NAME¶

stenoread - read logs out of Stenographer

SYNOPSIS¶

stenoread <stenographer_query> [tcpdump_arguments]

DESCRIPTION¶

The stenoread command line script automates pulling packets from Stenographer and presenting them in a usable format to analysts. It requests raw packets from stenographer, then runs them through tcpdump to provide a more full-featured formatting/filtering experience.

The first argument to stenoread is a stenographer query (see below). All other arguments are passed to tcpdump. For example:

        # Request all packets from IP 1.2.3.4 port 6543, then do extra filtering by


        # TCP flag, which typical stenographer does not support.


        $ stenoread 'host 1.2.3.4 and port 6543' 'tcp[tcpflags] & tcp-push != 0'


        # Request packets on port 8765, disabling IP resolution (-n) and showing


        # link-level headers (-e) when printing them out.


        $ stenoread 'port 8765' -n -e


        # Request packets for any IPs in the range 1.1.1.0-1.1.1.255, writing them


        #out to a local PCAP file so they can be opened in Wireshark.


        $ stenoread 'net 1.1.1.0/24' -w /tmp/output_for_wireshark.pcap

QUERY LANGUAGE¶

A user requests packets from stenographer by specifying them with a very simple query language. This language is a simple subset of BPF, and includes the primitives:

        host 8.8.8.8          # Single IP address (hostnames not allowed)


        net 1.0.0.0/8         # Network with CIDR


        net 1.0.0.0 mask 255.255.255.0  # Network with mask


        port 80               # Port number (UDP or TCP)


        ip proto 6            # IP protocol number 6


        icmp                  # equivalent to 'ip proto 1'


        tcp                   # equivalent to 'ip proto 6'


        udp                   # equivalent to 'ip proto 17'


        # Stenographer-specific time additions:


        before 2012-11-03T11:05:00Z      # Packets before a specific time (UTC)


        after 2012-11-03T11:05:00-0700   # Packets after a specific time (with TZ)


        before 45m ago        # Packets before a relative time


        before 3h ago         # Packets after a relative time

        (udp and port 514) or (tcp and port 8080)

ENVIRONMENT¶

Set the STENOGRAPHER_CONFIG environmental variable to point to your stenographer config if it's in a nonstandard place (defaults to /etc/stenographer/config).