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ModSecurity: Audit log: Failed to unlock global mutex: Permission denied

When using Cpanel 11.34.4 with mod_security (with ASL rules) + mod_ruid2 I got this error in Apache error log:

ModSecurity: Audit log: Failed to unlock global mutex: Permission denied

To solve:

put this lines into /usr/local/apache/conf/modsec2.user.conf

  SecAuditLogStorageDir /var/asl/data/audit
  SecAuditLogType Concurrent

Be sure you have right permissions under /var/asl/

UPDATE

You may still see this message in the error log file:

[Thu Feb 07 09:49:14 2013] [error] [client 199.115.231.231] ModSecurity: Audit log: Failed to create subdirectories: /var/asl/data/audit/20130207/20130207-0949 (Permission denied)

This is caused because each subdirectory is created with each apache httpd process owner, because of mod_ruid2 functionality. To solve this issue I’ve added this new mod_security directives for creating the logs subdirectories with the correct permissions.

SecAuditLogDirMode 0777
SecAuditLogFileMode 0550
SecAuditLogStorageDir /var/asl/data/audit
SecAuditLogType Concurrent

The last thing you have to do to allow to apache setting this file permissions when creating new files is set correct file creation mask.

I’ve edited /etc/init.d/httpd file and I’ve added this line at the top:

umask 000

14 thoughts to “ModSecurity: Audit log: Failed to unlock global mutex: Permission denied”

  1. Only problem when changing ‘SecAuditLogType’ to Concurrent is that you will start to get these errors:
    “ModSecurity: Audit log: Failed to create subdirectories: /var/asl/data/audit/20121024/20121024-1235 (Permission denied)”

    1. Adam, I am not getting that. I had these directories created:

      – /var/asl/data/msa
      – /var/asl/data/suspicious
      – /var/asl/data/audit

      I think you should create the directory /var/asl/data/audit and set the right permissions so everyone can write.

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  7. To solve the problem Audit log: Failed to lock global mutex: Permission denied
    Using mod_ruid2 and mod_security together:

    find the configuration file which loads finally in mod security (example: /usr/local/apache/conf/modsec2.cpanel.conf)

    Add these line to the end of file:

    SecAuditLogDirMode 1733
    SecAuditLogFileMode 0550
    SecAuditLogType Concurrent
    SecAuditLogStorageDir /usr/local/apache/logs/modsec_audit

    Check the directory of /usr/local/apache/logs/modsec_audit for proper permissions of : 1733

    This solved my problem
    Regards
    Farhad Sakhaei

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