🔁 1. Agent-Based vs Agentless Auditing
✅ Agent-Based (most common)
- A small audit agent (like your Go tool) is installed on every server
- It runs locally (cron, systemd, or daemon), collects data, and:
- Sends results to a central logging server, SIEM, or dashboard
- Stores logs locally (for later pull or sync)
- Examples:
- osquery (agent-based)
- Wazuh, CrowdStrike, Falco (often agent-driven)
⚙️ Agentless (via SSH or API)
- A central scanner (e.g., in a jump box or management VPC) SSHes into servers
- Pulls audit info remotely
- Needs:
- Key or vault-based secure SSH access
- Open SSH ports
- Careful throttling to avoid overloading
🏗 2. Centralized Logging and Storage
🔗 Common tools:
- ELK stack (Elasticsearch + Logstash + Kibana)
- Splunk, Wazuh, Graylog
- AWS CloudWatch, CloudTrail, or S3 log buckets
- Your app can push logs to:
- SQLite → sync/upload via REST API
- PostgreSQL/MySQL over internal private VPC
- JSON over HTTPS
🧩 3. Scheduling and Automation
- Ansible, SaltStack, or SSH automation pushes the tool
- Systemd timers or cron schedule daily/weekly audits
- CI/CD pipelines push updates to the tool (version control + packaging)
🛡 4. Compliance + Security Baselines
Enterprise audits aren’t just raw data — they enforce standards like:
- CIS Benchmarks (Center for Internet Security)
- NIST, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001
- Custom corporate baselines
Audit tools often compare system config against these baselines and flag non-compliance.
📈 5. Dashboards and Alerting
- HTML and JSON reports get collected centrally
- Dashboards show:
- Recent high-risk findings
- Audit history trends
- Systems missing recent reports
- Alerts (email, Slack, PagerDuty) can fire on risky changes (e.g., new root user added)
🧰 Example Workflow for 100+ Servers
- Package your Go audit scanner as
.debor.rpm - Use Ansible to push + install it on all Linux servers
- Schedule it to run daily via
cron - Audit data written to SQLite + exported as JSON
- A sidecar or small Go uploader sends JSON to:
- Central dashboard server
- S3 bucket or Elasticsearch
- View findings in your web UI or Kibana