Suricata - wildcard rule loading

Recently (few hrs ago as of writing this blog) there was  a new feature (thanks to gozzy) introduced in Suricata IDS/IPS/NSM  - wildcard rule loading capability.

As of the moment the feature is available in our git master. If you are wondering how to get that up and running or do not have the latest Suricata from git master - here is a quick tutorial (Debian/Ubuntu):

1)

apt-get -y install libpcre3 libpcre3-dbg libpcre3-dev build-essential \
autoconf automake libtool libpcap-dev libnet1-dev libyaml-0-2 \
libyaml-dev zlib1g zlib1g-dev libmagic-dev libcap-ng-dev \
libjansson-dev pkg-config libnss3-dev libnspr4-dev git-core

2)

git clone git://phalanx.openinfosecfoundation.org/oisf.git && cd oisf/ &&  git clone https://github.com/ironbee/libhtp.git -b 0.5.x

3)

 ./autogen.sh && \
 ./configure --prefix=/usr/ --sysconfdir=/etc/ --localstatedir=/var/ \
 --enable-geoip --enable-unix-socket \
 --with-libnss-libraries=/usr/lib --with-libnss-includes=/usr/include/nss/ \
 --with-libnspr-libraries=/usr/lib --with-libnspr-includes=/usr/include/nspr \
 && make clean && make && make install-full && ldconfig

To confirm -

suricata --build-info

Now that you have latest Suricta up and running - here it is what this blog post is all about  - wildcard rule loading for Suricata IDPS. Some possible scenarios of use are loading wildcarded rules form the :

Command line

Please note the "quotes" !

suricata -c /etc/suricata/suricata.yaml  -v -i eth0 -S "/etc/suricata/rules/*.rules"

Pretty self explanatory. The command above will load all .rules files from /etc/suricata/rules/

suricata -c /etc/suricata/suricata.yaml  -v -i eth0 -S "/etc/suricata/rules/emerging*"

The command above will load all emerging* rules files from /etc/suricata/rules/

Config file

You can also set that up in the suricata.yaml config file. Here is how (please note the "quotes").

In your rules section in the suricata.yaml:

# Set the default rule path here to search for the files.
# if not set, it will look at the current working dir
default-rule-path: /etc/suricata/rules
rule-files:
 #- "*.rules"
 - "emerging*"
 #- botcc.rules
 #- ciarmy.rules
 #- compromised.rules
 #- drop.rules
 #- dshield.rules
 #- emerging-activex.rules
 #- emerging-attack_response.rules

The set up above will load all emerging* files and the rules residing in those. Then you can start Suricata anyway you would like, examples:

suricata -c /etc/suricata/suricata.yaml  -v -i eth0

suricata -c /etc/suricata/suricata.yaml  -v --af-packet=eth0

 and in suricata.log you should see all emerging* rule files being loaded:

......
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (reputation.c:620) <Info> (SRepInit) -- IP reputation disabled
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-activex.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-attack_response.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-chat.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-current_events.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-deleted.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:420) <Warning> (ProcessSigFiles) -- [ERRCODE: SC_ERR_NO_RULES(42)] - No rules loaded from /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-deleted.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-dns.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-dos.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-exploit.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-ftp.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-games.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-icmp.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:420) <Warning> (ProcessSigFiles) -- [ERRCODE: SC_ERR_NO_RULES(42)] - No rules loaded from /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-icmp.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-icmp_info.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-imap.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-inappropriate.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-info.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:39 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-malware.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-misc.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-mobile_malware.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-netbios.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-p2p.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-policy.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-pop3.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-rpc.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-scada.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-scan.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-shellcode.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-smtp.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-snmp.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-sql.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-telnet.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-tftp.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:40 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-trojan.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:41 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-user_agents.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:41 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-voip.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:41 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-web_client.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:41 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-web_server.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:41 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-web_specific_apps.rules
[13558] 22/5/2015 -- 17:19:43 - (detect.c:410) <Info> (ProcessSigFiles) -- Loading rule file: /etc/suricata/rules/emerging-worm.rules
.......

You can also use it like that :

# Set the default rule path here to search for the files.
# if not set, it will look at the current working dir
default-rule-path: /etc/suricata/rules
rule-files:
 #- "*.rules"
 - "*web*"
 #- "emerging*"
 #- botcc.rules
 #- ciarmy.rules
 #- compromised.rules
 #- drop.rules

That's it.