Snort++

The Snort++ project has been hard at work for a while now and we have released the fourth alpha of the next generation Snort IPS (Intrusion Prevention System). This file will show you what Snort++ has to offer and guide you through the steps from download to demo. If you are unfamiliar with Snort you should take a look at the Snort documentation first. We will cover the following topics:

---

• Overview
• Dependencies
• Download
• Build Snort
• Run Snort
• Documentation
• Squeal

OVERVIEW

This version of Snort++ includes new features as well as all Snort 2.X features and bug fixes for the base version of Snort except as indicated below:

Project = Snort++
Binary = snort
Version = 3.0.0-a4 build 235
Base = 2.9.8 build 383

Here are some key features of Snort++:

• Support multiple packet processing threads
• Use a shared configuration and attribute table
• Use a simple, scriptable configuration
• Make key components pluggable
• Autodetect services for portless configuration
• Support sticky buffers in rules
• Autogenerate reference documentation
• Provide better cross platform support
• Facilitate component testing

Additional features on the roadmap include:

• Use a shared network map
• Support pipelining of packet processing
• Support hardware offload and data plane integration
• Support proxy mode
• Windows support

DEPENDENCIES

If you already build Snort, you may have everything you need. If not, grab the latest:

• autotools or cmake to build from source
• daq from http://www.snort.org for packet IO
• dnet from https://github.com/dugsong/libdnet.git for network utility functions
• g++ >= 4.8 or other C++11 compiler
• hwloc from https://www.open-mpi.org/projects/hwloc/ for CPU affinity management
• LuaJIT from http://luajit.org for configuration and scripting
• OpenSSL from https://www.openssl.org/source/ for SHA and MD5 file signatures, the protected_content rule option, and SSL service detection
• pcap from http://www.tcpdump.org for tcpdump style logging
• pcre from http://www.pcre.org for regular expression pattern matching
• pkgconfig from https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/pkg-config/ to locate build dependencies
• zlib from http://www.zlib.net for decompression

Additional packages provide optional features. Check the manual for more.

DOWNLOAD

There are two source tarballs, one for autotools and one for cmake:

snort-3.0.0-a3-auto.tar.gz
snort-3.0.0-a3-cmake.tar.gz

You can also get the code with:

git clone git://github.com/snortadmin/snort3.git

There are separate extras packages for autotools and cmake that provide additional features and demonstrate how to build plugins. The source for extras is in git repo as well.

BUILD SNORT

Follow these steps:

1. Set up source directory:

• If you are using a github clone:

  cd snort3/

• Otherwise, do this:

  tar zxf snort-tarball
  cd snort-3.0.0*

1. Setup install path:

   export my_path=/path/to/snorty

2. Compile and install:

• To build with autotools, simply do the usual from the top level directory:

  ./configure --prefix=$my_path
  make -j 8 install

• To build with cmake and make, run configure_cmake.sh. It will automatically create and populate a new subdirectory named 'build'.

  ./configure_cmake.sh --prefix=$my_path
  cd build
  make -j 8 install

Note:

• If you are using autotools with a github clone, first do autoreconf -isvf.
• If you can do src/snort -V you built successfully.
• If you are familiar with cmake, you can run cmake/ccmake instead of configure_cmake.sh.
• cmake --help will list any available generators, such as Xcode. Feel free to use one, however help with those will be provided separately.

RUN SNORT

First set up the environment:

export LUA_PATH=$my_path/include/snort/lua/\?.lua\;\;
export SNORT_LUA_PATH=$my_path/etc/snort

Then give it a go:

• Snort++ provides lots of help from the command line. Here are some examples:

  $my_path/bin/snort --help
  $my_path/bin/snort --help-module suppress
  $my_path/bin/snort --help-config | grep thread

• Examine and dump a pcap. In the following, replace a.pcap with your favorite:

  $my_path/bin/snort -r a.pcap
  $my_path/bin/snort -L dump -d -e -q -r a.pcap

• Verify a config, with or w/o rules:

  $my_path/bin/snort -c $my_path/etc/snort/snort.lua
  $my_path/bin/snort -c $my_path/etc/snort/snort.lua -R $my_path/etc/snort/sample.rules

• Run IDS mode. In the following, replace pcaps/ with a path to a directory with one or more *.pcap files:

  $my_path/bin/snort -c $my_path/etc/snort/snort.lua -R $my_path/etc/snort/sample.rules \
      -r a.pcap -A alert_test -n 100000

• Let's suppress 1:2123. We could edit the conf or just do this:

  $my_path/bin/snort -c $my_path/etc/snort/snort.lua -R $my_path/etc/snort/sample.rules \
      -r a.pcap -A alert_test -n 100000 --lua "suppress = { { gid = 1, sid = 2123 } }"

• Go whole hog on a directory with multiple packet threads:

  $my_path/bin/snort -c $my_path/etc/snort/snort.lua -R $my_path/etc/snort/sample.rules \
      --pcap-filter \*.pcap --pcap-dir pcaps/ -A alert_fast --max-packet-threads 8

Additional examples are given in doc/usage.txt.

DOCUMENTATION

Take a look at the manual, parts of which are generated by the code so it stays up to date:

$my_path/share/doc/snort/snort_manual.pdf
$my_path/share/doc/snort/snort_manual.html
$my_path/share/doc/snort/snort_manual/index.html

It does not yet have much on the how and why, but it does have all the currently available configuration, etc. Some key changes to rules:

• you must use comma separated content sub options like this: content:"foo", nocase;
• buffer selectors must appear before the content and remain in effect until changed
• pcre buffer selectors were deleted
• check the manual for more on Snort++ vs Snort
• check the manual reference section to understand how parameters are defined, etc.

It also covers new features not demonstrated here:

• snort2lua, a tool to convert Snort 2.X conf and rules to the new form
• a new HTTP inspector
• a binder, for mapping configuration to traffic
• a wizard for port-independent configuration
• improved rule parsing - arbitrary whitespace, C style comments, #begin/#end comments
• local and remote command line shell

SQUEAL

o")~

We hope you are as excited about Snort++ as we are. Although a lot of work remains, we wanted to give you a chance to try it out and let us know what you think on the snort-users list. In the meantime, we'll keep our snout to the grindstone.