RFC (make up a number not in use) - Blueprint for setting up snort + pfblocker

[bmeeks]

@Wepee:

Hi Bill,

Thanks for replying.

Did I miss something really important from reading the upgrade guide: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Upgrade_Guide?

The only drivers mentioned in the guide was DISK drivers as far as I know, but correct me if I am wrong.

The guide did not mentioned anything about NETWORK drivers, or is it something
that every FreeBSD users should expect to know that switching from FreeBSD v8.x to v10, the network drivers will be
affected. If so, I am not a FreeBSD user here!

If I am wrong, I accept my mistake that I miss out a chunk of information stating that NETWORK drivers will be affected

But if I am right, I am really not HAPPY the way pfSense developing team doing this MAJOR upgrade.
At least forewarn us, the non-FreeBSD user about this issue.

Sigh…...what I can do? Not much I suppose, that is the difference between an Open-source and Close source Firewall. :-[
[/quote]

I am only guessing about the NIC driver possibility. I'm am not a FreeBSD expert.  I do recall seeing some other threads during the 2.2-RC testing phase about issues with NIC drivers (I seem to recall wireless ones in particular).  I do know that if the network interfaces change around, then Snort will get quite confused and lose the old settings because it stores them using the interface name.

If you have an older backed up config.xml file, you can open it in a browser and down in the _<installedpackages><snortglobal></snortglobal></installedpackages>_section you will find the configured Snort interfaces.  They will be encompassed by section tags like these:

You will see identifying information about each interface within those XML elements.  The element tags and are used to store the GID:SID information for rules you have forced on or forced off for that interface.  You can carefully copy the GID:SID pairs from the old file into the corresponding locations in your new config to restore the old enabled/disabled rules.

Bill

[Wepee]

Ok, I went into my pfSense Web interface, went to Diagnostic-Backup/Restore
Press the download configuration button, and the config.xml was
downloaded to my PC.

Open up the config-pfsense-20150129111734.xm file and find the xml element =
But, I couldn't find it, am I looking at the wrong place. :(

I double checked Snort rules are loaded, by going to WAN categories.

Any idea, why??? ::)

See the attached pictures.

[bmeeks]

@Wepee:

Ok, I went into my pfSense Web interface, went to Diagnostic-Backup/Restore
Press the download configuration button, and the config.xml was
downloaded to my PC.

Open up the config-pfsense-20150129111734.xm file and find the xml element =
But, I couldn't find it, am I looking at the wrong place. :(

I double checked Snort rules are loaded, by going to WAN categories.

Any idea, why??? ::)

See the attached pictures.

I understood you formerly had manually forced disabled/enabled rules BEFORE you upgraded, and now after upgrading those manual changes were missing.  In order to see the old changes, you would need to have access to a config.xml file saved BEFORE you upgraded.  The current one will not have the tags because they were lost when your interfaces were shuffled around.  It sounds like you created a totally new Snort configuration.  If that is the case, then all of your old changes were lost unless you did a configuration backup BEFORE you did the last update.

Sorry if I misled you.  I was assuming you had some old backups of your config.xml files stored offline.  You should be able to find older config.xml files still stored on the firewall in the /cf/conf/backup directory.  You could look in one of those older files for the tags.

Bill

[eliteassassin07]

@jflsakfja:

This is the final rule post in this topic. Moving forward, the rules will be found in the suricata topic, which I'll create in a couple of days. I strongly advise all to move to suricata and stop using snort.

With that out of the way, here's the rule updates:

By the way this is the post that had made me think you had stopped posting in this section…

[Wepee]

@bmeeks:

@Wepee:

Ok, I went into my pfSense Web interface, went to Diagnostic-Backup/Restore
Press the download configuration button, and the config.xml was
downloaded to my PC.

Open up the config-pfsense-20150129111734.xm file and find the xml element =
But, I couldn't find it, am I looking at the wrong place. :(

I double checked Snort rules are loaded, by going to WAN categories.

Any idea, why??? ::)

See the attached pictures.

I understood you formerly had manually forced disabled/enabled rules BEFORE you upgraded, and now after upgrading those manual changes were missing.  In order to see the old changes, you would need to have access to a config.xml file saved BEFORE you upgraded.  The current one will not have the tags because they were lost when your interfaces were shuffled around.  It sounds like you created a totally new Snort configuration.  If that is the case, then all of your old changes were lost unless you did a configuration backup BEFORE you did the last update.

Sorry if I misled you.  I was assuming you had some old backups of your config.xml files stored offline.  You should be able to find older config.xml files still stored on the firewall in the /cf/conf/backup directory.  You could look in one of those older files for the tags.

Bill

Hi bmeeks

Thank you for responding my question.

Ok, I have done some screen captures.

So in future, I can copy all the forced rules off= GID:SID from within <rule_sid_off>to</rule_sid_off>

Then paste on the old config.xml file, if I have somehow lost the configuration setting in Snort for
configuring FALSE positives??? :)

[bmeeks]

@Wepee:

So in future, I can copy all the forced rules off= GID:SID from within <rule_sid_off>to</rule_sid_off>

Then paste on the old config.xml file, if I have somehow lost the configuration setting in Snort for
configuring FALSE positives??? :)

You are correct.  Copying and pasting the section you have highlighted will preserve the disabled rules.

Bill

[Wepee]

Thanks bmeeks ;D

If there is any future update in Snort package, e.g. right now is 2.9.7.0 pkg v3.2.3 ,
say there is a newer version = 2.9.8.0 pkg v3.4.0 and I proceed to update.

Does the update reset the disable rules and then goes back to the default settings??? ::)

[bmeeks]

@Wepee:

Thanks bmeeks ;D

If there is any future update in Snort package, e.g. right now is 2.9.7.0 pkg v3.2.3 ,
say there is a newer version = 2.9.8.0 pkg v3.4.0 and I proceed to update.

Does the update reset the disable rules and then goes back to the default settings??? ::)

No, updates to the package will remember and use all of your current settings so long as you have the checkbox ticked on the GLOBAL SETTINGS tab to "keep settings on deinstall".  I've made that default to "checked" on new green field installs, but you can double check on your setup to insure the checkbox is checked.

Bill

[sstretchh]

The first post in this thread for the snort set up was in 2013, is that information for inital setup still valid ?

I am a noob to pFSense and just got mine up and running and just now about to install Snort for the first time

[Ramosel]

@ninjaneer:

The first post in this thread for the snort set up was in 2013, is that information for inital setup still valid ?

I am a noob to pFSense and just got mine up and running and just now about to install Snort for the first time

I'm not far behind you….  but I have been using it for a couple years and have just had to revisit it as health issues kept me from spending the time to update to the new versions under 2.2.4.  But I'll say this is very close to still ringing true, some minor differences that I was able to work around in pfBlocker, Snort and the Rules setup.  My Thanks to Bill for his help getting my system back up.  I'm still tweaking on it a bit everyday.

I'd love to see Demetris update this but I know he is very deep into Suricata and he too is recovering from a serious health issue.

On that note...  while rebuilding my aliases, I discovered many of the lists I had used were either abandoned, had slight name changes or were just no longer available.

Does anyone who really stays current have a good group of the current blocklists they import they would care to post??

Thanks,
Rick

[Jeremy4k]

If you don't mind me asking (stupidly): What's the point of this?
Can't I just enable all and be done with it?! Is this just for a few MB's of ram savings?

[Ramosel]

@Jeremy4k:

If you don't mind me asking (stupidly): What's the point of this?
Can't I just enable all and be done with it?! Is this just for a few MB's of ram savings?

While there are certainly some RAM savings (mine were significant), it has more to do with settings and processing behaviors.  The OP also had a deep understanding of the rules and their history and knew which rules were old and obsoleted and which new rules were causing false positives.

Yep, you can turn them all on…  expect some problems getting to things.

But depending on your needs and places you go you'll find yourself doing some tweaking anyway.

[chrcoluk]

The missing emerging-dhsield ip list might be this url?
http://feeds.dshield.org/top10-2.txt

[GaryLeech]

It's relevant for me too, thank you for explanation

[GaryLeech]

This post is deleted!