. You can tell if you are there if there is a # next to the router name. For example: routername# instead of <routername>

configure terminal  

Enters Global Configuration Mode. You must enter this mode to make any changes to a router or a switch.

archive  

Enters the archive’s sub menu.

log config  

Goes into the logging configuration sub-mode. This is where you specify the logging options for the running configuration.

logging enable  

Enables logging for the running configuration.

logging size  

Specifies how many logs to keep on the local system. For example, the command logging size 200 keeps 200 logs on the cisco device itself as well as sends those logs to where you determine.

hidekeys  

Enables more secure logging by making sure passwords are not sent in the clear.

syslog  

Sends the log files to syslog.

end  

Sends you back to Privilege-Exec mode.

Note: These events will most likely show up in SEM as PolicyModify events.