Snort 2.9.4.1 pkg v.2.5.8

shinzo · May 30, 2013, 10:14 PM

If i enable snort through the interface tab, it disables the service. If i enable it through the services tab, it disables it in the snort interface

shinzo · May 30, 2013, 11:06 PM

Went through it, It does seem to be working. I am not sure if the whitelist tab got worked on. From the way i had it set up, it used to add the WAN ip but after the update it, i noticed it wasn't in the list, i checked "add WAN interface IPs to the list." and is working fine now

marcelloc · May 31, 2013, 1:06 AM

Take a look on changelog. th start and stop icon now shows current snort state as tooltip say.

**Snort Package Version 2.5.8 Update

CHANGE LOG**
Date: 05/22/2013
Pkg Ver: 2.5.8

This release of the Snort Package fixes a few bugs, corrects some HTML CSS issues so Snort screens more closely match other pfSense screens, and adds several new features. The most notable new feature is the ability to synchronize the Snort configuration from a Master Host to one or more Secondary (or slave) Hosts.

New Features
The Snort package now has the ability to synchronize the configuration to remote hosts using the XMLRPC functionality of pfSense. This feature is still considered EXPERIMENTAL and is not recommended for production use. There is a new SYNC tab present in Snort where replication parameters are configured (if desired). The default is for no replication to occur. Currently only the basic Snort configuration is synchronized between hosts. This includes configured Snort interfaces, enabled rules, whitelists, suppress lists, preprocessor options and other parameters typically included in the "snort.conf" configuration file. Logs, currently blocked hosts and current Alerts are not synchronized between hosts. A big thank you to pfSense Forum member marcelloc for his contribution of this feature.

The HTTP_INSPECT, FRAG3, STREAM5 and SF_PORTSCAN preprocessors now have several new configuration parameters exposed through the Snort GUI.

On the IF SETTINGS tab, it is now possible to view in a pop-up window any of the Whitelists or Suppress Lists configured on the system. The new buttons are located beside the dropdowns on the page where HOME_NET, WHITELISTS and SUPPRESS LISTS are selected.

When viewing flowbit-required rules, a new option exists to quickly add the GID:SID for a rule to the SUPPRESS LIST for the interface.

On the GUI screens where information is presented in tabular format and the content of a column is truncated and displayed with ellipsis, tooltip text with the entire column content will now appear when you hover over the column.

The automatic flowbit-resolution logic now correctly parses and decodes the flowbit logical operators "&" and "|" (logical AND and OR). For more information on flowbit logical operators, see the README.flowbits file in the Snort.org documentation.

On the ALERTS tab, the option for adding the GID:SID of an event to the SUPPRESS LIST has been improved so that now the icon is only enabled when the GID:SID is not already present in the current SUPPRESS LIST for the interface. If the GID:SID is already present in the list, it displays grayed-out. This prevents multiple entry of the same GID:SID in a list.

The menu tab layout in Snort is now more efficient. When editing Snort interfaces, a new set of menu tabs is added underneath the top-layer tabs. This makes navigating among functions much easier and faster. Thanks to pfSense Forum member marcelloc for this improvement!

Changed Features

On the SNORT INTERFACES tab, the icons for "Snort Running" or "Snort Stopped" have been changed to align with the icons displayed in the pfSense Services applet. The green arrow now means "running" and the red X now means "stopped". This coincides with the styles used for the other pfSense Services.

Bug Fixes

Fixed the generation of the default HOME_NET variable so it now correctly includes all locally-attached networks defined on the firewall interfaces. The entire subnet for locally-attached networks is now included. The WAN IP address, WAN gateway, WAN DNS Servers, VPNs and/or VIPs (virtual IPs) are also included by default. Optionally, these latter components may also be ommitted. Formerly the entire WAN subnet was included in HOME_NET. This was not optimal and was changed to include just the WAN IP instead of the entire subnet.

Similar to the HOME_NET fix above, the default WHITELIST was also fixed to contain the entire subnet of all locally-attached firewall networks. It may also optionally contains WAN, VPN and VIP information as described for HOME_NET above.

Fixed various HTML code issues on several pages that caused problems with word-wrapping and column layout on some browsers (Firefox and Chrome).

Fixed minor bug on SNORT INTERFACES tab when attempting to delete an existing interface.

dwood · May 31, 2013, 2:48 AM

When starting snort on the interface GUI, the system log reports a "caught term signal". When disabling snort via the GUI, it looks to actually be starting the service..the log reports toggle (snort starting)

bmeeks · May 31, 2013, 3:12 AM

@dwood:

When starting snort on the interface GUI, the system log reports a "caught term signal". When disabling snort via the GUI, it looks to actually be starting the service..the log reports toggle (snort starting)

In this release the icons were reverted to match the style elsewhere in pfSense. Namely "green" now means RUNNING and "red" means STOPPED. The tooltip text was changed to reflect this when hovering over the start/stop icons on the Snort GUI page. Is that perhaps what you are seeing?

Bill

May 31, 2013, 4:04 AM

Since there is no other thread about v2.5.8, I'll go ahead and post a bug in here.

Selecting edit interface>rules> and under category, IPS Policy - Security takes me to https://xxx/snort/snort_rules.php?id=0&openruleset=IPS%20Policy%20-%20Security (xxx added to hide ip and port), which is a completely blank page.

TIA

ccb056 · May 31, 2013, 5:02 AM

Great work Bill and Marcello!! Just updated my install.

Does this latest version fix the whitelist/FQDN problem??

gogol · May 31, 2013, 11:30 AM

Thanx again guys for a great update.

For now I noticed that nothing was blocked. After some investigation it seems that:

Snort generates an alert according to my settings
20 seconds thereafter I get this in my logs:

May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: updating dyndns WAN_DHCP
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: Restarting ipsec tunnels
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: Restarting OpenVPN tunnels/interfaces
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: Reloading filter
May 31 13:16:55	php: : phpDynDNS (xxx.xxx.xxx): No change in my IP address and/or 25 days has not passed. Not updating dynamic DNS entry.

And then 12 seconds later:

May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: updating dyndns WAN_DHCP
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: Restarting ipsec tunnels
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: Restarting OpenVPN tunnels/interfaces
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: Reloading filter
May 31 13:17:11	php: : phpDynDNS (xxx.xxx.xxx): No change in my IP address and/or 25 days has not passed. Not updating dynamic DNS entry.

So check_reload_status is called twice and "snort2c" table gets cleared.

Edit: to be clear, this happens after every generated alert.

I guess Bill knows an answer ;)

dwood · May 31, 2013, 9:22 PM

@bmeeks:

In this release the icons were reverted to match the style elsewhere in pfSense. Namely "green" now means RUNNING and "red" means STOPPED. The tooltip text was changed to reflect this when hovering over the start/stop icons on the Snort GUI page. Is that perhaps what you are seeing?

Bill

Makes sense..thanks Bill

bmeeks · May 31, 2013, 10:14 PM

@ccb056:

Great work Bill and Marcello!! Just updated my install.

Does this latest version fix the whitelist/FQDN problem??

It fixes the problem with Locally-Attached networks not being in the default whitelist, and it fixes the issue of the entire WAN subnet being whitelisted. It does not allow the use of FQDN Aliases. That is still on the TO-DO list.

Bill

bmeeks · May 31, 2013, 10:18 PM

@gogol:

Thanx again guys for a great update.

For now I noticed that nothing was blocked. After some investigation it seems that:

Snort generates an alert according to my settings
20 seconds thereafter I get this in my logs:

May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: updating dyndns WAN_DHCP
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: Restarting ipsec tunnels
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: Restarting OpenVPN tunnels/interfaces
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: Reloading filter
May 31 13:16:55	php: : phpDynDNS (xxx.xxx.xxx): No change in my IP address and/or 25 days has not passed. Not updating dynamic DNS entry.

And then 12 seconds later:

May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: updating dyndns WAN_DHCP
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: Restarting ipsec tunnels
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: Restarting OpenVPN tunnels/interfaces
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: Reloading filter
May 31 13:17:11	php: : phpDynDNS (xxx.xxx.xxx): No change in my IP address and/or 25 days has not passed. Not updating dynamic DNS entry.

So check_reload_status is called twice and "snort2c" table gets cleared.

Edit: to be clear, this happens after every generated alert.

I guess Bill knows an answer ;)

What kind of ISP connection do you have? Is this a home network or a commercial one? I'm asking because the error messages seem to indicate a DHCP lease expired and was auto-renewed. I believe under pfSense that triggers all the restart activity you see. Snort itself is not even capable of restarting all those services. You are correct that other pfSense processes (in particular, a firewall service restart or reload) will clear the snort2c blocking table. Again, Snort itself has no control over that.

Bill

gogol · Jun 1, 2013, 12:16 AM

@bmeeks:

@gogol:
Thanx again guys for a great update.

For now I noticed that nothing was blocked. After some investigation it seems that:

Snort generates an alert according to my settings
20 seconds thereafter I get this in my logs:
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: updating dyndns WAN_DHCP
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: Restarting ipsec tunnels
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: Restarting OpenVPN tunnels/interfaces
May 31 13:16:52	check_reload_status: Reloading filter
May 31 13:16:55	php: : phpDynDNS (xxx.xxx.xxx): No change in my IP address and/or 25 days has not passed. Not updating dynamic DNS entry.
And then 12 seconds later:
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: updating dyndns WAN_DHCP
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: Restarting ipsec tunnels
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: Restarting OpenVPN tunnels/interfaces
May 31 13:17:07	check_reload_status: Reloading filter
May 31 13:17:11	php: : phpDynDNS (xxx.xxx.xxx): No change in my IP address and/or 25 days has not passed. Not updating dynamic DNS entry.
So check_reload_status is called twice and "snort2c" table gets cleared.

Edit: to be clear, this happens after every generated alert.

I guess Bill knows an answer ;)
What kind of ISP connection do you have? Is this a home network or a commercial one? I'm asking because the error messages seem to indicate a DHCP lease expired and was auto-renewed. I believe under pfSense that triggers all the restart activity you see. Snort itself is not even capable of restarting all those services. You are correct that other pfSense processes (in particular, a firewall service restart or reload) will clear the snort2c blocking table. Again, Snort itself has no control over that.

Bill

Bill,

I reverted to an old backup of 2.1 RC0 of May 28 and everything was back to normal with version 2.5.7. Previously I updated to version 2.5.8 while doing a firmware update.
So now I only updated the Snort package to version 2.5.8 and same problems happened again. In another thread I read about someone who has problems with NIC. Maybe this is related, but I definitely think that something in the 2.5.8 code is causing this behavior.
I also tested with disabled dynamic DNS, but that made no difference.
I will report back and do some more reading and testing, because I really appreciate your efforts with this package and I want it to be a very stable package.

I believe the process check_reload_status is checking the /tmp directory, so maybe it is happening there.

bmeeks · Jun 1, 2013, 12:31 AM

@gogol:

I believe the process check_reload_status is checking the /tmp directory, so maybe it is happening there.

I just updated a 2.1 virtual machine I have from 2.1-BETA to 2.1RC0. I'm using Snort with the "IPS Connectivity" policy enabled with no problems. The WAN interface is set to get its IP address via DHCP. This VM is running on VMware Workstation 9. So far I am not seeing any issues with the VM, but I will leave it running to check it out thoroughly.

As for the "check_reload_status" script, that is a native pfSense binary that does a number of things. I am not sure what exactly it does. One of the Core Team developers might could tell you. The "check_reload_status" is not part of the Snort package.

Bill

bmeeks · Jun 1, 2013, 12:43 AM

@jflsakfja:

Since there is no other thread about v2.5.8, I'll go ahead and post a bug in here.

Selecting edit interface>rules> and under category, IPS Policy - Security takes me to https://xxx/snort/snort_rules.php?id=0&openruleset=IPS%20Policy%20-%20Security (xxx added to hide ip and port), which is a completely blank page.

TIA

Have you actually downloaded the Snort VRT rule set? If you enable the Snort VRT rules on the Global Settings tab, then you can select a policy on the Rules tab to view. However, if you did not actually go to the Updates tab and download the Snort VRT rule set, then there will be nothing to display on the Rules tab and thus you get the blank page.

I just tested again on two of my boxes to be sure it works, and it does. I do not get the blank page. Double-check and be sure you actually have downloaded the Snort VRT rules. Go to the Updates tab and try to refresh them. Also, look first on that tab for the MD5 hash for the Snort VRT MD5 file. If it is currently blank, then you have not downloaded the rule set.

Bill

Jun 1, 2013, 6:39 AM

VRT was enabled and downloaded. Worked OK before the update and md5 shows up in updates tab. Same thing on both of my boxes.
Forced an update and it found an update to VRT rules (although I'm pretty sure it passed through 2 auto updates so far…). Checked IPS Policy - Security list and it comes up as blank. Restarted snort through dashboard, restarted the interface after it finished and it's still blank.

Went into the interface setttings and selected Balanced as the policy. Restarted the Interface and the list was populated as it should. Went back and changed it to security and restarted the interface yet again and it's still blank.

Edit:
To define blank, here's the html code of the page that comes up:

ccb056 · Jun 1, 2013, 4:41 AM

@jflsakfja:

VRT was enabled and downloaded. Worked OK before the update and md5 shows up in updates tab. Same thing on both of my boxes.
Forced an update and it found an update to VRT rules (although I'm pretty sure it passed through 2 auto updates so far…). Checked IPS Policy - Security list and it comes up as blank. Restarted snort through dashboard, restarted the interface after it finished and it's still blank.

Went into the interface setttings and selected Balanced as the policy. Restarted the Interface and the list was populated as it should. Went back and changed it to security and restarted the interface yet again and it's still blank.

Edit:
To define blank, here's the html code of the page that comes up:

That html is pretty malformed, within the …..

Have you tried completely uninstalling snort and re-installing?
I've been doing all my upgrades this way since before bmeeks took over because there were so many problems with the other programmer on updates, this was the best way to do them.

Jun 1, 2013, 6:41 AM

I had an error in writing down the code since I couldn't copy it directly. Fixed in my post above. Looks normal but empty from my point of view. I'll try a reinstall and report back

Removing the package and re-installing didn't help (had "settings will not be removed during reinstall" checked, since I would basically have to fire myself first thing Monday morning if those settings got lost).

What's the difference between the 3 categories? Does it just enable/disable rules in the list? Will selecting balance and enable rules make it "security" in a way? If that's the case I'll go with balanced since I'm enabling all rules by hand anyway (that's why I requested the carp sync and fell in love with it).

edit: nothing seems to fix it. Tried disabling and enabling everything I could think of, reinstalling snort and even the tried and tested method of threatening the pc with a short flight out of the window didn't work (don't ask, it works everytime).
Can someone please tell me which file to check for corruption? I'm thinking either the rules don't get loaded into the file they should, or the file that gets read to display the page is messed up (not sure if they are the same file). A bit of info, when I select balanced all my yellow rules are there. Why it does not carry over to the security one is beyond me.
If I'm not making sense it's because I've been up all night messing with it. I'm not frustrated at anyone, don't get me wrong. I really appreciate all your help and if I wasn't in such a tight financial situation I would have donated money already.
If anyone needs more info, please let me know. If I don't respond it means I fell asleep on the keyboard.
TIA

Nukama · Jun 1, 2013, 11:18 AM

Hey Bill,

thanks for this great package!

The alert tab in this version overlaps the IPv6 addresses over columns.

gogol · Jun 1, 2013, 11:19 AM

@bmeeks:

@gogol:

I believe the process check_reload_status is checking the /tmp directory, so maybe it is happening there.

I just updated a 2.1 virtual machine I have from 2.1-BETA to 2.1RC0. I'm using Snort with the "IPS Connectivity" policy enabled with no problems. The WAN interface is set to get its IP address via DHCP. This VM is running on VMware Workstation 9. So far I am not seeing any issues with the VM, but I will leave it running to check it out thoroughly.

As for the "check_reload_status" script, that is a native pfSense binary that does a number of things. I am not sure what exactly it does. One of the Core Team developers might could tell you. The "check_reload_status" is not part of the Snort package.

I tested a Virtual Machine which gave me the same errors. I even installed a fresh system on this VM and restored a configuration file. Same result. Both on WAN DHCP. I even compared both configuration files of 2.5.7 and 2.5.8 but could not see a problem there.

So, package 2.5.7 works on both systems and package 2.5.8 does not. I really like the options you made in 2.5.8 but for now I can't use it. Do you think there a way I can update the firmware and install the old package 2.5.7?

I hope there will be others that have the same experience ;)

Supermule · Jun 1, 2013, 11:22 AM

I dont see that at all here.

2.5.8 works like a charm.