PostgreSQL must record time stamps in audit records and application data that can be mapped to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), formerly Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
An XCCDF Rule
Description
<VulnDiscussion>If time stamps are not consistently applied and there is no common time reference, it is difficult to perform forensic analysis. Time stamps generated by PostgreSQL must include date and time. Time is commonly expressed in UTC, a modern continuation of GMT, or local time with an offset from UTC. Some DBMS products offer a data type called TIMESTAMP that is not a representation of date and time. Rather, it is a database state counter and does not correspond to calendar and clock time. This requirement does not refer to that meaning of TIMESTAMP.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>
- ID
- SV-261921r1000994_rule
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation - Manual Procedure
Note: The following instructions use the PGDATA and PGVER environment variables. Refer to APPENDIX-F for instructions on configuring PGDATA and APPENDIX-H for PGVER.
To change log_timezone in postgresql.conf to use a different time zone for logs, as the database administrator (shown here as "postgres"), run the following:
$ sudo su - postgres
$ vi ${PGDATA?}/postgresql.conf