Background
This page contains details for the SOF-ELK® (Security Operations and Forensics Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) VM. The VM is provided as a community resource but is covered at varying depths in the following SANS course(s):
- SANS FOR572, Advanced Network Forensics and Analysis
- SANS SEC555, SIEM with Tactical Analysis
- SANS SEC501, Advanced Security Essentials - Enterprise Defender
The latest version of the VM itself is available here: http://for572.com/sof-elk-vm
All parsers and dashboards for this VM are now maintained in this Github repository. You can access them directly via http://for572.com/sof-elk-git
General Information
- The VM was created with VMware Fusion v11.0.2 and ships with virtual hardware v12.
- If you're using an older version of VMware Workstation/Fusion/Player, you will likely need to convert the VM back to a previous version of the hardware.
- Some VMware software provides this function via the GUI, or you may find the free "VMware vCenter Converter" tool helpful.
- The VM is deployed with the "NAT" network mode enabled
- Credentials:
- username:
elk_user
- password:
forensics
- has sudo access to run ALL commands
- password:
- username:
- Logstash will ingest all files from the following filesystem locations:
/logstash/syslog/
: Syslog-formatted data- NOTICE: Remember that syslog DOES NOT reflect the year of a log entry! Therefore, Logstash has been configured to look for a year value in the path to a file. For example:
/logstash/syslog/2015/var/log/messages
will assign all entries from that file to the year 2015. If no year is present, the current year will be assumed. This is enabled only for the/logstash/syslog/
directory.
- NOTICE: Remember that syslog DOES NOT reflect the year of a log entry! Therefore, Logstash has been configured to look for a year value in the path to a file. For example:
/logstash/nfarch/
: Archived NetFlow output, formatted as described below/logstash/httpd/
: Apache logs in common, combined, or vhost-combined formats/logstash/passivedns/
: Logs from the passivedns utility/logstash/kape/
: JSON-format files generated by the KAPE triage collection tool. (See this document for details on which specific output files are currently supported and their required file naming structure.)/logstash/plaso/
: CSV bodyfile-format files generated by the Plaso tool from the log2timeline framework. (See this document for details on creating CSV files in a supported format.)
- Commands to be familiar with:
/usr/local/sbin/sof-elk_clear.py
: DESTROY contents of the Elasticsearch database. Most frequently used with an index name base (e.g.sof-elk_clear.py -i logstash
will delete all data from the Elasticsearchlogstash-*
indexes. Other options detailed with the-h
flag./usr/local/sbin/sof-elk_update.sh
: Update the SOF-ELK® configuration files from the Github repository. (Requires sudo.)
- Files to be familiar with:
/etc/logstash/conf.d/*.conf
: Symlinks to github-based FOR572-specific configs that address several common log formats:- syslog
- DHCPD
- BIND querylog
- iptables
- Squid access_log
- Windows messages sent by Snare
- Passivedns (http://for572.com/passivedns)
- HTTPD Common/Combined/vhost+Combined/SSL Access Logs
- Live NetFlow v5 and archived NetFlow records
/usr/local/sof-elk/*
: Clone of Github repository (http://for572.com/sof-elk-git - public/v20190606 branch)
Latest Distribution Vitals
- Basic details on the distribution
- VM is a CentOS 7.6 base with all OS updates as of 2019-06-06
- Includes Elastic stack components v6.7.2
- Configuration files are from the "public/v20190606" branch of this Github repository
- Metadata
- Filename and size:
Public SOF ELK v20190606.zip
(1,615,255,701
bytes) - MD5:
de54153fa977307f71f071f39c5b2670
- SHA256:
c0b70d2fde4b025e15867e2d44f937656b0a586acdb42932a665bc289c920853
- Filename and size:
How to Use
- Extract the compressed archive to your host system
- Open and boot the VM
- Log into the VM with the
elk_user
credentials (see above)- Logging in via SSH recommended, but if using the console login and a non-US keyboard, run
sudo loadkeys uk
, replacinguk
as needed for your local keyboard mapping
- Logging in via SSH recommended, but if using the console login and a non-US keyboard, run
- cd to one of the
/logstash/*/
directories as appropriate - Place files in this location (Mind the above warning about the year for syslog data. Files must also be readable by the "logstash" user.)
- Open the main Kibana dashboard using the Kibana URL shown in the pre-authentication screen,
http://<ip_address>:5601
- This dashboard gives a basic overview of what data has been loaded and how many records are present
- There are links to several stock dashboards on the left hand side
- Wait for Logstash to parse the input files, load the appropriate dashboard URL, and start interacting with your data
Configuration Documentation
- Note: This will migrate to a new document at some point - just capturing here for the time being.
- Change replica count in
/etc/sysconfig/sof-elk
if using this in a cluster
Sample Data Included
- Syslog data in
~elk_user/lab-2.3_source_evidence/
- Unzip each of these files into the
/logstash/syslog/
directory, such as:cd /logstash/syslog/ ; unzip ~elk_user/lab-2.3_source_evidence/<file>
- Use the time frame
2013-06-08 15:00:00
to2013-06-08 23:30:00
to examine this data.
- Unzip each of these files into the
- NetFlow data in
~elk_user/lab-3.1_source_evidence/
- Use the
nfdump2sof-elk.sh
script and write output to the/logstash/nfarch/
directory, such as:cd /home/elk_user/lab-3.1_source_evidence/ ; nfdump2sof-elk.sh -e 10.3.58.1 -r ~elk_user/lab-3.1_source_evidence/netflow/ -w /logstash/nfarch/lab-3.1_netflow.txt
- Use the time frame
2012-04-02
to2012-04-07
to examine this data.
- Use the
Ingesting Archived NetFlow
To ingest existing NetFlow evidence, it must be parsed into a specific format. The included nfdump2sof-elk.sh
script will take care of this.
- Read from single file:
nfdump2sof-elk.sh -r /path/to/netflow/nfcapd.201703190000 -w /logstash/nfarch/inputfile_1.txt
- Read recursively from directory:
nfdump2sof-elk.sh -r /path/to/netflow/ -w /logstash/nfarch/inputfile_2.txt
- Optionally, you can specify the IP address of the exporter that created the flow data:
nfdump2sof-elk.sh -e 10.3.58.1 -r /path/to/netflow/ -w /logstash/nfarch/inputfile_3.txt
Credits
- Derek B: Cisco ASA parsing/debugging and sample data
- Barry A: Sample data and trobuleshooting
- Ryan Johnson: Testing
- Matt Bromiley: Testing
- Mike Pilkington: Testing
- Mark Hallman: Testing
Administrative Notifications/Disclaimers/Legal/Boring Stuff
- This virtual appliance is provided "as is" with no express or implied warranty for accuracy or accessibility. No support for the functionality the VM provides is offered outside of this document.
- This virtual appliance includes GeoLite2 data created by MaxMind, available from http://www.maxmind.com
- SOF-ELK® is a registered trademark of Lewes Technology Consulting, LLC. Content is copyrighted by its respective contributors. SOF-ELK logo is a wholly owned property of Lewes Technology Consulting, LLC and is used by permission.