Snort mailing list archives

Re: Log problems


From: honeybadger () q com
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:53:08 -0700

Paul, 


Thanks very much. 

Thanks to you and the others here, I managed to fix the issues and learn a lot. 

Steve

Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists () tx rr com> wrote:

Here's how snort works when coupled with barnyard2 and mysql.

Snort listens on a NIC and, when an alert is triggered, writes to a 
unified2 log file.

So, step 1 in troubleshooting is to verify that the NIC is in
promiscuous 
mode.  In general, if you run ifconfig, it should look like this for
one of 
the NICs on the host:
bce1: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric
0 
mtu 1500

PROMISC means promiscuous mode.

Step 2 is to verify that the NIC is seeing traffic.  This can be done 
easily by running tcpdump like this: tcpdump -i bce1 (on most Linux
boxes 
it will be eth0 or eth1)

If you see traffic, you need to move on to verifying that snort is
working.

Start snort in console mode with the Test switch - snort -T -c 
/path/to/snort/confile

If there are any errors, they are usually self-explanatory.  E.g. ipvar
not 
found, missing semi-colon on line 129 of snort.rulefile, etc.

Fix all those errors until snort runs without errors.  If it's working 
correctly, you should see this at the end:

Snort successfully validated the configuration!
Snort exiting

Once you have verified that 1) the NIC is listening and 2) the NIC sees

traffic and 3) snort runs without errors using your conf file, the only

thing left is the rules files you're using.

Remember, snort is an IDS.  It's designed to look for specific
signatures. 
If none are seen, there will be no alerts.

If you want to verify that snort will actually alert on something, then

write a simple test rule: alert tcp any any -> any any (msg:"Testing"; 
rev:1; sid:1;).  This will alert for ALL traffic, so if there's any
traffic 
at all and snort is working properly, your logfile will grow quite
large 
very quickly.





--On November 26, 2012 11:10:43 AM -0700 honeybadger () q com wrote:

I have been trying to figure out log problems....

Since then you all are saying that BY2 was a red herring I am trying
to
find what is the problem in the snort.config file with no success.

It looks like snort is starting ok, pulled pork is checking rules and
it
says it is running.

But no output in /var/log.

Any ideas all?



-- 
Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst
As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions
are my own and not those of my employer.
*******************************************
"It is as useless to argue with those who have
renounced the use of reason as to administer
medication to the dead." Thomas Jefferson
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very
intelligent person could believe in them." George Orwell


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