Installation notes for ArcSight ESM 6.9.1 on CentOS 7.1

Aside

Installation of HPE ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) 6.9.1 on CentOS 7.1 is substantially easier with engineering adding a “pre-installation” setup script to this version.  For a smooth installation, there are still a few steps we need to take .. outlined below.

  1. Base install of CentOS 7.1, minimal packages but add Compatibility Libraries. Be sure you use the CentOS-7-x86_64-Minimal-1503-01.iso revision since more recent releases of CentOS have other quirks that may make the ESM install or execution fail. Ensure /tmp has at least 5GB of free space and /opt/arcsight has at least 50GB of usable space – I’d suggest going with at least:
    • /boot – 500MB
    • / – 8GB+
    • swap – 6GB+
    • /opt – 85GB+
  2. Ensure some needed (and helpful) utilities are installed, since the minimal distribution does not include these and unfortunately the ESM install script just assumes they are there .. if they aren’t, the install will eventually fail.
    • yum install -y bind-utils pciutils tzdata zip unzip
    • Edit /etc/selinux/config and disable (or set to permissive) .. the CORR storage engine install will fail with “enforcing” mode of SElinux.  I’ll update this at some point with how to leave SElinux in enforcing mode.
    • Disable the netfilter firewall (again, at some point I’ll update this with the rules needed to leave netfilter enabled).
    • systemctl disable firewalld;  systemctl mask firewalld
    • Install and configure NTP
    • yum install -y ntpdate ntp
    • (optionally edit /etc/ntp.conf to select the NTP servers you want your new ESM system to use)
    • systemctl enable ntpd; systemctl start ntpd
    • Edit /etc/rsyslog.conf and enable forwarding of syslog events to your friendly neighborhood syslog SmartConnector (optional, but otherwise how do you monitor your ESM installation?) .. you can typically just uncomment the log handling statements at the bottom of the file and fill in your syslog SmartConnector hostname or IP address. Note the forward statement I use only has a single at sign – indicating UDP versus TCP designated by two at signs:
    • $ActionQueueFileName fwdRule1 # unique name prefix for spool files
      $ActionQueueMaxDiskSpace 1g   # 1gb space limit (use as much as possible)
      $ActionQueueSaveOnShutdown on # save messages to disk on shutdown
      $ActionQueueType LinkedList   # run asynchronously
      $ActionResumeRetryCount -1    # infinite retries if host is down
      # remote host is: name/ip:port, e.g. 192.168.0.1:514, port optional
      #*.* @@remote-host:514
      *.* @10.10.10.5:514
    • Restart rsyslog after updating the conf file
    • systemctl restart rsyslog
    • Optionally add some packages that support trouble shooting or other non-ESM functions you run on the ESM server, such as system monitoring
    • yum install -y mailx tcpdump
  3. Untar the ESM distribution tar ball, ensure the files are owned by the “arcsight” user, then run the Tools/prepare_system.sh to adjust the maximum open files and other requirements that we used to manually update in previous releases.  NOTE: in 6.9.1 there are some previous “shadow” requirements that are now enforced (eg. you don’t get to change) .. such as the application owner account must be “arcsight”, the installation directory must be “/opt/arcsight”.  The “prepare_system.sh” script will check to see if there already is an “arcsight” user and if not, will create it.  I usually manually create all the common users on my various systems since I want them to have the same uid / gid across all my systems.
  4. Run the Tools/prepare_system.sh script as “root” user
    • cd Tools
    • ./prepare_system.sh
  5. Run the ESM install as the “arcsight” user
    • ./ArcSightESMSuite.bin
  6. Download content from the HPE ArcSight Marketplace at https://saas.hpe.com/marketplace/arcsight
  7. Install your ESM 6.9.1 console on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X .. although the web interface is much richer in the last couple releases, you’ll still need to use the console for content creation and editing.
  8. Optionally extend the session timeout period for the web interface.  There still isn’t an easy setting to do this in the GUI, so get into command line on your ESM server and edit or add the following lines .. which indicate the timeout period in seconds.  The default is around five (5) minutes. You should be able to edit these configuration files as the “arcsight” user, but I typically restart the services as “root”.
    • Edit /opt/arcsight/manager/config/server.properties
    • service.session.timeout=28800
    • Edit /opt/arcsight/logger/userdata/logger/user/logger/logger.properties
    • server.search.timeout=28800
    • Restart the ESM services .. I typically run this as “root”
    • /etc/init.d/arcsight_services stop
    • /etc/init.d/arcsight_services start
  9. Optionally configure the manager to display a static banner at the top of each console interface so you can have multiple consoles open and know what manager each is connected to (cool!):
    • Edit /opt/arcsight/manager/config/server.properties and add server.staticbanner.* properties (backgroundcolor, textcolor, text). Both backgroundcolor and textcolor take black, blue, cyan, gray, green, magenta, orange, pink, red, white, yellow as acceptable arguments. Text is the identifier you would like that manager to display, such as “super-awesome-production-box”
    • server.staticbanner.textcolor=green
    • server.staticbanner.backgroundcolor=black
    • server.staticbanner.text=esm691
    • Restart the ESM manager service .. I typically run this as “root”
    • /etc/init.d/arcsight_services stop manager
    • /etc/init.d/arcsight_services start manager
  10. If you are going to install any SmartConnectors on the system hosting your Enterprise Security Manager, check out my post regarding required libraries for CentOS and RedHat, before you try to run the Linux SmartConnector install. This includes any Model Import Connectors (MIC) or forwarding connectors (SuperConnectors).

BlockSync Project

Welcome to the BlockSync Project

This project aims to provide an efficient way to provide mutual protection from deemed bad actors that attack Internet facing servers. The result will be an open source set of communication tools that use established protocols for high speed and light weight transmission of attacker information to a variable number of targets (unicasting to a possibly large number of hosts).

Background

There are many open source firewall technologies in widespread use, most based on either packet filter (pf) or netfilter (iptables). There is much technology that provides network clustering (for example, OpenBSD’s CARP and pfsync; netfilter; corosync and pacemaker), however it’s difficult for disparate (loosely coupled) servers to communicate the identity of attackers in real time to a trusted community of (tightly coupled) peers. Servers or firewalls that use state-table replication techniques, such as pfsync or netfilter, have a (near) real-time view of pass/block decisions other members have made. There needs to be a mechanism for loosely coupled servers to share block decisions in a similar fashion.

Our goal is to create an open source tool for those of us that have multiple Internet facing servers to crowd source information that will block attackers via the firewall technology of choice (OpenBSD/FreeBSD pf/pfSense, iptables, others).

Project Page

All project files are still private yet, but when we publish to GitHub or SourceForge, this section will be updated.

Funding

We have published a GoFundMe page to acquire more lab equipment here at gofundme.com/BlockSync

How To Increase ArcSight ESM Command Center GUI Timeout

In the appliance versions of most ArcSight products, there is the ability to set the user session timeout period. Typically this defaults to somewhere between five (5) and 15 minutes – good for a default but incredibly annoying for any real user.  In ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM), there is no such GUI configuration that allows modification of the user session timeout – so this is what has worked for me:

Set ArcSight Command Center (ACC) timeout greater than 900 seconds (15 minutes) – set to 28800 seconds (8 hours)
vi /opt/arcsight/manager/config/server.properties
service.session.timeout=28800
/sbin/service arcsight_services stop all
/sbin/service arcsight_services start all

Default is 600 seconds = 5 minutes.

In 6.5, 6.5.1 and 6.8 you also need to add the following for the Logger interface in ESM:

vi /opt/arcsight/logger/userdata/logger/user/logger/logger.properties
server.search.timeout=28800
/sbin/service arcsight_services stop all
/sbin/service arcsight_services start all

Default is 600 seconds = 5 minutes.

Yes, eight (8) hours may seem like a long time, so chose what is appropriate for your site.  🙂

Installation notes for Logger 6 on CentOS

[Update 2016/04/15]:  Installing Logger 6.2 on CentOS 7.1

CentOS (or RHEL) 7 changed a number of things in the OS for command and control, such as the facility to control services – for example, rather than “service” the command is now “systemctl”.  Below I outline a “quickstart” way to get HPE ArcSight Logger 6.2 installed on CentOS 7.1 (minimal distribution). Of course you want to read the Logger Installation Guide, Chapter 3 “Installing Software Logger on Linux” for the complete instructions and be sure you understand the commands I suggest below before you run them. No warranties here, just suggestions.  😉

  1. Do a base install of CentOS (or RHEL) 7.1, minimal packages.  I often suggest adding in Compatibility Libraries, however for this Logger 6.2 install, I just used the base install.  Ensure /tmp has at least 5GB of free space and /opt/arcsight has at least 50GB of usable space – I’d suggest going with at least:
    • /boot – 500MB
    • / – 8GB+
    • swap – 6GB+
    • /opt – 85GB+
  2. Ensure some needed (and helpful) utilities are installed, since the minimal distribution does not include these and unfortunately the Logger install script just assumes they are there .. if they aren’t, the install will eventually fail (such as no unzip binary).
    • yum install -y bind-utils pciutils tzdata zip unzip
    • Unlike my ESM install, for Logger, I left SELinux enabled and things appear to be working alright, but your mileage may vary.  If in doubt, disable it and try again.  To disable, edit /etc/selinux/config and set the mode to “disable” (or at least to “permissive”)
    • Disable the netfilter firewall (again, at some point I’ll update this with the rules needed to leave netfilter enabled).
    • systemctl disable firewalld; systemctl mask firewalld
    • Install and configure NTP
    • yum install -y ntpdate ntp
    • (optionally edit /etc/ntp.conf to select the NTP servers you want your new Logger system to use)
    • systemctl enable ntpd; systemctl start ntpd
    • Edit /etc/rsyslog.conf and enable forwarding of syslog events to your friendly neighborhood syslog SmartConnector (optional, but otherwise how do you monitor your Logger installation?) .. you can typically just uncomment the log handling statements at the bottom of the file and fill in your syslog SmartConnector hostname or IP address. Note the forward statement I use only has a single at sign – indicating UDP versus TCP designated by two at signs:
    • $ActionQueueFileName fwdRule1 # unique name prefix for spool files
      $ActionQueueMaxDiskSpace 1g # 1gb space limit (use as much as possible)
      $ActionQueueSaveOnShutdown on # save messages to disk on shutdown
      $ActionQueueType LinkedList # run asynchronously
      $ActionResumeRetryCount -1 # infinite retries if host is down
      # remote host is: name/ip:port, e.g. 192.168.0.1:514, port optional
      #*.* @@remote-host:514
      *.* @10.10.10.5:514
    • Restart rsyslog after updating the conf file
    • systemctl restart rsyslog
    • Optionally add some packages that support trouble shooting or other non-Logger functions you run on the Logger server, such as system monitoring
    • yum install -y mailx tcpdump
  3. Update the maximum number of processes and open files our Logger software can use:
    Backup the current settings:
    cp /etc/security/limits.d/20-nproc.conf /etc/security/limits.d/20-nproc.conf.orig
    Drop in new config file (assuming you have copy/pasted the following settings into /root/20-nproc.conf):
    cp 20-nproc.conf /etc/security/limits.d/20-nproc.confContents of the /etc/security/limits.d/20-nproc.conf file becomes:
    # Default limit for number of user's processes to prevent
    # accidental fork bombs.
    # See rhbz #432903 for reasoning.
    * soft nproc 10240
    * hard nproc 10240
    * soft nofile 65536
    * hard nofile 65536
    root soft nproc unlimited

    Reboot to enable the new settings.
  4. Add an unprivileged user “arcsight” to own the application and run as:
    groupadd -g 1000 arcsight
    useradd -u 1000 -g 1000 -d /home/arcsight -m -c "ArcSight" arcsight
    passwd arcsight
  5. Ensure the *parent* directory for the Logger software exists. Standard locations for installation of ArcSight products should be /opt/arcsight, so for example, we’re going to install our Logger software at /opt/arcsight/logger.
    cd /opt
    mkdir /opt/arcsight
  6. Run the Logger installation binary as “root” user
    • ./ArcSight-logger-6.2.0.7633.0.bin
  7. After the installation script completes successfully, you should be able to login to the console via a web browser https://<hostname>
    Default username “admin” with default password “password”. You’ll be forced to change the admin password on login.
  8. If you are going to install any SmartConnectors on the system hosting your Logger, check out my post regarding required libraries for CentOS and RedHat, before you try to run the Linux SmartConnector install. This includes any Model Import Connectors (MIC) or forwarding connectors (SuperConnectors).

 

[Update 2016/03/11]: Starting with SmartConnector 7.1.7 (I think, might be a rev or two earlier), there are a couple more libraries that are needed to successfully install the SmartConnector on Linux. Include libXrender.i686 libXrender.x86_64 libgcc.i686 libgcc.x86_64
yum install libXrender.i686 libXrender.x86_64 libgcc.i686 libgcc.x86_64

These notes describe an installation of HP ArcSight Logger 6.0.1 on a CentOS 6.5 virtual machine.

For a test install of Logger 6, I built a CentOS vm with the following parameters:
Basic install from the CentOS 6.5 Minimum ISO
1 CPU with 2 cores
4GB memory
80GB virtual disk
1 bridged network adapter
Disk partition sizes:
root fs 6GB, swap 4GB, /home 2GB, /opt/arcsight 50GB, /archive 10GB, free space approximately 15GB

As soon as the system was up, I commented out the archive filesystem (will be re-mounted under the /opt/arcsight/logger directory)
vi /etc/fstab

Installed the bind-utils package so I could use dig and friends, then did a full yum update:
yum install bind-utils ntp
yum update

This turns the system into CentOS 6.6, but that’s still a supported system for Logger, so all’s good.

Next we prepare the system for Logger software install by adding a user and changing some of the system configuration.

Add a non-root user to own and run the Logger application:
groupadd -g 1000 arcsight
useradd -u 1000 -g 1000 -d /home/arcsight -m -c "ArcSight" arcsight
passwd arcsight

Install libraries that Logger depends on:
yum install glibc.i686 libX11.i686 libXext.i686 libXi.i686 libXtst.i686
yum install zip unzip

Update the maximum number of processes and open files our Logger processes can have:
cp 90-nproc.conf /etc/security/limits.d/90-nproc.conf

Contents of the /etc/security/limits.d/90-nproc.conf file becomes:
# Default limit for number of user's processes to prevent
# accidental fork bombs.
# See rhbz #432903 for reasoning.
*          soft    nproc     10240
*          hard    nproc     10240
*          soft    nofile    65536
*          hard    nofile    65536
root       soft    nproc     unlimited

Turn off services we don’t need and turn on the ones we do need. Later we will write some iptables rules so we can turn the firewall back on when we’re done.

chkconfig iptables off
service iptables stop
chkconfig iscsi off
service iscsi stop
chkconfig iscsid off
service iscsid stop
ntpdate name-of-ntp-server-you-trust
chkconfig ntpd on
service ntpd start

All of these steps are packaged up here in centos-setup.shl:
groupadd -g 1000 arcsight
useradd -u 1000 -g 1000 -d /home/arcsight -m -c "ArcSight" arcsight
passwd arcsight
cp 90-nproc.conf /etc/security/limits.d/90-nproc.conf
yum install glibc.i686 libX11.i686 libXext.i686 libXi.i686 libXtst.i686
yum install zip unzip
chkconfig iptables off
service iptables stop
chkconfig iscsi off
service iscsi stop
chkconfig iscsid off
service iscsid stop
ntpdate 0.centos.pool.ntp.org
chkconfig ntpd on
service ntpd start

Turns out since we need 3+GB of free space in /tmp, I needed to extend the root filesystem .. I only allocated 2GB to begin with. Extend the root logical volume (lv_root) by adding 1,000 Physical Extents (4MB each):

Boot into rescue mode .. do NOT mount linux partitions, then drop to a shell

vgs
vgchange -a y vg_swlogger1
lvextend -l +1000 /dev/vg_swlogger1/lv_root
e2fsck -f /dev/vg_swlogger1/lv_root
resize2fs /dev/vg_swlogger1/lv_root

Now reboot and confirm there is at least 4GB of free space in /tmp. Could also have mounted a ram filesystem, but this will do as I’m conserving my memory on the host.

Upload the Logger installer binary and also the license file to the system into root’s home directory (or where you have space).

As root, run the Logger software install:
chmod u+x ArcSight-logger-6.0.0.7307.1.bin
./ArcSight-logger-6.0.0.7307.1.bin

Word of advice .. if doing this in a vm, run the install from the vm console since it’s possible the vm will be busy enough a remote ssh session could get disconnected – and the install will not complete properly.

After the install, we should be able to open a browser by navigating to https://name-of-vm-here

Sign in as arcsight / password then navigate to the System Administration section to change the admin password.

Outbound network traffic with multiple interfaces

Why does Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 invalidate / discard packets when the route for outbound traffic differs from the route of incoming traffic?

Issue Description
Why does Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 invalidate / discard packets when the route for outbound traffic differs from the route of incoming traffic?
Why does Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 differ from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in handling asymmetrically routed packets?

Solution posted at access.redhat.com/site/solutions/53031

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6 Resolution

Temporary change
To accept asymmetrically routed (outgoing routes and incoming routes are different) packets set “rp_filter” to 2 and restart networking, by running the following commands:

echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/rp_filter
echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/rp_filter

Persistent change
To make this behaviour persistent across reboots, modify /etc/sysctl.conf and make the following change prior to reboot:

net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter = 2

Root Cause

RHEL6 (unlike RHEL5) defaults to using ‘Strict’ Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) filtering.

Comments
The sysctl net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter selects the default RPF filtering setting for IPv4 networking. (It can be overridden per network interface through net.ipv4.interfacename.rp_filter).

Both RHEL6 and RHEL5 ship with a default /etc/sysctl.conf that sets this sysctl to 1, but the meaning of this value is different between the RHEL6 and the RHEL5 kernel.

Libraries needed to install ArcSight SmartConnectors on RedHat Enterprise Linux and CentOS

[Update 2016/03/11]:

Starting with SmartConnector 7.1.7 (I think, might be a rev or two earlier), there are a couple more libraries that are needed to successfully install the SmartConnector on Linux. Include libXrender.i686 libXrender.x86_64 libgcc.i686 libgcc.x86_64
yum install libXrender.i686 libXrender.x86_64 libgcc.i686 libgcc.x86_64

[Update 2014/02/04]:
Simpler syntax for the install, using yum to do the automatic dependency processing, and .. a update for CentOS 6.4 64-bit. I believe RHEL 6.4 64-bit would also need these libraries. This worked for installing ArcSight SmartConnector 6.0.7 on CentOS 6.4 64-bit.

glibc.i686
libX11.i686
libXext.i686
libXi.i686
libXtst.i686

You could install like:
yum install glibc.i686 libX11.i686 libXext.i686 libXi.i686 libXtst.i686

[Original post]
While installing an ArcSight SmartConnector 6.0.2 on RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.2 64-bit, the initial install runs successfully, however the connector configuration never kicks off, then install just claims it is done. runagentsetup.sh fails with Error occurred during initialization of VM .. java/lang/NoClassDefFoundError: java/lang/Object .. obviously a pretty major Java error.

Turns out there are some additional libraries that need to be loaded in addition to what is listed in the documentation.

Some research leads me to believe there were some base libraries that may be missing from the vanilla RHEL 6.2 64 bit install. Basic Server + Desktop configuration was selected and all libraries referenced in the ESM 6.0c Install Guide and SmartConnector User Guide were installed. Tracing through all the dependencies created this exact list of of libraries that are required to be installed on RHEL 6.2 64 bit:

glibc-2.12-1.47.el6.i686.rpm
glibc-2.12-1.47.el6.x86_64.rpm
glibc-common-2.12-1.47.el6.x86_64.rpm
libX11-1.3-2.el6.i686.rpm
libX11-1.3-2.el6.x86_64.rpm
libX11-common-1.3-2.el6.noarch.rpm
libXau-1.0.5-1.el6.i686.rpm
libXau-1.0.5-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
libxcb-1.5-1.el6.i686.rpm
libxcb-1.5-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
libXext-1.1-3.el6.i686.rpm
libXext-1.1-3.el6.x86_64.rpm
libXi-1.3-3.el6.i686.rpm
libXi-1.3-3.el6.x86_64.rpm
libXtst-1.0.99.2-3.el6.i686.rpm
libXtst-1.0.99.2-3.el6.x86_64.rpm
nss-softokn-freebl-3.12.9-11.el6.i686.rpm
nss-softokn-freebl-3.12.9-11.el6.x86_64.rpm

Note the specific X libraries versus the generic list as shown in the connector user guide. What was interesting about these is that they did NOT all install when doing a wildcard rpm install, and additionally did not report any failures. After some trial and error, on my system it appears the 32 bit X libraries needed to be installed individually for some reason. You may want to use rpm -q -a to verify each of the libraries successfully installed. Once all the above libraries were installed, the connector installation worked as expected.

A tarball with the libraries can be downloaded from here.

Extract the libraries, change into the resulting directory, then you can use the following brute force syntax to determine which libraries are not installed and install them:

rpm -ivh `ls | while read rpmfile; do rpm -q \`basename $rpmfile .rpm\`; done | egrep 'not installed' | awk '{print $2}' | xargs`

Seagate Disk Replacement and RAID1 mdadm Commands

So I’ve had to replace a Seagate disk yet again and spent a frustrating amount of time on their website looking for a link to their warrenty replacement page >> http://www.seagate.com/support/warranty-and-replacements/

At least this time, I’m using Linux software RAID for a RAID1 mirroring configuration. When I determined there was a disk failure, I used the following mdadm commands to remove the bad drive:

# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
md0 : active raid1 sda1[0](F) sdb1[2]
5139084 blocks [2/1] [U_]
md1 : active raid1 sda2[0](F) sdb2[2]
9841585344 blocks [2/1] [U_]
unused devices:

– Fail and remove all /dev/sdb partitions (/dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2)
# mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --fail /dev/sdb1
mdadm: set /dev/sdb1 faulty in /dev/md0
# mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --remove /dev/sdb1
mdadm: hot removed /dev/sdb1
# mdadm --manage /dev/md1 --fail /dev/sdb3
mdadm: set /dev/sdb3 faulty in /dev/md1
# mdadm --manage /dev/md1 --remove /dev/sdb3
mdadm: hot removed /dev/sdb3

– Shutdown and replace the bad disk (assuming you have been able to replace with the exact disk)
– Copy the partition table from the surviving disk
# sfdisk -d /dev/sda | sfdisk /dev/sdb

– Re-attach the partitions from /dev/sdb to the RAID1 mirrors:
# mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --add /dev/sdb1
# mdadm --manage /dev/md1 --add /dev/sdb2

You should now see the md devices syncing up by:
# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
md0 : active raid1 sda1[1] sdb1[2]
5139084 blocks [2/1] [U_]
[======>.......] recovery = 49.3% ...

Once the sync completes, install grub on both the drives again:
# grub
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> root (hd1,0)
grub> setup (hd1)

Great reference pages:
http://serverfault.com/questions/483141/mdadm-raid-1-grub-only-on-sda
https://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/jamest/2011/07/26/software-raid1-plus-grub-drive-replacement/

Unix, Linux and Mac OS X Notes

Here’s some notable command syntax I use. You can also select the Notes category and you’ll get more specific topics such as Linux LVM and Mac OS X commands.

rsyslog options

Forward syslog events to external host via UDP:
– edit /etc/rsyslog.conf .. add a stanza like the example at the end of the file .. a single @ = UDP forward, @@ = TCP forward

$WorkDirectory /var/lib/rsyslog # where to place spool files
$ActionQueueFileName fwdRule1 # unique name prefix for spool files
$ActionQueueMaxDiskSpace 1g # 1gb space limit (use as much as possible)
$ActionQueueSaveOnShutdown on # save messages to disk on shutdown
$ActionQueueType LinkedList # run asynchronously
$ActionResumeRetryCount -1 # infinite retries if host is down
# remote host is: name/ip:port, e.g. 192.168.0.1:514, port optional
*.* @10.0.0.45:514

– restart the rsyslog daemon
systemctl restart rsyslog.service
or
service rsyslog restart

Mac OS X syslog to remote syslog server

Forward syslog events on Mac OS X 10.11 to external syslog server via UDP or TCP:
– edit /etc/syslog.conf .. add a line at the end of the file .. a single @ = UDP forward, @@ = TCP forward

*.* @10.0.0.45:514
# remote host is: name or ip:port, e.g. 10.0.0.45:514, port optional

– restart the OS X syslog daemon
sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist

Write ISO image to USB on Mac

– plug in USB to Mac
– lookup disk number
sudo diskutil list
– unmount the USB
sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
– copy ISO image to USB
sudo dd if=CentOS.iso of=/dev/disk2

NIC MAC change

Changing MAC address of NIC
– RedHat stores this in: /etc/sysconfig
networking/devices/ifcfg-eth?
networking/profiles/default/ifcfg-eth?
hwconf
You need to edit the hwaddr in /etc/sysconfig/hwconf and HWADDR in the other locations (some are links).

ssh tunneling of syslog traffic

– Example SSH configuration for tunneling a syslog TCP stream from a remote server back to a local node:

Remote node has TCP client process (rsyslog) running, we want it to write to a local TCP port (15514/tcp), and have that local port forward to the local node we have initiated the ssh connection from to a syslog daemon listening on port 1514/tcp:

Remote node rsyslog.conf:
@@localhost:15514

Event flow is through ssh on the remote node, listening on 15514/tcp and forwarding to the local node via ssh tunnel launched on the local node:
$ ssh -R 15514:localhost:1514 remotehostusername@remote.hostname.domain

To complete the picture, we probably want some sort of process on the local node to detect when the ssh connection has been lost and (1) re-establish the ssh connection, (2) restart rsyslog on the remote host to re-establish the connection from the remote rsyslog daemon to the ssh listener on port 15514/tcp.

YUM Software Repository

– Manually add DVD location/repository by:

35.3.1.2. Using a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation DVD as a Software Repository

To use a Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation DVD as a software repository, either in the form of a physical disc, or in the form of an ISO image file.

1. Create a mount point for the repository:
mkdir -p /path/to/repo

Where /path/to/repo is a location for the repository, for example, /mnt/repo. Mount the DVD on the mount point that you just created. If you are using a physical disc, you need to know the device name of your DVD drive. You can find the names of any CD or DVD drives on your system with the command cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info. The first CD or DVD drive on the system is typically named sr0. When you know the device name, mount the DVD:
mount -r -t iso9660 /dev/device_name /path/to/repo
For example: mount -r -t iso9660 /dev/sr0 /mnt/repo

If you are using an ISO image file of a disc, mount the image file like this:
mount -r -t iso9660 -o loop /path/to/image/file.iso /path/to/repo
For example: mount -r -o loop /home/root/Downloads/RHEL6-Server-i386-DVD.iso /mnt/repo

Note that you can only mount an image file if the storage device that holds the image file is itself mounted. For example, if the image file is stored on a hard drive that is not mounted automatically when the system boots, you must mount the hard drive before you mount an image file stored on that hard drive. Consider a hard drive named /dev/sdb that is not automatically mounted at boot time and which has an image file stored in a directory named Downloads on its first partition:

mkdir /mnt/temp
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/temp
mkdir /mnt/repo
mount -r -t iso9660 -o loop mount -r -o loop /mnt/temp/Downloads/RHEL6-Server-i386-DVD.iso /mnt/repo

2. Create a new repo file in the /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory:
The name of the file is not important, as long as it ends in .repo. For example, dvd.repo is an obvious choice. Choose a name for the repo file and open it as a new file with the vi text editor. For example:

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/dvd.repo

[dvd]
baseurl=file:///mnt/repo/Server
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release

The name of the repository is specified in square brackets — in this example, [dvd]. The name is not important, but you should choose something that is meaningful and recognizable. The line that specifies the baseurl should contain the path to the mount point that you created previously, suffixed with /Server for a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server installation DVD, or with /Client for a Red Hat Enterprise Linux client installation DVD. NOTE: After installing or upgrading software from the DVD, delete the repo file that you created to get updates from the online sources.

IP Networking

– Manually add IPv4 alias to interface by:
ip addr add 192.168.0.30/24 dev eth4
– Manually remove that IPv4 alias to interface by (note the subnet mask):
ip addr del 192.168.0.30/32 dev eth4
– Manually add route for specific host:
route add -host 45.56.119.201 gw 10.20.1.5

pcap files

– Split large pcap file by using command line tool that comes with Wireshark editcap:
editcap -c 10000 infile.pcap outfile.pcap

tcpdump options

Display only packets with SYN flag set (for host 10.10.1.1 and NOT port 80):
tcpdump 'host 10.10.1.1  &&  tcp[13]&0x02 = 2  &&  !port 80'

Mac OS X (10.7)

sudo /usr/sbin/sysctl -w net.inet.ip.fw.enable=1
sudo /sbin/ipfw -q /etc/firewall.conf
sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr 00:1e:c2:0f:86:10
sudo ifconfig en1 alias 192.168.0.10 netmask 255.255.255.0
sudo ifconfig en1 -alias 192.168.0.10
sudo route add -net 10.2.1.0/24 10.3.1.1

rpm commands:

List files in an rpm file
rpm -qlp package-name.rpm

List files associated with an already installed package
rpm --query –-filesbypkg package-name
How do I find out what rpm provides a file?
yum whatprovides '*bin/grep'
Returns the package that supplies the file, but the repoquery tool (in the yum-utils package) is faster and provides more output as well as do other queries such as listing package contents, dependencies, reverse-dependencies.

sed commands:

Remove specific patterns (delete or remove blank lines):
sed '/^$/d'
sed command matching multiple line pattern (a single log line got split into two lines, the second line beginning with a space):
cat syslog3.txt | sed 'N;s/\n / /' > syslog3a.txt
– matches the end of line (\n) and space at the beginning of the next line, then removes the newline

awk commands:

Print out key value pairs KVP separated by =:
awk /SRC=/ RS=" "
Print out source IP for all iptables entries that contain the keyword recent:
cat /var/log/iptables.log | egrep recent | awk /SRC=/ RS=" " | sort | uniq
Sum column one in a file, giving the average (where NR is the automatically computed number of lines in the file):
./packet_parser analyzer_data.pcap | awk '{print $5}' | sed -e 's/length=//g' | awk 'BEGIN {sum=0} { sum+=$1 } END { print sum/NR }'
Find the number of tabs per line – used to do a sanity check on tab delimited input files
awk -F$'\t' '{print NF-1;}' file | sort -u

sort by some mid-line column

I wanted to sort by the sub-facility message name internal to the dovecot messages, so found the default behavior of sorting by space delimited columns works.

sort -k6 refers to the sixth column with the default delimiter as space.
sort -tx -k1.20,1.25 is an alternative, where ‘x’ is a delimiter character that does not appear anywhere in the line, and character position 20 is the start of the sort key and character position 25 is the end of the sort key.

This sorts by the bold column:
$ sort -k6 dovecot.txt
Oct 7 09:09:31 server1 dovecot: auth: mysql: Connected to 10.30.132.15 (db1)
Oct 7 09:34:03 server1 dovecot: auth: sql(user1@example.com,10.30.132.15): Password mismatch
Oct 7 09:33:36 server1 dovecot: auth: sql(someuser@example.com,10.30.132.15): unknown user
Oct 7 09:15:27 server1 dovecot: imap(user1@example.com): Disconnected for inactivity bytes=946/215256
Oct 7 09:21:11 server1 dovecot: imap(user2@example2.com): Disconnected: Logged out bytes=120/12718

dos2unix equivalent with tr

tr -d '\15\32' < windows-file.csv > unix-file.csv

Fedora 16 biosdevname

– Fedora 16 includes a package called “biosdevname” that sets up strange network port names (p3p1 versus eth0) .. since I don’t particilarly care if my ethernet adapter(s) is(are) in a particular PCI slot, remove this nonsense by:

yum erase biosdevname

– to take total control of network interfaces back over (edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth?)

– remove NetworkManager

yum erase NetworkManager
chkconfig network on

WordPress notes for pomeroy.us

Production site is www.pomeroy.us
Development site is dev.pomeroy.us

Assumptions:
– webserver root directory is /var/web
– production node is called prod
– development node is called dev
– WordPress database is called wpdb

Procedure to copy production WordPress instance to the development node:
1. Copy webserver www root dir via a tarball
tar czf prod-20110808.tgz /var/web

2. Dump the WordPress database to a MySQL dmp file:
mysqldump -u$mysqluser -p$mysqlpass wpdb | \
 gzip -c > prod-20110808.dmp.gz

3. Copy these two backup files to the dev node:
scp prod-20110808* user@dev:.

On the development node:
4. Unpack the webserver tarball:
mv /var/web /var/web.previous
cd /
tar xzvf prod-20110808.tgz

5. Drop the WordPress database and restore the new version:
mysql> drop database wpdb;
mysql> create database wpdp;
$ gunzip prod-20110808.dmp.gz
$ mysql -u$mysqluser -p wpdb < prod-20110808.dmp

6. Update the WordPress 'siteurl' and 'home' options to point to the development node:
update wp_options set option_value='http://dev.pomeroy.us' where option_name='siteurl';
update wp_options set option_value='http://dev.pomeroy.us' where option_name='home';

Should be all done!

Building a new PVR

<Updated Aug 18, 2011 after a successful PVR rollout>

Technology has evolved since the last MythTV PVR I built, as chronicled here.  Here’s the latest techniques and tech that I’ve used to (start) build(ing) my current PVR. I’ll update this article as I go, as there’s been some bumps along the way, so completion of the project has been slower than I anticipated.

Requirements for my new PVR include:

  • Linux operating system for cost and flexibility reasons
  • Quiet! Fan-less operation if at all possible, external power supply ok
  • Small form factor, black case to fit in with my current home theater gear
  • Video capture with MPEG-2 hardware acceleration to help keep the CPU needed as small as possible, in an expansion card format for the most compact physical footprint .. additionally there must be at least two independent tuners
  • Analog tuners, but would be good if they were capable of digital for when I eventually move to digital/HD
  • IR receiver and transmitter capability for easy remote control and ability of the PVR to use my current set-top box as a source (gives me all the cable company movies and channels that are not available via the basic cable connection
  • Ability to schedule at least 10 shows and retain 5 episodes of each show .. also ability to schedule based on show name alone
  • Ability to perform post-recording processing, such as removing commercials or changing formats
  • Should be able to use a pre-packaged distribution for most if not all of the functions .. I know it’s a home-brew, but I’m tired of messing with individual packages, firmware, and custom codes to make it work. Using a distribution package makes it easier to maintain through updates.
  • Want to purchase the parts from the same supplier if possible (ended up using newegg.ca)

Since I already run MythTV, it was an obvious starting point and given I don’t have an affinity to a specific Linux distribution, I looked at Mythbuntu and Mythdora since I’m familiar with and already run both Ubuntu and Fedora distributions.

After downloading the Mythbuntu 10.10 ISO disk image, I discovered I didn’t have my USB DVD drive, so I wanted to create a bootable USB flash disk.  I followed the excellent instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick and successfully burned a bootable Mythbuntu disk on a 2GB USB flash disk via a Ubuntu VM running on my MacBook Pro.


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