Snort++ Extras

Snort++ is all about plugins. It has over 140 by default and makes it easy to add more in C++ or LuaJIT. This post will walk you through building and running a set of extra example plugins. If you haven't installed and verified Snort++, you will need to do that first. We will cover the following topics:

• Overview
• Download
• Build Extras
• Run Extras
• Next Steps

OVERVIEW

The following things are pluggable in Snort++:

• codec - decode and encode support for a given protocol
• data - additional configuration for inspectors
• inspector - replaces Snort preprocessors
• ips_option - IPS rule option like content and byte_test
• ips_action - IPS rule action like alert and block
• search_engine - fast pattern matcher
• logger - event handers
• SO rules - dynamic rules

DOWNLOAD

There are two extra tarballs, once for autotools and one for cmake:

    snort_extra-1.0.0-a1-130-auto.tar.gz
    snort_extra-1.0.0-a1-130-cmake.tar.gz

BUILD EXTRAS

To build the example plugins, first do these setup steps:

    tar zxf extra-tarball
    cd snort_extra-1.0.0*
    export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$my_path/lib/pkgconfig

Then do one of the following:

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

    ./configure --prefix=$my_path --with-snort-includes=$my_path/include/snort
    make -j 8 install

• To build with cmake, do the following:

    mkdir build && cd build
    cmake ..
    make -j 8 install

RUN EXTRAS

• The following demonstrates a C++ logger and a LuaJIT logger:

    $my_path/bin/snort -c $my_path/etc/snort/snort.lua -R $my_path/etc/snort/sample.rules \
        -r pcap --plugin-path $my_path/lib/snort_extra -A alert_ex

    $my_path/bin/snort -c $my_path/etc/snort/snort.lua -R $my_path/etc/snort/sample.rules \
        -r pcap --script-path $my_path/lib/snort_extra -A lualert

• You can edit $my_path/lib/snort_extra/loggers/alert.lua to tweak the output format and rerun the above command to try it out.

• The last example demonstrates a LuaJIT rule option called find. The rule, supplied on stdin, uses the Lua [[ multiline string ]] delimiters to avoid shell escape issues:

    echo 'alert tcp any any -> any 80 ( sid:1; msg:"test"; http_method; find:"pat = [[GET]]"; )' | \
        $my_path/bin/snort -c $my_path/etc/snort/snort.lua -r pcap \
            -A cmg --script-path $my_path/lib/snort_extra --stdin-rules

NEXT STEPS o")~

There is no design guide yet but you can develop your own plugins in C++ by using the examples as a starting point. In addition, IPS options and loggers can also be written in LuaJIT. The API may change going forward, but you are encouraged to roll your own now and let us know how it goes so we can incorporate any suggestions in the final design.