.TH BRO "8" "November 2014" "bro" "System Administration Utilities"
.SH NAME
bro \- passive network traffic analyzer
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B bro
\/\fP [\fIoptions\fR] [\fIfile\fR ...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
Bro is primarily a security monitor that inspects all traffic on a link in
depth for signs of suspicious activity. More generally, however, Bro
supports a wide range of traffic analysis tasks even outside of the
security domain, including performance measurements and helping with
trouble-shooting.

Bro comes with built-in functionality for a range of analysis and detection
tasks, including detecting malware by interfacing to external registries,
reporting vulnerable versions of software seen on the network, identifying
popular web applications, detecting SSH brute-forcing, validating SSL
certificate chains, among others.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B <file>
policy file, or read stdin
.TP
\fB\-a\fR,\ \-\-parse\-only
exit immediately after parsing scripts
.TP
\fB\-b\fR,\ \-\-bare\-mode
don't load scripts from the base/ directory
.TP
\fB\-d\fR,\ \-\-debug\-policy
activate policy file debugging
.TP
\fB\-e\fR,\ \-\-exec <bro code>
augment loaded policies by given code
.TP
\fB\-f\fR,\ \-\-filter <filter>
tcpdump filter
.TP
\fB\-g\fR,\ \-\-dump\-config
dump current config into .state dir
.TP
\fB\-h\fR,\ \-\-help|\-?
command line help
.TP
\fB\-i\fR,\ \-\-iface <interface>
read from given interface
.TP
\fB\-p\fR,\ \-\-prefix <prefix>
add given prefix to policy file resolution
.TP
\fB\-r\fR,\ \-\-readfile <readfile>
read from given tcpdump file
.TP
\fB\-s\fR,\ \-\-rulefile <rulefile>
read rules from given file
.TP
\fB\-t\fR,\ \-\-tracefile <tracefile>
activate execution tracing
.TP
\fB\-w\fR,\ \-\-writefile <writefile>
write to given tcpdump file
.TP
\fB\-v\fR,\ \-\-version
print version and exit
.TP
\fB\-x\fR,\ \-\-print\-state <file.bst>
print contents of state file
.TP
\fB\-C\fR,\ \-\-no\-checksums
ignore checksums
.TP
\fB\-F\fR,\ \-\-force\-dns
force DNS
.TP
\fB\-I\fR,\ \-\-print\-id <ID name>
print out given ID
.TP
\fB\-N\fR,\ \-\-print\-plugins
print available plugins and exit (\fB\-NN\fR for verbose)
.TP
\fB\-P\fR,\ \-\-prime\-dns
prime DNS
.TP
\fB\-Q\fR,\ \-\-time
print execution time summary to stderr
.TP
\fB\-R\fR,\ \-\-replay <events.bst>
replay events
.TP
\fB\-S\fR,\ \-\-debug\-rules
enable rule debugging
.TP
\fB\-T\fR,\ \-\-re\-level <level>
set 'RE_level' for rules
.TP
\fB\-U\fR,\ \-\-status\-file <file>
Record process status in file
.TP
\fB\-W\fR,\ \-\-watchdog
activate watchdog timer
.TP
\fB\-X\fR,\ \-\-broxygen <cfgfile>
generate documentation based on config file
.TP
\fB\-\-pseudo\-realtime[=\fR<speedup>]
enable pseudo\-realtime for performance evaluation (default 1)
.TP
\fB\-\-load\-seeds\fR <file>
load seeds from given file
.TP
\fB\-\-save\-seeds\fR <file>
save seeds to given file
.TP
The following option is available only when Bro is built with the \-\-enable\-debug configure option:
.TP
\fB\-B\fR,\ \-\-debug <dbgstreams>
Enable debugging output for selected streams ('-B help' for help)
.TP
The following options are available only when Bro is built with gperftools support (use the \-\-enable\-perftools and \-\-enable\-perftools\-debug configure options):
.TP
\fB\-m\fR,\ \-\-mem-leaks
show leaks
.TP
\fB\-M\fR,\ \-\-mem-profile
record heap
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B BROPATH
file search path
.TP
.B BRO_PLUGIN_PATH
plugin search path
.TP
.B BRO_PLUGIN_ACTIVATE
plugins to always activate
.TP
.B BRO_PREFIXES
prefix list
.TP
.B BRO_DNS_FAKE
disable DNS lookups
.TP
.B BRO_SEED_FILE
file to load seeds from
.TP
.B BRO_LOG_SUFFIX
ASCII log file extension
.TP
.B BRO_PROFILER_FILE
Output file for script execution statistics
.TP
.B BRO_DISABLE_BROXYGEN
Disable Broxygen documentation support
.SH AUTHOR
.B bro
was written by The Bro Project <info@bro.org>.