gmarnin / ardvark

ARDvark parses the Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) files to pull out application usage, user activity, and filesystem listings.

🍎 ARDvark

ARDvark parses the Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) database file, and associated cache files to pull out application usage, user activity, and filesystem listing
The ARD database contains information about all systems within an ARD deployment in an enterprise.

ARD Artifacts to Parse

The ARD database file collects user login activity and detailed application usage from all reporting ARD client systems. This information been confirmed for macOS 10.14 (Mojave).

The ARD database file ("RMDB") is located at the following location and is only populated on ARD administrator systems:
/private/var/db/RemoteManagement/RMDB/rmdb.sqlite3

The following plist files exist on ARD client systems and contain cached user activity and application usage that is eventually written to the RMDB:

1. /private/var/db/RemoteManagement/caches/UserAcct.tmp
2. /private/var/db/RemoteManagement/caches/AppUsage.plist

The /private/var/db/RemoteManagement/caches/filesystem.cache file is a database that contains a complete file listing of the ARD client system.\

The plists are also forwarded to the ARD ADMIN SYSTEM and are stored in subdirectories within the /private/var/db/RemoteManagement/ClientCaches directory. The plists are renamed to the reporting client system's MAC address. For example:

1. /private/var/db/RemoteManagement/ClientCaches/ApplicationUsage/{macaddress} -> AppUsage.plist files sent by all ARD CLIENT SYSTEMS
2. /private/var/db/RemoteManagement/ClientCaches/UserAccounting/{macaddress} -> UserAcct.tmp files sent by all ARD CLIENT SYSTEMS
3. /private/var/db/RemoteManagement/ClientCaches/SoftwareInfo/{macaddress} -> filesystem.cache files sent by all ARD CLIENT SYSTEMS

ARDvark Results

ARDvark can provide the following information:
Application Usage:

• Host name (RMDB only)
• MAC address (RMDB only)
• Application path
• Application name
• Launch time
• Frontmost time
• End time
• User
• Last report time
• Whether or not the application was running at the time of last report to the ARD admin system

User Activity:

• Host name (RMDB only)
• MAC addess (RMDB only)
• Last report time
• Username
• Login type
• Login time
• Logout time
• Source system (not consistently present)

Usage

ardvark.py [-h] [-d rmdb.sqlite3] [-u UserAcct.tmp] [-a AppUsage.plist] [-f filesystem.cache]

NOTE: Due to the size of the rmdb.sqlite3 and filesystem.cache files, parsing isn't instantaneous. Please be patient.

Parsing RMDB:

ardvark.py -d rmdb.sqlite
This will produce 2 output files in your working directory:

• AppUsageRMDB.csv
• UserActivityRMDB.csv

Parsing User Activity files:

ardvark.py -u UserAcct.tmp
ARDvark will accept UserAcct.tmp files fromm client systems, or the files under /private/var/db/RemoteManagement/ClientCaches/UserAccounting on on ARD administrator system.
This will produce 1 output file in your working directory:

• UserActivityPlist.csv

Parsing AppUsage.plist files:

ardvark.py -u AppUsage.plist
ARDvark will accept AppUsage.plist files from client systems, or the files under private/var/db/RemoteManagement/ClientCaches/ApplicationUsage on on ARD administrator system.
This will produce 1 output file in your working directory:

• AppUsagePlist.csv

Parsing filesystem.cache files:

ardvark.py -f filesystem.cache
This will produce 1 output file in your working directory:

• fscache.txt