Trisul Probe Configuration File

All configuration parameters for each Trisul Probe is stored in a singleXMLmain configuration file calledtrisulProbeConfig.xml. This file is found on all Trisul-Probe nodes.

Location : /usr/local/etc/trisul-probe/domain0/probe0/context0/trisulProbeConfig.xml

for context named data1 the path would be …probe0/context_data1/trisulProbeConfig.xml

caution

Root privileges needed to edit

note

Also seetrisulHubConfig.xmlfor editing Hub node parameters

Sections

Click on a section to see the config parameters inside that section.

Section	What part of trisul does it configure
App	The trisul running process
Logging	Logging policy – file sizes and rotation
Ring	Full content storage and retention policy
Reassebly	TCP reassembly and advanced metering
File Extraction	Configure File Extraction
IDS Alerts	Unix sockets for accepting Unified and Unified2 alerts
Offline Import	For importing large pcap dumps (mostly used for testing
Tuning	Tuning packet processing pipeline
Edges	Options related to the Graph Analytics

App

Settings for the Trisul daemon process

note

Commonly modified parameters are Setuid, TrisulMode, LicenseFile

Parameters	Defaults	Description
user	trisul.trisul	Which user/group should trisul run as after dropping root privileges.
TempFolder	/tmp
DBRoot	/usr/local/var/lib/trisul-probe/domain0/probe0/context0	The base directory under which Trisul stores all its data.
UsageRedMark		Generate an alert when disk usage on this probe node cross this percent value. Leave blank or set to 0 to disable disk usage alerts
ConfigDB	/usr/local/var/lib/trisul-probe/domain0/probe0/context0/ config/TRISULCONFIG.SQDB	Location of the configuration database.
PluginsLibDirectory	/usr/local/lib/trisul/plugins	Where trisul looks for dynamic (called so) plugins
PluginsConfDirectory	/usr/local/etc/trisul-probe/domain0/probe0/context0	Where trisul looks for additional configuration files and server certificates (for TRP).
PluginsDataDirectory	/usr/local/share/trisul/plugins	Where trisul looks for plugin configuration data.
ProbeID	SE-LINK	A mnemonic to identify this instance of Trisul, this string is reported via TRP.
ProbeDesc	Trisul Probe monitors the S-E link traffic only	A short description of this instance of trisul.
RunStateDirectory	/usr/local/var/lib/trisul-probe/domain0/probe0/context0/run	Volatile data for current run stored here
PluginsDataDirectory	/usr/local/share/trisul-probe/plugins	Plugins store data here; eg from downloaded feeds
PidFile	/usr/local/var/run/trisul.pid	File where trisul stores the process id of the current running instance.
TrisulMode	TAP	This determines whether you run Trisul in raw packets mode or Netflow mode.TAP Processes all raw packets from the selected network adapters.NETFLOW_TAP Processes Netflow packets
ValidTrisulModes	TAP,NETFLOW_TAP	Unused – just a hint for the previous parameter.
LicenseFile	/usr/local/etc/trisul-probe/LicenseKey.txt	Location of the license file.
ReportsDirectory	../reports	The directory where DDoS reports are stored in Netflow mode

Logging

Configures logging and rotation of the probe processtrisul

Parameters	Defaults	Description
Logdir	/usr/local/var/log/trisul	Where the log files are stored.
Logfile	ns-???.log	Log file pattern. The default is ns-001.log, ns-002.log, etc.
Loglevel	DEBUG	All messages higher than this level are logged. The available log levels in order of severity (most severe one first is). EMERG FATAL ALERT CRIT ERROR WARN NOTICE INFO DEBUG — Recommended default level
LogRotateSize	5000000	Size of each log file is allowed to grow to this size before Trisul moves to the next file.
LogRotateCount	5	The number of files in the log ring, oldest files will be rotated.

Ring

Full content storage policy.

The Ring section allows you to control.

• How big each full content file gets

• How many such full content files are in a slice

• How many slices in operational, reference, and archive areas

• Passphrase file (the content files areAES-128CTRmode encrypted)

• Flow rules for content trimming

Parameters	Defaults	Description
Enabled	True	Setting this to False will disable all options below, full content will not be saved.
BaseDir	/usr/local/var/lib/ trisul/CONTEXT0/caps	Parent directory under which full content files are saved.
Encryption	AES-128-CTR	The encryption cipher. Currently supported modes are AES-128-CTR and NONE. Specify NONE to disable encryption of raw packet storage.
PassphraseFile	/usr/local/etc/ trisul/certs/ringpass.txt	The encryption passphrase for the full content files.
FilePrefix	RCF_	Content files are called RCF_001.triscap, RCF_001.triscap, etc.. This options allows you to change the RCF_ part.
FileSizeMB	100	Size of each full content file in megabytes. Maximum allowed value = 8000 (8GB). If you specify a size greater than this limit, Trisul will ignore it and use 8GB as the value.
SyncSeconds	60	Diagnostic use only.
SysStatsUpdateSecs	2	Diagnostic use only.
EnableDDosNetflowTapTrail		Set this to TRUE to enable the DDoS Ring mechanism.
DefaultMode	FULL	To cut down on full content data, Trisul allows you to apply a variety of policies. The supported modes are FULL Everything is saved This is the default mode FLOWCAP10M Only first 10MB of each TCP flow is saved. FLOWCAP1M Only first 1MB of each TCP flow is saved. FLOWCAP100K Only first 100KB of each TCP flow is saved. FLOWCAP10K Only first 10KB of each TCP flow is saved. HEADERS Only headers are saved, typically upto the TCP/UDP layer IGNORE Nothing is saved
RuleChain		Each packet is evaluated against a rule chain, which is a list of rules.

SlicePolicy

Controls how much of raw packet data is stored. There are three areasoper,ref, andarchiveThe packet slices are always written inoperthen slide intoref,archive, and then deleted as specified by the SlicePolicy below.

Oper

SliceCount	32	Number of operational slices. The size of each slices is fixed as specified by FileSizeKB parameter

Reference

SliceCount	32	Number of reference slices. Setting this to zero will move slices straight to the archive.

Archive

SLiceCount	0	Number of archive slices. If you set this to 0, slices move directly to /dev/null (ie are deleted).

Rule Chain

Rule chains are used to control full packet storage policies.

note

If you desire even more fine grained control of packet storage policy on a per-flow basis see thePacket StorageLUAScript type

• Each rule is an expression in theTrisul filter format

• Treatment of each packet is one of : Store full packet, Store header, or Ignore

• The first rule to match determines the treatment given to the packet

• If no rule matches, the treatment specified in theDefaultModeparameter is applied

Rule mode=“FULL”

If present, packets which match this rule get stored completely.

Rule mode=“FLOWCAP10M”

If present,

• packets which match this rule and
• belong to a flow which has transferred less than 10MB bidirectionally get stored fully.

Rule mode=“FLOWCAP1M”

If present,

• packets which match this rule and
• belong to a flow which has transferred less than 1MB bidirectionally get stored fully.

Rule mode=“FLOWCAP100K”

If present,

• packets which match this rule and
• belong to a flow which has transferred less than 100KB bidirectionally get stored fully.

Rule mode=“FLOWCAP10K”

If present,

• packets which match this rule and
• belong to a flow which has transferred less than 10KB bidirectionally get stored fully.

Rule mode=“HEADERS”

If present, packets which match get only their headers stored. The headers include at least the Ethernet/IP/TCP/UDPlayers.

Rule mode=“IGNORE”

If present, packets which match get ignored (sent to /dev/null).

slicePolicy

Specifies how many files you want to keep in each of the three areas. The size of each file is capped by the FileSizeKB parameter.

Example
You want this policy :

• Each Slice file is 1GB
• Store 20GB in the operational area (maybe you have limitedSSDor RAID5)
• Store 500GB in the reference area
• Store 1TB in the archive

Then the SliceCounts will be 20,500,1000 for the operational,ref, archive areas.

Reassembly

Controls how Trisul handles IP fragmentation andTCPreassembly.

IPDefrag

Parameters	Defaults	Description
Enabled	MetricsOnly	Reassembles IP fragments. This is disabled by default due to the CPU and Mem load it can place on Trisul on busy links. The values are True Full IP reassembly is enabled. Use this on light links or if you suspect IP fragmentation on busy links MetricsOnly* Do not perform reassembly but collect metrics about fragmentation in the Aggregates counter group under the key ipfrag. This is the default option False Completely disable IP Defragmentation. Simply ignore IP fragments. Use this on busy links
Hiwater	1000	Hi water mark for number of simultaneous fragment chains to track.
LoWater	500	Lo water mark for number of simultaneous fragment chains. If the number of fragments crosses the HiWater mark, Trisul gets rid of the LRU least-recently-used items and prunes it to the LoWater mark.

TCPFlowTrack

Flow tracking keeps track of how much data has been transmitted in either direction in a singleTCPflow.

• Required for flow based full content storage policy (like storing first 1M of each flow)
• Required forTCPReassembly
• Required for all reassembly based applications likeXFFDeproxy,URILog, Content Type meters, etc

Parameters	Defaults	Description
Enabled	TRUE	True or False values.
HiWater	8000	Hi water mark for number of simultaneous flows that can be tracked. If the number of simultaneous active flows exceeds the high water mark, Trisul will prune the oldest active flows until the number of flows goes one below the low water mark.
LoWater	6000	Lo water mark for TCP flow pruning. See explanation for HiWater.

TCPReassembly

ControlsTCPReassembly.

• Required for all reassembly based applications likeXFFDeproxy,URILog
• Required for reassembly based meters likeHTTPContent Types,HTTPHosts,URLFilter, etc

Parameters	Defaults	Description
Enabled	True	True or False values
MaxBytes	0
KickoffBytes	5000	Some meter within Trisul must express an interest in reassembled data for a given flow before this limit is reached. Otherwise reassembly is stopped at this point for this flow.
Ports		Traffic on these ports are reassembled. By default Trisul this is "" because uses heuristics to detect applications independent of port. You can override this behaviour by setting to a string like 3000,80,443,22,21 to reassemble only these ports
Direction	INOUT	Options IN Only the IN direction; direction of first SYN+ACK is reassembled OUT Only the OUT direction; direction of initial SYN is reassembled INOUT Both directions are reassembled

Applications

Some advanced applications.

Since these applications depend on theTCPReassembly feature, they are resistant toTCPfragmentation evasions.

Parameters	Defaults	Description
EnableXFFDeproxy	True	Useful in a corporate environment with web proxies. If set to true, Trisul can deproxy web traffic by looking at the X-Forwarded-For HTTP header. The actual IP is substituted for all metering and flow analysis instead of the proxy’s IP.
EnableURILog	True	Logs all HTTP URLs requested. These URLS show up as Resources in Trisul where they are correlated and made searchable.
EnableHostMeter	True	Add traffic metering by HTTP Host header. The net effect of enabling this is that the HTTP Host counter group is made active.
EnableContentTypeMeter	True	Add traffic metering by HTTP Content-Type header. Activates the HTTP Content Type counter group.
EnableSSLCertLog	True	Logs all SSL certificate chains
EnableHTTPFTS	True	Full Text Search (FTS) enabled for all HTTP Headers seen
EnableSSLFTS	True	FTS enabled for all SSL Certificates seen
MaxHTTPFTSPerFlow		Currently unused
EnableFTPTrack	True	Tracks FTP data session by matching the corresponding control flows
EnableSSLRecordExtraction	False	If you want access to the raw TLS Protocol PDUs. If set to “True” ; Trisul will generate “TLS:RECORD” callbacks you can hook on to in the Reassembly engine. Unless you are working deep with TLS you typically can leave this as False.

File Extraction

Controls theHTTPfile extraction feature.

note

Need tempfs partition : If you enable File Extraction you also need to create a special in-memoryTMPFSpartition (also known asRAMFSpartition).
Quickest way to create this is to usetrisulctl_probe createramfs probe0 defaultA 100MB partition would suffice for loads < 1Gbps. For more readFile ExtractionLUAAPIin detail

Parameters	Defaults	Description
Enabled	False	Feature is enabled or not
RamFsDir	ProbeRoot/tmp/ramfs	The directory mounted on the TMPFS file system
AutoDelete	True	The tmpfs file system is automatically cleaned as the files are processed by the LUA script framework. Set this to False for debugging purpose only or if you take control of deleting the filesystem from your LUA scripts
ChunkSizeMB	5	For large files your LUA script will be handed chunks of this size. Tweak this based on how much RAM you can allocate to the tmpfs filesystem

IDS Alerts

Controls how security alerts from Snort/Barnyard are handled

Parameters	Defaults	Description
Enabled	True	Enables this feature
SnortUnixSocket	/tmp/snort_alert	Trisul opens this unix socket and listens for alerts. The default socket name issnort_alertfor Unified events from Snort, andbarnyard2_alertfor Unified2 events from Barnyard2. The directory name is passed to snort or barnyard2 via the-lparameter**Multiple sockets :**You can add any number of<SnortUnixSocket>elements to listen to multiple sockets at once.
GenerateDDosReport		Set this toTRUEto trigger Trisul Probe to generate a DDoS report on certainTCAfiring.
DDosReportTopCount	100	By default 100 top items are included in the DDoS report
DDosReportWindow>PastSeconds	120	By default, include in the report 2 minutes prior to the DDoS attack trigger
DDosReportWindow>FutureSeconds	60	By default, include in the report 1 minutes after the DDoS attack trigger

OfflineImport

Controls aspects ofPCAPfile import.

Parameters	Defaults	Description
LoopCount	1	Used for testing. Runs the same capture file/directory this many time past Trisul. Each run is appended time-wise to the end of the previous run. This is used internally by us to generate months of data from a few days of capture by repeating them over and over.
AppendMode	TRUE	Appends the run to the previous runs time-wise. The packet time stamps in the capture file are offset by the last time of the previous run.
InterfileGapSecs	60	When importing multiple files, this option puts a gap of this many seconds between each file. There is no purpose of this option other than to view a gap in the charts representing the capture files.
AutoSortByCaptime	TRUE	WhenTRUE, the candidate capture files are sorted by time order (earliest to latest), and then imported into Trisul. WhenFALSE, the files and subdirectories are processed in alphabetical order.
ResumeStalledImport	FALSE	Dependency:AutoSortByCaptime must beTRUE Treats the import as a resumption of a previously stalled or aborted offline import. WhenTRUE, Trisul will first determine what timestamp was last flushed. Then it will skip all packets earlier than that timestamp and continue importing when newer timestamps are seen. This feature is used to resume a stopped import without reprocessing everything again. Use this feature with the following caution : # Due to the discontinuous nature, some packets may be missed or double counted around the timestamp where the earlier import was aborted # Flows may be duplicated around the time
AddEthernetFCS	FALSE	If set to true, will add 12 bytes to every ethernet packet to account forFCS

Tuning

Fine tune the packet processing pipeline for peak performance.

Parameters	Defaults	Description
AnalysisQueueCapacity	1000000	Queue size for frontend packet stream to backend analytics stream
PcapQueueCapacity	5000	Queue for disk packet storage
FeedbackQueueCapacity	1000000	Queue size of backend to frontend (reverse/feedback) stream
PcapRAIDStripeSize	1048576	Sequential writes of this size.
GrainSize	64	Number of packets to process in a batch. You can increase this value if you have aCPUwith a large L1/L2 cache. If the entire batch fits in cache memory – it can increase concurrency – and decrease drops.
SpongeWindow	1	A key internal data structure parameter to help with multicore. Number of seconds a single core must accumulate before synchronizing. In most cases, leave this alone.
InflightTokens	2	Number of work items in parallel. Maps to number of hardware threads you want to give to trisul.
TCPReassFilters	2	Number ofTCPFilters – Trisul will hash and load share. Typically matches the number of InflightTokens
CoreAffinityNet		CPUcores you want you pin the packet processing threads to. Use “1,2,4” to pin toCPUCores 1,2,4
CoreAffinityRAID		CPUcores allowed to do disk writes for packet storage
CoreAffinityAnalysis		Currently unused
FBQDrainChunkSize	-1	Controls how fast an internal data structure called the Feedback Queue is drained
FlowMemcapPolicy	FLEXIBLE	Determines how Trisul copes under severe load. This can happen on a very busy network or under a DDoS attack against Trisul itself or elsewhere on the network. Trisul detects this condition when Hi Water marks are crossed for counters or flows. The available options are : FLEXIBLETrisul is not too rigid about the Hi Water mark, it allows usage to grow beyond the high water mark within the streaming window (1-minute) FIXEDWhen a Hi Water mark is hit, nonewcounters are flows are accepted. Existing ones are metered as usual. At the next flush interval, the counters or flows are pruned down to the low water mark and things proceed as usual
StreamingWindowMSecs	60000	The streaming window in milliseconds. The default value is 1 minute. Do not change this unless you have a very good reason
DisableFlowTupleFeedback	false	Flow tuple feedback is a feature in Trisul that allows you to measure per-IP and per-APPconnection metrics. This can be overkill for some environments like ISP’s who deal with millions of flows/sec. Disable this in those environemts. We also suggest disabling this option when the FeedbackQueue (FBQ) sees pressure leading to spiky IP and App flow connection metrics.
MaxTCARangeAlerts	100	When using TCA range alerts (seeTCAgenerate only these many alerts. The reason we need a safety cap on this feature is an incorrect configuration with aTCArange can result in uncontrolled alerts (eg when any IP crosses 1Kbps). For safety we have chosen a cap or 100

Edges

Controls the streaming graph analytics part of Trisul

Parameters	Defaults	Description
Enabled	True	Enables this feature
EnableFlowEdges	True	Do you want edge vertex data to be generated for every flow? For very large networks, consider disabling this option.