Ntopng development

Paint

Thank you for adding this package! It is working well for me locally, but I am having issues with setting up ntopng over HTTPS via NGINX.

I have tried setting up a proxy_pass directive, but I cannot get past the login screen. I also tried editing the /usr/local/etc/rc.d/ntopng.sh file to add –http-prefix="/ntopng" to the startup strings, but unfortunately I get the same issue.

Can we integrate SSL certificates into ntopng or allow for native nginx https proxy through pfSense's nginx setup?

Thank you!

Paint

temporarily to fix the authentication/login issue through NGINX, I have added –disable-login '1' to the /usr/local/pkg/ntopng.inc file in the DNS Mode string:

        /* DNS Mode */
        if (is_numeric($ntopng_config['dns_mode']) && ($ntopng_config['dns_mode'] >= 0) && ($ntopng_config['dns_mode'] <= 3)) {
                $dns_mode = "--disable-login '1' --dns-mode " . escapeshellarg($ntopng_config['dns_mode']);
        }

I enabled htaccess password protection via nginx.

Everything is working great now! Thanks!

soutieslak

@jimp:

If it proves stable enough on 2.3.2, it may be made available elsewhere. It's still being tested, though.

Is there a chance that it will be included as an alpha release in 2.3.2?

jimp

It's already in 2.3.2. If you install a 2.3.2 snapshot you can use it now (or at least once I get this fix pushed to correct the password handling)

When 2.3.2 releases (probably next week) you'll have access to it.

luckman212

any chance of pulling in the 2.4 version of ntopng that is available in FreeBSD ports?

The changelog is long, but the first 2 items alone seem enough to make it worth it:

Memory-management, stability and speed have been fundamentally improved
We have kept an eye on security and hardened the code to prevent privileges escalation and XSS

jimp

@luckman212:

any chance of pulling in the 2.4 version of ntopng that is available in FreeBSD ports?

The changelog is long, but the first 2 items alone seem enough to make it worth it:

Memory-management, stability and speed have been fundamentally improved

We have kept an eye on security and hardened the code to prevent privileges escalation and XSS

After we release 2.3.2 we can look into that.

JscoLP

Great package, haven't used ntop in years and its great to get this level of detail back, thank you! Looking forward to ntopng 2.4

craibo

Hi Guys

Thanks to everyone involved in getting the ntopng package back into pfsense with version 2.3.2. Its great and works well.

Could I possibly ask for one, hopefully minor, improvement?

For the historical data could we specify the max period that the data is kept for eg. 30 days.
This is should be supported by ntop but I can't find the option to specify the limit before I enable the Historical Data storage
Ref: http://www.ntop.org/ntopng/exploring-historical-data-using-ntopng/

Much appreciated.

jimp

The screen shown on that page is for a MySQL database. That isn't what is in use on pfSense. Eventually the package could grow the ability to export to an external MySQL server, but it wouldn't ever be using a MySQL database on the firewall itself.

reggie14

How are people accessing the ntopng dashboard? I get an SSL error every I try to access it. I'm pretty sure it's because pfsense is using HSTS, and thus my browser always wants to connect via HTTPS instead of HTTP, but I'm not really sure how to work around this problem.

jimp

Use HTTPS for the GUI and ntopng

dennypage

HTTPS for ntopng isn't working for me. I receive a SSL protocol error when attempting to access. I haven't tracked it down yet. HTTP via IP address works fine.

@jimp:

Use HTTPS for the GUI and ntopng

dennypage

Wasn't too hard to find. HTTPS is disabled because there is no certificate installed. From ntopng.log:


27/Jul/2016 21:45:14 [HTTPserver.cpp:464] HTTPS Disabled: missing SSL certificate /usr/local/share/ntopng/httpdocs/ssl/ntopng-cert.pem
27/Jul/2016 21:45:14 [HTTPserver.cpp:466] Please read https://github.com/ntop/ntopng/blob/dev/doc/README.SSL if you want to enable SSL.
27/Jul/2016 21:45:14 [HTTPserver.cpp:509] Web server dirs [/usr/local/share/ntopng/httpdocs][/usr/local/share/ntopng/scripts]
27/Jul/2016 21:45:14 [HTTPserver.cpp:512] HTTP server listening on port 3000

craibo

Thanks Jimp

Using an external MySQL instance would be a great option.

For now though, if we enable the historical usage, where is it going to store the data?
If its in daily files I could just add a cronjob to wipe the older files after x days. Just a thought

The screen shown on that page is for a MySQL database. That isn't what is in use on pfSense. Eventually the package could grow the ability to export to an external MySQL server, but it wouldn't ever be using a MySQL database on the firewall itself.

hameno

@dennypage:

Wasn't too hard to find. HTTPS is disabled because there is no certificate installed. From ntopng.log:


27/Jul/2016 21:45:14 [HTTPserver.cpp:464] HTTPS Disabled: missing SSL certificate /usr/local/share/ntopng/httpdocs/ssl/ntopng-cert.pem
27/Jul/2016 21:45:14 [HTTPserver.cpp:466] Please read https://github.com/ntop/ntopng/blob/dev/doc/README.SSL if you want to enable SSL.
27/Jul/2016 21:45:14 [HTTPserver.cpp:509] Web server dirs [/usr/local/share/ntopng/httpdocs][/usr/local/share/ntopng/scripts]
27/Jul/2016 21:45:14 [HTTPserver.cpp:512] HTTP server listening on port 3000

Have the same problem. Is there an easy fix (like symlink the real certificate)? Should/can this be fixed by the package maintainer?

jimp

I was getting my packages mixed up there. The ntopng package doesn't have an HTTPS option yet. It will need to be added to the package. I can look into it, but I have no idea when I'll be able to get around to adding that as a feature. If someone wants to make a pull request, have a look at the lightsquid package which has a cert selection for HTTPS that would be very similar.

raverX

Have they managed to get application filtering/control working in nTopng with pfsense?

That was what my original discussions with Luca Deri were about.

It's great to have nTopng working again from an analysis/reporting fashion, but the real power of the application is to be able to control applications instead of trying to do a half arsed job with Snort….

dennypage

I don't think certificate selection code is necessary. The ntopng service is another port on the firewall itself. The certificate for ntopng would need to have the same common name and alternate names as the firewall itself. In other words, the certificate for ntopng is the same certificate used by the pfSense webgui.

I'll have a look at it when time permits.

dennypage

Here you go:

https://github.com/pfsense/FreeBSD-ports/pull/172

Note that if you change between http and https for the webgui, either the ntopng settings will need to be re-saved or the system rebooted. Given how rare the switch is, I don't think this will be too much of an issue.

Cino

@Tram:

Thanks Jimp

Using an external MySQL instance would be a great option.

For now though, if we enable the historical usage, where is it going to store the data?
If its in daily files I could just add a cronjob to wipe the older files after x days. Just a thought

The screen shown on that page is for a MySQL database. That isn't what is in use on pfSense. Eventually the package could grow the ability to export to an external MySQL server, but it wouldn't ever be using a MySQL database on the firewall itself.

I haven't used ntopng in the last few months and looking over the doc, looks like sqlite support isn't there anymore for historical data. Looks like mysql or es flow-dumps are the only option now.

There is an error when 'Historical Data Storage' is enabled Im going to change the syntax to use the mySQL i have running


18/Aug/2016 08:49:31 [Prefs.cpp:792] WARNING: Discarding -F -i: value out of range

http://www.ntop.org/ntopng/exploring-historical-data-using-ntopng/