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Jon Siwek 0b957cbe75 Include timestamp in default extracted file names. 
And add a policy script to extract all files.

BIT-1335 #close
2015-03-13 14:25:30 -05:00

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This document summarizes the most important changes in the current Bro
release. For an exhaustive list of changes, see the ``CHANGES`` file
(note that submodules, such as BroControl and Broccoli, come with
their own ``CHANGES``.)
Bro 2.4 (in progress)
=====================
Dependencies
------------
New Functionality
-----------------
- Bro now has support for external plugins that can extend its core
functionality, like protocol/file analysis, via shared libraries.
Plugins can be developed and distributed externally, and will be
pulled in dynamically at startup. Currently, a plugin can provide
custom protocol analyzers, file analyzers, log writers[TODO], input
readers[TODO], packet sources[TODO], and new built-in functions. A
plugin can furthermore hook into Bro's processing a number of places
to add custom logic.
See https://www.bro.org/sphinx-git/devel/plugins.html for more
information on writing plugins.
- Bro now has supoprt for the MySQL wire protocol. Activity gets
logged into mysql.log.
- Bro's file analysis now supports reassembly of files that are not
transferred/seen sequentially.
- Bro's scripting language now has a ``while`` statement::
while ( i < 5 )
print ++i;
``next`` and ``break`` can be used inside the loop's body just like
with ``for`` loops.
- Bro now integrates Broker, it's new communication library. See
aux/broker/README for more information on Broker, and
doc/frameworks/comm.rst for the corresponding Bro script API.
TODO: Extend with some more information on Broker.
Broker support is by default off for now; it can be enabled at
configure time with --enable-broker. It requires CAF version 0.13+
(https://github.com/actor-framework/actor-framework) as well as a
C++11 compiler (e.g. GCC 4.8+ or Clang 3.3+).
Broker will become a mandatory dependency in future Bro versions.
- Add --enable-c++11 configure flag to compile Bro's source code in
C++11 mode with a corresponding compiler. Note that 2.4 will be the
last version of Bro that compiles without C++11 support.
- The SSL analysis now alert when encountering SSL connections with
old protocol versions or unsafe cipher suites.
- [TODO] Add new BroControl features.
Changed Functionality
---------------------
- bro-cut has been rewritten in C, and is hence much faster.
- File analysis
* Removed ``fa_file`` record's ``mime_type`` and ``mime_types``
fields. The events ``file_mime_type`` and ``file_mime_types``
have been added which contain the same information. The
``mime_type`` field of ``Files::Info`` also still has this info.
* The earliest point that new mime type information is available is
in the ``file_mime_type`` event which comes after the ``file_new``
and ``file_over_new_connection`` events. Scripts which inspected
mime type info within those events will need to be adapted.
* Removed ``Files::add_analyzers_for_mime_type`` function.
* Removed ``offset`` parameter of the ``file_extraction_limit``
event. Since file extraction now internally depends on file
reassembly for non-sequential files, "offset" can be obtained
with other information already available -- adding together
``seen_bytes`` and ``missed_bytes`` fields of the ``fa_file``
record gives the how many bytes have been written so far (i.e.
the "offset").
- has_valid_octets: now uses a string_vec parameter instead of
string_array.
- conn.log gained a new field local_resp that works like local_orig,
just for the responder address of the connection.
- GRE tunnels are now identified as ``Tunnel::GRE`` instead of
``Tunnel::IP``.
- The default name for extracted files changed from extract-protocol-id
to extract-timestamp-protocol-id.
- [TODO] Add changed BroControl features.
Deprecated Functionality
------------------------
- The split* family of functions are to be replaced with alternate
versions that return a vector of strings rather than a table of
strings. This also allows deprecation for some related string
concatenation/extraction functions. Note that the new functions use
0-based indexing, rather than 1-based.
The full list of now deprecation functions is:
* split: use split_string instead.
* split1: use split_string1 instead.
* split_all: use split_string_all instead.
* split_n: use split_string_n instead.
* cat_string_array: see join_string_vec instead.
* cat_string_array_n: see join_string_vec instead.
* join_string_array: see join_string_vec instead.
* sort_string_array: use sort instead.
* find_ip_addresses: use extract_ip_addresses instead.
Bro 2.3
=======
Dependencies
------------
- Libmagic is no longer a dependency.
New Functionality
-----------------
- Support for GRE tunnel decapsulation, including enhanced GRE
headers. GRE tunnels are treated just like IP-in-IP tunnels by
parsing past the GRE header in between the delivery and payload IP
packets.
- The DNS analyzer now actually generates the dns_SRV_reply() event.
It had been documented before, yet was never raised.
- Bro now uses "file magic signatures" to identify file types. These
are defined via two new constructs in the signature rule parsing
grammar: "file-magic" gives a regular expression to match against,
and "file-mime" gives the MIME type string of content that matches
the magic and an optional strength value for the match. (See also
"Changed Functionality" below for changes due to switching from
using libmagic to such signatures.)
- A new built-in function, "file_magic", can be used to get all file
magic matches and their corresponding strength against a given chunk
of data.
- The SSL analyzer now supports heartbeats as well as a few
extensions, including server_name, alpn, and ec-curves.
- The SSL analyzer comes with Heartbleed detector script in
protocols/ssl/heartbleed.bro. Note that loading this script changes
the default value of "SSL::disable_analyzer_after_detection" from true
to false to prevent encrypted heartbeats from being ignored.
- StartTLS is now supported for SMTP and POP3.
- The X509 analyzer can now perform OSCP validation.
- Bro now has analyzers for SNMP and Radius, which produce corresponding
snmp.log and radius.log output (as well as various events of course).
- BroControl has a new option "BroPort" which allows a user to specify
the starting port number for Bro.
- BroControl has a new option "StatsLogExpireInterval" which allows a
user to specify when entries in the stats.log file expire.
- BroControl has a new option "PFRINGClusterType" which allows a user
to specify a PF_RING cluster type.
- BroControl now supports PF_RING+DNA. There is also a new option
"PFRINGFirstAppInstance" that allows a user to specify the starting
application instance number for processes running on a DNA cluster.
See the BroControl documentation for more details.
- BroControl now warns a user to run "broctl install" if Bro has
been upgraded or if the broctl or node configuration has changed
since the most recent install.
Changed Functionality
---------------------
- string slices now exclude the end index (e.g., "123"[1:2] returns
"2"). Generally, Bro's string slices now behave similar to Python.
- ssl_client_hello() now receives a vector of ciphers, instead of a
set, to preserve their order.
- Notice::end_suppression() has been removed.
- Bro now parses X.509 extensions headers and, as a result, the
corresponding event got a new signature:
event x509_extension(c: connection, is_orig: bool, cert: X509, ext: X509_extension_info);
- In addition, there are several new, more specialized events for a
number of x509 extensions.
- Generally, all x509 events and handling functions have changed their
signatures.
- X509 certificate verification now returns the complete certificate
chain that was used for verification.
- Bro no longer special-cases SYN/FIN/RST-filtered traces by not
reporting missing data. Instead, if Bro never sees any data segments
for analyzed TCP connections, the new
base/misc/find-filtered-trace.bro script will log a warning in
reporter.log and to stderr. The old behavior can be reverted by
redef'ing "detect_filtered_trace".
- We have removed the packet sorter component.
- Bro no longer uses libmagic to identify file types but instead now
comes with its own signature library (which initially is still
derived from libmagic's database). This leads to a number of further
changes with regards to MIME types:
* The second parameter of the "identify_data" built-in function
can no longer be used to get verbose file type descriptions,
though it can still be used to get the strongest matching file
magic signature.
* The "file_transferred" event's "descr" parameter no longer
contains verbose file type descriptions.
* The BROMAGIC environment variable no longer changes any behavior
in Bro as magic databases are no longer used/installed.
* Removed "binary" and "octet-stream" mime type detections. They
don't provide any more information than an uninitialized
mime_type field.
* The "fa_file" record now contains a "mime_types" field that
contains all magic signatures that matched the file content
(where the "mime_type" field is just a shortcut for the
strongest match).
- dns_TXT_reply() now supports more than one string entry by receiving
a vector of strings.
- BroControl now runs the "exec" and "df" broctl commands only once
per host, instead of once per Bro node. The output of these
commands has been changed slightly to include both the host and
node names.
- Several performance improvements were made. Particular emphasis
was put on the File Analysis system, which generally will now emit
far fewer file handle request events due to protocol analyzers now
caching that information internally.
Bro 2.2
=======
New Functionality
-----------------
- A completely overhauled intelligence framework for consuming
external intelligence data. It provides an abstracted mechanism
for feeding data into the framework to be matched against the
data available. It also provides a function named ``Intel::match``
which makes any hits on intelligence data available to the
scripting language.
Using input framework, the intel framework can load data from
text files. It can also update and add data if changes are
made to the file being monitored. Files to monitor for
intelligence can be provided by redef-ing the
``Intel::read_files`` variable.
The intel framework is cluster-ready. On a cluster, the
manager is the only node that needs to load in data from disk,
the cluster support will distribute the data across a cluster
automatically.
Scripts are provided at ``policy/frameworks/intel/seen`` that
provide a broad set of sources of data to feed into the intel
framwork to be matched.
- A new file analysis framework moves most of the processing of file
content from script-land into the core, where it belongs. See
``doc/file-analysis.rst``, or the online documentation, for more
information.
Much of this is an internal change, but the framework also comes
with the following user-visible functionality (some of that was
already available before but is done differently, and more
efficiently, now):
- HTTP:
* Identify MIME type of messages.
* Extract messages to disk.
* Compute MD5 for messages.
- SMTP:
* Identify MIME type of messages.
* Extract messages to disk.
* Compute MD5 for messages.
* Provide access to start of entity data.
- FTP data transfers:
* Identify MIME types of data.
* Record to disk.
- IRC DCC transfers: Record to disk.
- Support for analyzing data transferred via HTTP range requests.
- A binary input reader interfaces the input framework with the
file analysis, allowing to inject files on disk into Bro's
content processing.
- A new framework for computing a wide array of summary statistics,
such as counters and thresholds checks, standard deviation and mean,
set cardinality, top K, and more. The framework operates in
real-time, independent of the underlying data, and can aggregate
information from many independent monitoring points (including
clusters). It provides a transparent, easy-to-use user interface,
and can optionally deploy a set of probabilistic data structures for
memory-efficient operation. The framework is located in
``scripts/base/frameworks/sumstats``.
A number of new applications now ship with Bro that are built on top
of the summary statistics framework:
* Scan detection: Detectors for port and address scans. See
``policy/misc/scan.bro`` (these scan detectors used to exist in
Bro versions <2.0; it's now back, but quite different).
* Tracerouter detector: ``policy/misc/detect-traceroute.bro``
* Web application detection/measurement:
``policy/misc/app-stats/*``
* FTP and SSH brute-forcing detector:
``policy/protocols/ftp/detect-bruteforcing.bro``,
``policy/protocols/ssh/detect-bruteforcing.bro``
* HTTP-based SQL injection detector:
``policy/protocols/http/detect-sqli.bro`` (existed before, but
now ported to the new framework)
- GridFTP support. This is an extension to the standard FTP analyzer
and includes:
- An analyzer for the GSI mechanism of GSSAPI FTP AUTH method.
GSI authentication involves an encoded TLS/SSL handshake over
the FTP control session. For FTP sessions that attempt GSI
authentication, the ``service`` field of the connection log
will include ``gridftp`` (as well as also ``ftp`` and
``ssl``).
- An example of a GridFTP data channel detection script. It
relies on the heuristics of GridFTP data channels commonly
default to SSL mutual authentication with a NULL bulk cipher
and that they usually transfer large datasets (default
threshold of script is 1 GB). For identified GridFTP data
channels, the ``services`` fields of the connection log will
include ``gridftp-data``.
- Modbus and DNP3 support. Script-level support is only basic at this
point but see ``src/analyzer/protocol/{modbus,dnp3}/events.bif``, or
the online documentation, for the events Bro generates. For Modbus,
there are also some example policies in
``policy/protocols/modbus/*``.
- The documentation now includes a new introduction to writing Bro
scripts. See ``doc/scripting/index.rst`` or, much better, the online
version. There's also the beginning of a chapter on "Using Bro" in
``doc/using/index.rst``.
- GPRS Tunnelling Protocol (GTPv1) decapsulation.
- The scripting language now provide "hooks", a new flavor of
functions that share characteristics of both standard functions and
events. They are like events in that multiple bodies can be defined
for the same hook identifier. They are more like functions in the
way they are invoked/called, because, unlike events, their execution
is immediate and they do not get scheduled through an event queue.
Also, a unique feature of a hook is that a given hook handler body
can short-circuit the execution of remaining hook handlers simply by
exiting from the body as a result of a ``break`` statement (as
opposed to a ``return`` or just reaching the end of the body). See
``doc/scripts/builtins.rst``, or the online documentation, for more
informatin.
- Bro's language now has a working ``switch`` statement that generally
behaves like C-style switches (except that case labels can be
comprised of multiple literal constants delimited by commas). Only
atomic types are allowed for now. Case label bodies that don't
execute a ``return`` or ``break`` statement will fall through to
subsequent cases. A ``default`` case label is supported.
- Bro's language now has a new set of types ``opaque of X``. Opaque
values can be passed around like other values but they can only be
manipulated with BiF functions, not with other operators. Currently,
the following opaque types are supported::
opaque of md5
opaque of sha1
opaque of sha256
opaque of cardinality
opaque of topk
opaque of bloomfilter
These go along with the corrsponding BiF functions ``md5_*``,
``sha1_*``, ``sha256_*``, ``entropy_*``, etc. . Note that where
these functions existed before, they have changed their signatures
to work with opaques types rather than global state.
- The scripting language now supports constructing sets, tables,
vectors, and records by name::
type MyRecordType: record {
c: count;
s: string &optional;
};
global r: MyRecordType = record($c = 7);
type MySet: set[MyRec];
global s = MySet([$c=1], [$c=2]);
- Strings now support the subscript operator to extract individual
characters and substrings (e.g., ``s[4]``, ``s[1:5]``). The index
expression can take up to two indices for the start and end index of
the substring to return (e.g. ``mystring[1:3]``).
- Functions now support default parameters, e.g.::
global foo: function(s: string, t: string &default="abc", u: count &default=0);
- Scripts can now use two new "magic constants" ``@DIR`` and
``@FILENAME`` that expand to the directory path of the current
script and just the script file name without path, respectively.
- ``ssl.log`` now also records the subject client and issuer
certificates.
- The ASCII writer can now output CSV files on a per filter basis.
- New SQLite reader and writer plugins for the logging framework allow
to read/write persistent data from on disk SQLite databases.
- A new packet filter framework supports BPF-based load-balancing,
shunting, and sampling; plus plugin support to customize filters
dynamically.
- Bro now provides Bloom filters of two kinds: basic Bloom filters
supporting membership tests, and counting Bloom filters that track
the frequency of elements. The corresponding functions are::
bloomfilter_basic_init(fp: double, capacity: count, name: string &default=""): opaque of bloomfilter
bloomfilter_basic_init2(k: count, cells: count, name: string &default=""): opaque of bloomfilter
bloomfilter_counting_init(k: count, cells: count, max: count, name: string &default=""): opaque of bloomfilter
bloomfilter_add(bf: opaque of bloomfilter, x: any)
bloomfilter_lookup(bf: opaque of bloomfilter, x: any): count
bloomfilter_merge(bf1: opaque of bloomfilter, bf2: opaque of bloomfilter): opaque of bloomfilter
bloomfilter_clear(bf: opaque of bloomfilter)
See ``src/probabilistic/bloom-filter.bif``, or the online
documentation, for full documentation.
- Bro now provides a probabilistic data structure for computing
"top k" elements. The corresponding functions are::
topk_init(size: count): opaque of topk
topk_add(handle: opaque of topk, value: any)
topk_get_top(handle: opaque of topk, k: count)
topk_count(handle: opaque of topk, value: any): count
topk_epsilon(handle: opaque of topk, value: any): count
topk_size(handle: opaque of topk): count
topk_sum(handle: opaque of topk): count
topk_merge(handle1: opaque of topk, handle2: opaque of topk)
topk_merge_prune(handle1: opaque of topk, handle2: opaque of topk)
See ``src/probabilistic/top-k.bif``, or the online documentation,
for full documentation.
- Bro now provides a probabilistic data structure for computing set
cardinality, using the HyperLogLog algorithm. The corresponding
functions are::
hll_cardinality_init(err: double, confidence: double): opaque of cardinality
hll_cardinality_add(handle: opaque of cardinality, elem: any): bool
hll_cardinality_merge_into(handle1: opaque of cardinality, handle2: opaque of cardinality): bool
hll_cardinality_estimate(handle: opaque of cardinality): double
hll_cardinality_copy(handle: opaque of cardinality): opaque of cardinality
See ``src/probabilistic/cardinality-counter.bif``, or the online
documentation, for full documentation.
- ``base/utils/exec.bro`` provides a module to start external
processes asynchronously and retrieve their output on termination.
``base/utils/dir.bro`` uses it to monitor a directory for changes,
and ``base/utils/active-http.bro`` for providing an interface for
querying remote web servers.
- BroControl can now pin Bro processes to CPUs on supported platforms:
To use CPU pinning, a new per-node option ``pin_cpus`` can be
specified in node.cfg if the OS is either Linux or FreeBSD.
- BroControl now returns useful exit codes. Most BroControl commands
return 0 if everything was OK, and 1 otherwise. However, there are
a few exceptions. The "status" and "top" commands return 0 if all Bro
nodes are running, and 1 if not all nodes are running. The "cron"
command always returns 0 (but it still sends email if there were any
problems). Any command provided by a plugin always returns 0.
- BroControl now has an option "env_vars" to set Bro environment variables.
The value of this option is a comma-separated list of environment variable
assignments (e.g., "VAR1=value, VAR2=another"). The "env_vars" option
can apply to all Bro nodes (by setting it in broctl.cfg), or can be
node-specific (by setting it in node.cfg). Environment variables in
node.cfg have priority over any specified in broctl.cfg.
- BroControl now supports load balancing with PF_RING while sniffing
multiple interfaces. Rather than assigning the same PF_RING cluster ID
to all workers on a host, cluster ID assignment is now based on which
interface a worker is sniffing (i.e., all workers on a host that sniff
the same interface will share a cluster ID). This is handled by
BroControl automatically.
- BroControl has several new options: MailConnectionSummary (for
disabling the sending of connection summary report emails),
MailAlarmsInterval (for specifying a different interval to send alarm
summary emails), CompressCmd (if archived log files will be compressed,
this specifies the command that will be used to compress them),
CompressExtension (if archived log files will be compressed, this
specifies the file extension to use).
- BroControl comes with its own test-suite now. ``make test`` in
``aux/broctl`` will run it.
In addition to these, Bro 2.2 comes with a large set of smaller
extensions, tweaks, and fixes across the whole code base, including
most submodules.
Changed Functionality
---------------------
- Previous versions of ``$prefix/share/bro/site/local.bro`` (where
"$prefix" indicates the installation prefix of Bro), aren't compatible
with Bro 2.2. This file won't be overwritten when installing over a
previous Bro installation to prevent clobbering users' modifications,
but an example of the new version is located in
``$prefix/share/bro/site/local.bro.example``. So if no modification
has been done to the previous local.bro, just copy the new example
version over it, else merge in the differences. For reference,
a common error message when attempting to use an outdated local.bro
looks like::
fatal error in /usr/local/bro/share/bro/policy/frameworks/software/vulnerable.bro, line 41: BroType::AsRecordType (table/record) (set[record { min:record { major:count; minor:count; minor2:count; minor3:count; addl:string; }; max:record { major:count; minor:count; minor2:count; minor3:count; addl:string; }; }])
- The type of ``Software::vulnerable_versions`` changed to allow
more flexibility and range specifications. An example usage:
.. code:: bro
const java_1_6_vuln = Software::VulnerableVersionRange(
$max = Software::Version($major = 1, $minor = 6, $minor2 = 0, $minor3 = 44)
);
const java_1_7_vuln = Software::VulnerableVersionRange(
$min = Software::Version($major = 1, $minor = 7),
$max = Software::Version($major = 1, $minor = 7, $minor2 = 0, $minor3 = 20)
);
redef Software::vulnerable_versions += {
["Java"] = set(java_1_6_vuln, java_1_7_vuln)
};
- The interface to extracting content from application-layer protocols
(including HTTP, SMTP, FTP) has changed significantly due to the
introduction of the new file analysis framework (see above).
- Removed the following, already deprecated, functionality:
* Scripting language:
- ``&disable_print_hook attribute``.
* BiF functions:
- ``parse_dotted_addr()``, ``dump_config()``,
``make_connection_persistent()``, ``generate_idmef()``,
``split_complete()``
- ``md5_*``, ``sha1_*``, ``sha256_*``, and ``entropy_*`` have
all changed their signatures to work with opaque types (see
above).
- Removed a now unused argument from ``do_split`` helper function.
- ``this`` is no longer a reserved keyword.
- The Input Framework's ``update_finished`` event has been renamed to
``end_of_data``. It will now not only fire after table-reads have
been completed, but also after the last event of a whole-file-read
(or whole-db-read, etc.).
- Renamed the option defining the frequency of alarm summary mails to
``Logging::default_alarm_mail_interval``. When using BroControl, the
value can now be set with the new broctl.cfg option
``MailAlarmsInterval``.
- We have completely rewritten the ``notice_policy`` mechanism. It now
no longer uses a record of policy items but a ``hook``, a new
language element that's roughly equivalent to a function with
multiple bodies (see above). For existing code, the two main changes
are:
- What used to be a ``redef`` of ``Notice::policy`` now becomes a
hook implementation. Example:
Old::
redef Notice::policy += {
[$pred(n: Notice::Info) = {
return n$note == SSH::Login && n$id$resp_h == 10.0.0.1;
},
$action = Notice::ACTION_EMAIL]
};
New::
hook Notice::policy(n: Notice::Info)
{
if ( n$note == SSH::Login && n$id$resp_h == 10.0.0.1 )
add n$actions[Notice::ACTION_EMAIL];
}
- notice() is now likewise a hook, no longer an event. If you
have handlers for that event, you'll likely just need to change
the type accordingly. Example:
Old::
event notice(n: Notice::Info) { ... }
New::
hook notice(n: Notice::Info) { ... }
- The ``notice_policy.log`` is gone. That's a result of the new notice
policy setup.
- Removed the ``byte_len()`` and ``length()`` bif functions. Use the
``|...|`` operator instead.
- The ``SSH::Login`` notice has been superseded by an corresponding
intelligence framework observation (``SSH::SUCCESSFUL_LOGIN``).
- ``PacketFilter::all_packets`` has been replaced with
``PacketFilter::enable_auto_protocol_capture_filters``.
- We removed the BitTorrent DPD signatures pending further updates to
that analyzer.
- In previous versions of BroControl, running "broctl cron" would create
a file ``$prefix/logs/stats/www`` (where "$prefix" indicates the
installation prefix of Bro). Now, it is created as a directory.
Therefore, if you perform an upgrade install and you're using BroControl,
then you may see an email (generated by "broctl cron") containing an
error message: "error running update-stats". To fix this problem,
either remove that file (it is not needed) or rename it.
- Due to lack of maintenance the Ruby bindings for Broccoli are now
deprecated, and the build process no longer includes them by
default. For the time being, they can still be enabled by
configuring with ``--enable-ruby``, however we plan to remove
Broccoli's Ruby support with the next Bro release.
Bro 2.1
=======
New Functionality
-----------------
- Bro now comes with extensive IPv6 support. Past versions offered
only basic IPv6 functionality that was rarely used in practice as it
had to be enabled explicitly. IPv6 support is now fully integrated
into all parts of Bro including protocol analysis and the scripting
language. It's on by default and no longer requires any special
configuration.
Some of the most significant enhancements include support for IPv6
fragment reassembly, support for following IPv6 extension header
chains, and support for tunnel decapsulation (6to4 and Teredo). The
DNS analyzer now handles AAAA records properly, and DNS lookups that
Bro itself performs now include AAAA queries, so that, for example,
the result returned by script-level lookups is a set that can
contain both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. Support for the most common
ICMPv6 message types has been added. Also, the FTP EPSV and EPRT
commands are now handled properly. Internally, the way IP addresses
are stored has been improved, so Bro can handle both IPv4
and IPv6 by default without any special configuration.
In addition to Bro itself, the other Bro components have also been
made IPv6-aware by default. In particular, significant changes were
made to trace-summary, PySubnetTree, and Broccoli to support IPv6.
- Bro now decapsulates tunnels via its new tunnel framework located in
scripts/base/frameworks/tunnels. It currently supports Teredo,
AYIYA, IP-in-IP (both IPv4 and IPv6), and SOCKS. For all these, it
logs the outer tunnel connections in both conn.log and tunnel.log,
and then proceeds to analyze the inner payload as if it were not
tunneled, including also logging that session in conn.log. For
SOCKS, it generates a new socks.log in addition with more
information.
- Bro now features a flexible input framework that allows users to
integrate external information in real-time into Bro while it's
processing network traffic. The most direct use-case at the moment
is reading data from ASCII files into Bro tables, with updates
picked up automatically when the file changes during runtime. See
doc/input.rst for more information.
Internally, the input framework is structured around the notion of
"reader plugins" that make it easy to interface to different data
sources. We will add more in the future.
- BroControl now has built-in support for host-based load-balancing
when using either PF_RING, Myricom cards, or individual interfaces.
Instead of adding a separate worker entry in node.cfg for each Bro
worker process on each worker host, it is now possible to just
specify the number of worker processes on each host and BroControl
configures everything correctly (including any neccessary enviroment
variables for the balancers).
This change adds three new keywords to the node.cfg file (to be used
with worker entries): lb_procs (specifies number of workers on a
host), lb_method (specifies what type of load balancing to use:
pf_ring, myricom, or interfaces), and lb_interfaces (used only with
"lb_method=interfaces" to specify which interfaces to load-balance
on).
- Bro's default ASCII log format is not exactly the most efficient way
for storing and searching large volumes of data. An alternatives,
Bro now comes with experimental support for two alternative output
formats:
* DataSeries: an efficient binary format for recording structured
bulk data. DataSeries is developed and maintained at HP Labs.
See doc/logging-dataseries for more information.
* ElasticSearch: a distributed RESTful, storage engine and search
engine built on top of Apache Lucene. It scales very well, both
for distributed indexing and distributed searching. See
doc/logging-elasticsearch.rst for more information.
Note that at this point, we consider Bro's support for these two
formats as prototypes for collecting experience with alternative
outputs. We do not yet recommend them for production (but welcome
feedback!)
Changed Functionality
---------------------
The following summarizes the most important differences in existing
functionality. Note that this list is not complete, see CHANGES for
the full set.
- Changes in dependencies:
* Bro now requires CMake >= 2.6.3.
* On Linux, Bro now links in tcmalloc (part of Google perftools)
if found at configure time. Doing so can significantly improve
memory and CPU use.
On the other platforms, the new configure option
--enable-perftools can be used to enable linking to tcmalloc.
(Note that perftools's support for non-Linux platforms may be
less reliable).
- The configure switch --enable-brov6 is gone.
- DNS name lookups performed by Bro now also query AAAA records. The
results of the A and AAAA queries for a given hostname are combined
such that at the scripting layer, the name resolution can yield a
set with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.
- The connection compressor was already deprecated in 2.0 and has now
been removed from the code base.
- We removed the "match" statement, which was no longer used by any of
the default scripts, nor was it likely to be used by anybody anytime
soon. With that, "match" and "using" are no longer reserved keywords.
- The syntax for IPv6 literals changed from "2607:f8b0:4009:802::1012"
to "[2607:f8b0:4009:802::1012]". When an IP address variable or IP
address literal is enclosed in pipes (for example,
``|[fe80::db15]|``) the result is now the size of the address in
bits (32 for IPv4 and 128 for IPv6).
- Bro now spawns threads for doing its logging. From a user's
perspective not much should change, except that the OS may now show
a bunch of Bro threads.
- We renamed the configure option --enable-perftools to
--enable-perftools-debug to indicate that the switch is only relevant
for debugging the heap.
- Bro's ICMP analyzer now handles both IPv4 and IPv6 messages with a
joint set of events. The `icmp_conn` record got a new boolean field
'v6' that indicates whether the ICMP message is v4 or v6.
- Log postprocessor scripts get an additional argument indicating the
type of the log writer in use (e.g., "ascii").
- BroControl's make-archive-name script also receives the writer
type, but as its 2nd(!) argument. If you're using a custom version
of that script, you need to adapt it. See the shipped version for
details.
- Signature files can now be loaded via the new "@load-sigs"
directive. In contrast to the existing (and still supported)
signature_files constant, this can be used to load signatures
relative to the current script (e.g., "@load-sigs ./foo.sig").
- The options "tunnel_port" and "parse_udp_tunnels" have been removed.
Bro now supports decapsulating tunnels directly for protocols it
understands.
- ASCII logs now record the time when they were opened/closed at the
beginning and end of the file, respectively (wall clock). The
options LogAscii::header_prefix and LogAscii::include_header have
been renamed to LogAscii::meta_prefix and LogAscii::include_meta,
respectively.
- The ASCII writers "header_*" options have been renamed to "meta_*"
(because there's now also a footer).
- Some built-in functions have been removed: "addr_to_count" (use
"addr_to_counts" instead), "bro_has_ipv6" (this is no longer
relevant because Bro now always supports IPv6), "active_connection"
(use "connection_exists" instead), and "connection_record" (use
"lookup_connection" instead).
- The "NFS3::mode2string" built-in function has been renamed to
"file_mode".
- Some built-in functions have been changed: "exit" (now takes the
exit code as a parameter), "to_port" (now takes a string as
parameter instead of a count and transport protocol, but
"count_to_port" is still available), "connect" (now takes an
additional string parameter specifying the zone of a non-global IPv6
address), and "listen" (now takes three additional parameters to
enable listening on IPv6 addresses).
- Some Bro script variables have been renamed:
"LogAscii::header_prefix" has been renamed to
"LogAscii::meta_prefix", "LogAscii::include_header" has been renamed
to "LogAscii::include_meta".
- Some Bro script variables have been removed: "tunnel_port",
"parse_udp_tunnels", "use_connection_compressor",
"cc_handle_resets", "cc_handle_only_syns", and
"cc_instantiate_on_data".
- A couple events have changed: the "icmp_redirect" event now includes
the target and destination addresses and any Neighbor Discovery
options in the message, and the last parameter of the
"dns_AAAA_reply" event has been removed because it was unused.
- The format of the ASCII log files has changed very slightly. Two
new lines are automatically added, one to record the time when the
log was opened, and the other to record the time when the log was
closed.
- In BroControl, the option (in broctl.cfg) "CFlowAddr" was renamed to
"CFlowAddress".
Bro 2.0
=======
As the version number jump from 1.5 suggests, Bro 2.0 is a major
upgrade and lots of things have changed. Most importantly, we have
rewritten almost all of Bro's default scripts from scratch, using
quite different structure now and focusing more on operational
deployment. The result is a system that works much better "out of the
box", even without much initial site-specific configuration. The
down-side is that 1.x configurations will need to be adapted to work
with the new version. The two rules of thumb are:
(1) If you have written your own Bro scripts
that do not depend on any of the standard scripts formerly
found in ``policy/``, they will most likely just keep working
(although you might want to adapt them to use some of the new
features, like the new logging framework; see below).
(2) If you have custom code that depends on specifics of 1.x
default scripts (including most configuration tuning), that is
unlikely to work with 2.x. We recommend to start by using just
the new scripts first, and then port over any customizations
incrementally as necessary (they may be much easier to do now,
or even unnecessary). Send mail to the Bro user mailing list
if you need help.
Below we summarize changes from 1.x to 2.x in more detail. This list
isn't complete, see the ``CHANGES`` file in the distribution.
for the full story.
Script Organization
-------------------
In versions before 2.0, Bro scripts were all maintained in a flat
directory called ``policy/`` in the source tree. This directory is now
renamed to ``scripts/`` and contains major subdirectories ``base/``,
``policy/``, and ``site/``, each of which may also be subdivided
further.
The contents of the new ``scripts/`` directory, like the old/flat
``policy/`` still gets installed under the ``share/bro``
subdirectory of the installation prefix path just like previous
versions. For example, if Bro was compiled like ``./configure
--prefix=/usr/local/bro && make && make install``, then the script
hierarchy can be found in ``/usr/local/bro/share/bro``.
The main
subdirectories of that hierarchy are as follows:
- ``base/`` contains all scripts that are loaded by Bro by default
(unless the ``-b`` command line option is used to run Bro in a
minimal configuration). Note that is a major conceptual change:
rather than not loading anything by default, Bro now uses an
extensive set of default scripts out of the box.
The scripts under this directory generally either accumulate/log
useful state/protocol information for monitored traffic, configure a
default/recommended mode of operation, or provide extra Bro
scripting-layer functionality that has no significant performance cost.
- ``policy/`` contains all scripts that a user will need to explicitly
tell Bro to load. These are scripts that implement
functionality/analysis that not all users may want to use and may have
more significant performance costs. For a new installation, you
should go through these and see what appears useful to load.
- ``site/`` remains a directory that can be used to store locally
developed scripts. It now comes with some preinstalled example
scripts that contain recommended default configurations going beyond
the ``base/`` setup. E.g. ``local.bro`` loads extra scripts from
``policy/`` and does extra tuning. These files can be customized in
place without being overwritten by upgrades/reinstalls, unlike
scripts in other directories.
With version 2.0, the default ``BROPATH`` is set to automatically
search for scripts in ``policy/``, ``site/`` and their parent
directory, but **not** ``base/``. Generally, everything under
``base/`` is loaded automatically, but for users of the ``-b`` option,
it's important to know that loading a script in that directory
requires the extra ``base/`` path qualification. For example, the
following two scripts:
* ``$PREFIX/share/bro/base/protocols/ssl/main.bro``
* ``$PREFIX/share/bro/policy/protocols/ssl/validate-certs.bro``
are referenced from another Bro script like:
.. code:: bro
@load base/protocols/ssl/main
@load protocols/ssl/validate-certs
Notice how ``policy/`` can be omitted as a convenience in the second
case. ``@load`` can now also use relative path, e.g., ``@load
../main``.
Logging Framework
-----------------
- The logs generated by scripts that ship with Bro are entirely redone
to use a standardized, machine parsable format via the new logging
framework. Generally, the log content has been restructured towards
making it more directly useful to operations. Also, several
analyzers have been significantly extended and thus now log more
information. Take a look at ``ssl.log``.
* A particular format change that may be useful to note is that the
``conn.log`` ``service`` field is derived from DPD instead of
well-known ports (while that was already possible in 1.5, it was
not the default).
* Also, ``conn.log`` now reports raw number of packets/bytes per
endpoint.
- The new logging framework makes it possible to extend, customize,
and filter logs very easily.
- A common pattern found in the new scripts is to store logging stream
records for protocols inside the ``connection`` records so that
state can be collected until enough is seen to log a coherent unit
of information regarding the activity of that connection. This
state is now frequently seen/accessible in event handlers, for
example, like ``c$<protocol>`` where ``<protocol>`` is replaced by
the name of the protocol. This field is added to the ``connection``
record by ``redef``'ing it in a
``base/protocols/<protocol>/main.bro`` script.
- The logging code has been rewritten internally, with script-level
interface and output backend now clearly separated. While ASCII
logging is still the default, we will add further output types in
the future (binary format, direct database logging).
Notice Framework
----------------
The way users interact with "notices" has changed significantly in order
to make it easier to define a site policy and more extensible for adding
customized actions.
New Default Settings
--------------------
- Dynamic Protocol Detection (DPD) is now enabled/loaded by default.
- The default packet filter now examines all packets instead of
dynamically building a filter based on which protocol analysis scripts
are loaded. See ``PacketFilter::all_packets`` for how to revert to old
behavior.
API Changes
-----------
- The ``@prefixes`` directive works differently now.
Any added prefixes are now searched for and loaded *after* all input
files have been parsed. After all input files are parsed, Bro
searches ``BROPATH`` for prefixed, flattened versions of all of the
parsed input files. For example, if ``lcl`` is in ``@prefixes``, and
``site.bro`` is loaded, then a file named ``lcl.site.bro`` that's in
``BROPATH`` would end up being automatically loaded as well. Packages
work similarly, e.g. loading ``protocols/http`` means a file named
``lcl.protocols.http.bro`` in ``BROPATH`` gets loaded automatically.
- The ``make_addr`` BIF now returns a ``subnet`` versus an ``addr``
Variable Naming
---------------
- ``Module`` is more widely used for namespacing. E.g. the new
``site.bro`` exports the ``local_nets`` identifier (among other
things) into the ``Site`` module.
- Identifiers may have been renamed to conform to new `scripting
conventions
<http://www.bro.org/development/howtos/script-conventions.html>`_
Removed Functionality
---------------------
We have remove a bunch of functionality that was rarely used and/or
had not been maintained for a while already:
- The ``net`` script data type.
- The ``alarm`` statement; use the notice framework instead.
- Trace rewriting.
- DFA state expiration in regexp engine.
- Active mapping.
- Native DAG support (may come back eventually)
- ClamAV support.
- The connection compressor is now disabled by default, and will
be removed in the future.
BroControl Changes
------------------
BroControl looks pretty much similar to the version coming with Bro 1.x,
but has been cleaned up and streamlined significantly internally.
BroControl has a new ``process`` command to process a trace on disk
offline using a similar configuration to what BroControl installs for
live analysis.
BroControl now has an extensive plugin interface for adding new
commands and options. Note that this is still considered experimental.
We have removed the ``analysis`` command, and BroControl currently
does not send daily alarm summaries anymore (this may be restored
later).
Development Infrastructure
--------------------------
Bro development has moved from using SVN to Git for revision control.
Users that want to use the latest Bro development snapshot by checking it out
from the source repositories should see the `development process
<http://www.bro.org/development/process.html>`_. Note that all the various
sub-components now reside in their own repositories. However, the
top-level Bro repository includes them as git submodules so it's easy
to check them all out simultaneously.
Bro now uses `CMake <http://www.cmake.org>`_ for its build system so
that is a new required dependency when building from source.
Bro now comes with a growing suite of regression tests in
``testing/``.
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