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Event Logging

Requirements​

Azure Queue (Cloud)​

The cloud instance of Bitwarden uses Azure Queue and Table Storage to handle events. Here's how this works:

  1. A user carries out an action which needs to be logged
  2. If the event is client-side (e.g. viewing a password), the client sends details of the event to the Events server project, which then calls EventService. If the event is server-side, the relevant project calls EventService itself.
  3. The event is temporarily stored in Azure Queue Storage (which is designed for handling large numbers of messages)
  4. The EventsProcessor server project runs a regular batch job to retrieve events from Queue Storage and save them to Table Storage
  5. Events are retrieved from Table Storage for viewing

To emulate this locally:

  1. Make sure you've installed and setup Azurite, as described in the Server Setup Guide

  2. Make sure that the globalSettings:events:connectionString user secret is not set, or has the default value of UseDevelopmentStorage=true

  3. Start the Events and EventsProcessor projects using dotnet run or your IDE. (Also ensure you have Api, Identity and your web vault running.)

You should now observe that your enterprise organization is logging events (e.g. when creating an item or inviting a user). These should appear in the Event Logs section of the organization vault.

Azure Storage Explorer lets you inspect the contents of your local Queue and Table Storage and is extremely useful for debugging.

Database storage (Self-hosted)​

Self-hosted instances of Bitwarden use an alternative EventService implementation to write event logs directly to the Event table in their database.

To use database storage for events:

  1. Run your local development server in a self-hosted configuration (Api, Identity and web vault)
  2. Start the Events project using dotnet run or your IDE (note: EventsProcessor is not required for self-hosted)