All clients here are built using a common framework. The only difference is the actual log parser subroutine. The clients are written in Perl. A minimum Perl installation should work for each of them. No extra modules are required

Ready to run clients

Download the appropriate client:

Untar in a directory and read README.txt for installation instructions. Framework changelog.

If your firewall isn't supported or if you have a problem with any of the Framework scripts, please let us know!

Framework Development Kit

If you want to develop a new client for a different firewall, or submit a bug fix for one of the existing framework clients, please download and use our Framework Development Kit. This contains a few simple scripts that we use to assemble the above clients. Life will go a lot smoother if you use this, rather then working from a modified version of one of the above scripts. Please.

Download framework.tar.gz, untar in a directory and read DEVELOPER.txt for instructions. Framework changelog.

Security

Even though the easiest way to run scripts like this is to run them as root, it is always dangerous to run anything as root. Consider creating a user that has just enough privileges to run the script. This can be achieved by creating a user and group called 'dshield'. The log files have to be owned by the group 'dshield' and readable by it (chmod 640). Create the cron job as this user.

Installing the script as a cron job

Assumptions:

  • you have already read README.txt
  • you put dshield.cnf.txt and the dshield*exclude.lst exclusion files in /etc
  • you set 'whereto=MAIL' and the other mail variables in /etc/dshield.cnf
  • you set 'verbose=y' and 'debug=Y' in /etc/dshield.cnf
  • the script is named 'iptables.pl' and is in /home/dshield/bin. (Adjust as necessary.)

(You must be a user that has the appropriate privileges to read the system log file that contains the firewall logging information when doing this.)

First check to see if there are any existing cron jobs by typing crontab -l. If there are any existing jobs, make a safety backup by typing crontab -l > mycrons.cron. This will save your current list of cron jobs in mycrons.cron.

Then edit the crontab

crontab -e

This will load the current list of cron jobs in your default editor. (Which is specified by the VISUAL or EDITOR environment variables. Setting this is system dependent. You may be able to set this variable in your .bashrc file.)

Now add a line to start the script:

        10 3 * * * cd /home/dshield/bin; ./iptables.pl > /home/dshield/bin/iptables_debug.txt
        

(Substitute the name of the script you are running in place of iptables.pl. And please change the time. Otherwise, we will receive all logs at the same time ;-)

Once you quit your editor, this new crontab will be installed.) When this is loaded into cron, cron will execute this job at 3:10 am. This job will run the /home/dshield/bin/iptables.pl script. /home/dshield/bin/iptables.pl will read /etc/dshield.cnf for configuration information.

The output(i.e., verbose and debug) will be redirected to /home/dshield/bin/iptables_debug.txt. You can examine this in your editor. (Note that /home/dshield/bin/ipdables_debug.txt will be overwritten each time the cron job runs this job.)

Type crontab -l to display the current crontab (i.e., what we just did.)

If you want to change cron parameters, say to make the script execute more (or less) often, edit the crontab using crontab -e and then install it again.

See man cron, man crontab and man crontab -S 5 for more information.