stealth {--reload,--rerun,--resume,--suspend,--terminate} pidfile
stealth --help --version
The name of the stealth program is an acronym of:
SSH-based Trust Enforcement Acquired through a Locally Trusted Host.stealth is based on an idea by Hans Gankema and Kees Visser, both at the Center for Information Technology of the University of Groningen. Hopko Meijering provided valuable suggestions for improvement.
stealth's main task is to perform file integrity tests. However, the testing itself will leave no sediments on the tested computer. Therefore, stealth has stealthy characteristics. This is considered an important feature, improving the security (integrity) of the software of computers monitored by stealth.
On the other hand, one should realize that stealth intends to be just another security tool: other security measures like firewalls, portscanners, intrusion detection systems, dropping unencrypted protocols, etc. are usually required to improve or promote the security of a group of computers that are connected to the Internet.
stealth uses a policy file to determine the actions to perform. Each policy file is uniquely associated with a host to be tested. This host (called the client below) trusts the computer on which stealth runs, called the controller (hence: a Locally Trusted Host). The controller performs tasks (normally file integrity tests) that Enforce the Trust we have in the client computer. Since almost all integrity tests can be run on the client, one controller can control many clients, even if the controller itself uses aged hard- and software components.
As the controller and the client normally are different computers, the controller must communicate with the client in a secure fashion. This is realized using SSH. So, there's another element of `local trust' involved here: the client should permit the controller to set up a secure SSH connection allowing the controller to access sensitive files and private parts of the client's file system.
It is important to ensure that there is no public access to the controller. All inbound services should be denied. The only access to the controller should be via its console and the controller should be placed in a physically secure location. Sensitive information of clients are stored in the controller, and passwordless access to clients can be obtained from the controller by anyone who gains (root)-access.
The controller itself normally only uses two kinds of outgoing services: SSH to reach its clients, and some mail transport agent (e.g., sendmail(1)) to forward its outgoing mail to some mail-hub.
Here is what happens when stealth is run using the first synopsis:
--daemon pidfile
is specified, stealth
runs as a backgrond process, writing its process id in the file pifile
.
With --repeat <seconds>
the scan is rerun every <seconds>
seconds. The
number of seconds until the next rerun is restricted by stealth to a value of at
least 60. However, using the --rerun pidfile
option a daemon stealth another
integrity scan can be requested after a shorter interval.
When --daemon
is specified the scan is performed just once, whereafter
stealth waits until another integrity scan is requested using the
stealth --rerun pidfile
invokation
-printf
method to produce file-integrity related statistics. Most of
these programs write file names at the end of generated lines. This
characteristic is used by an internal routine of stealth to detect changes in the
generated output, which could indicate some harmful intent, like an installed
root-kit.
--repeat
or --rerun
options are issued, the report
file should not be rotated by, e.g., a log-rotating process, but the report
file may safely be rotated between a pair of --suppress
and --resume
commands.
--terminate
command, rotate
the logfiles, and restart stealth, but stealth also offers a facility to temporarily
suspend integrity scans performed by a stealth daemon process:
--suspend <pidfile>
suspends the
daemon's integrity scans. If stealth is
actually performing a series of integrity scans when
--suspend
is issued, the currently executing command is first
completed after which the --suspend
command completes. Once
the stealth daemon has been suspended, automatic or explicit
integrity scan requests are denied, and the daemon can only be
instructed to resume its scanning tasks (stealth --resume <pidfile>)
or to terminate (stealth --terminate <pidfile>).
--suspend <pidfile>
' has returned, the report file
may safely be rotated (using, e.g., logrotate(1)), and a new
(empty) report file may optionally be created by the logrotation
process.
--resume <pidfile>
'. This
resumes the activities of a suspended stealth daemon process,
immediately performing the next integrity scan. Following this the
stealth daemon is back to its original integrity scanning mode.
/root/stealth/host/report { weekly rotate 12 compress missingok prerotate /usr/bin/stealth --suppress /run/stealth.host endscript postrotate /usr/bin/stealth --resume /run/stealth.host endscript }
Here is what happens when stealth is run using the second synopsis:
--reload <pidfile>
, the stealth daemon process
reloads its policy file and (if specified) --skip-files
specification file. Next the stealth daemon process performs a file
integrity scan using the information in the re-read policy and
skip-files files. Stealth can reload the (modified) contents of the
originally specified policy- and skip-files names. If another policy
and/or skip-files files must be used another stealth process must be
started, for which these new filenames are specified.
--rerun <pidfile>
, the stealth daemon performs
another scan (unless it has been suspended using stealth --suspend
<pidfile>
).
--terminate pidfile
, the stealth daemon is
terminated.
Once stealth is started as a foreground or daemon process performing file integrity scans one one ssh(1) connection is opened to the client. This connection remains active during stealth's lifetime to minimize the number of sshd entries caused by stealth in the client's log files.
The policy file consists of two sections, the second section is optional,
and starts at a line merely containing %%
.
The policy file's first section consists of two sets of data: use directives (starting with the keyword USE) and commands. Blank lines and information beyond hash-marks (#) are ignored, while lines following lines terminating in backslashes (\) are concatenated (en passant removing these trailing backslashes). Initial white space on lines of the policy file is ignored.
The (optional) second section starts at a line merely containing
%%
. Following this separating line long option specifications can be
entered (see below at section OPTIONS).
DEFINE directives are used to associate longer strings of text with
certain symbols. E.g., after
DEFINE FINDARGS -xdev -type f -exec /usr/bin/sha1sum {} \;
the specification ${FINDARGS}
may be used in USE DIRECTIVES and
commands (see below) to use the text associated with the FINDARGS
symbol.
Note that DEFINE symbols may also be used in the definition of other DEFINE symbols as well. Direct or indirect circular definitions should be avoided, as they are either not or incompletely expanded.
The following USE directives may be specified (directives are written
in capitals, and should appear exactly as written below: letter casing is
preserved). Specifications in angular brackets (like <this>
) represent
specifications to be provided by stealth's users:
<base-irectory>
USE BASE /root/client
<dd>
/bin/dd
as default, and defines the
location of the dd(1) program, both on the server and on the client. The
DD program is used to copy files between the client and the controller
over the existing ssh-connection. The program specified here is only used by
stealth when executing PUT
and GET
commands (described below).USE DD /bin/dd
<diff>
/usr/bin/diff
,
and defines the location of the diff(1) program on the controller. The
diff(1) program is used to compare a formerly created logfile of an
integrity check with a newly created logfile.USE DIFF /usr/bin/diff
<prefix>
DIFF
command to lines produced by commands executed through stealth.
The default /usr/bin/diff
program prefixes lines by either `>
' or
`<
'. The default value for <prefix>
is therefore equal to 2.
Example showing the default:
USE DIFFPREFIX 2
<address>
USE EMAIL root
<mailer>
/bin/sh
command, to
allow shell-scripts to process the mail too. By default MAILER is defined
as /usr/bin/mail. MAILER is called with the following
arguments:USE MAILER /usr/bin/mail
As an alternative, the script stealthmail
is provided. It offers a
convenient filter sorting stealth's output and keeping only lines containing the
text ADDED
, MODIFIED
, REMOVED
or STEALTH
. Usually these lines
are the ones system managers are interested in. The report and log files
can always be consulted to determine the actual nature of the changes.
<args>
MAILER
, followed by the EMAIL
specification.USE MAILARGS -s "STEALTH scan report"
\"
to use a double
quote in a string that itself is delimted by double quotes; use \'
to use
a single quote in a string that itself is delimted by single quotes.
<reportfile>
USE REPORT report
<sh>
/bin/sh
as default, and defines the
command shell used by the controller to execute commands on itself.USE SH /bin/sh
<user>
.ssh/authorized_keys
file, granting the
controller root access to the client. Root access is normally needed to gain
access to all directories and files of the client's file system.
In practice, connecting to a account using the sh(1) shell is
preferred. When another shell is already used by that account, one should make
sure that that shell doesn't define its own redirections for standard input
and standard output. One way to accomplish that is for force the execution of
/bin/sh
in the USE SSH specification.
Examples:
# root's shell is /bin/sh: USE SSH root@client -T -q # root uses another shell USE SSH root@client -T -q exec /bin/bash # an alternative: USE SSH root@client -T -q exec /bin/bash --noprofile
In some installations stealth is used to inspect the computer itself, even
though this is not recommended, as it breaks one of the main reasons
for stealth's existence. In situations where stealth is used to monitor the integrity
of the localhost
, /bin/bash
could be specified with the USE SSH
directive. For example:
# For stealth inspecting localhost: USE SSH /bin/bash --noprofile
Following the USE specifications, commands can be specified. The commands are executed in their order of appearance in the policy file. Processing continues until the last command has been processed or until a tested command (see below) returns a non-zero return value.
The following LABEL commands are available:
<text>
The text may contain \n
characters (two characters) which are
transformed to a newline character.
Example:
LABEL Inspecting files in /etc\nIncluding subdirectories
LABEL
(In this example the latter LABEL specification erases the former
label text).
LOCAL commands are executed on the controller itself:
<command>
command
on the controller, using the SH command
shell. The command must succeed (i.e., must return a zero exit value). LOCAL scp rootsh@client:/usr/bin/sha1sum /tmp
<command>
command
on the controller, using the SH command
shell. The command may or may not succeed.LOCAL NOTEST mkdir /tmp/subdir
/tmp/subdir
on the controller. The command fails
if the directory cannot be created, but this does not terminate stealth.
<logfile> [pathOffset] <command>
command
on the controller, using the SH command
shell. The command must succeed. The output of this command is compared to the
output of this command generated during the previous integrity check run by
stealth.
The phrase LOG = is optional. PathOffset
is also
optional. If specified it defines the (0-based) offset where path-names of
inspected files start in lines produced by <command>
. By default stealth
assumes that the first occurrence of a forward slash defines the first
character of the path-names of inspected files.
For example, if diff-output looks like this:
01234567890123456789012345678901234567890 (column offsets) 33c33 < 90d8b506d249634c4ff80b9018644567 filename-specification --- > b88d0b77db74cc4a742d7bc26cdd2a1e filename-specificationthen the specification
LOCAL CHECK logfile 36 command-to-be-executedinforms stealth where to find the filename specifications in the diff-output. Using the standard
/usr/bin/diff
command, this offset equals
2 + the offset of the filename-specification
found in
command-to-be-executed
.
Any differences between the previous and current output are written to
REPORT. If differences were found, the existing logfile
name is
renamed to logfile.YYMMDD-HHMMSS
, with YYMMDD-HHMMSS
the
(UTC) datetime-stamp at the time stealth was run.
Note that eventually many logfile.YYMMDD-HHMMSS
files could be
created: It is up to the controller's systems manager to decide what to do
with old datetime-stamped logfiles.
The logfile
specifications may use relative and absolute paths. When
relative paths are used, these paths are relative to BASE. When the
directories implied by the logfile
specifications do not yet exist, they
are created first.
Example:
LOCAL CHECK LOG = local/sha1sum sha1sum /tmp/sha1sum
This command checks the SHA1 sum of the /tmp/sha1sum
program. The
resulting output is saved at BASE/local/sha1sum
. The program must
succeed (i.e., sha1sum
must return a zero exit-value).
<logfile> [pathOffset] <command>
command
on the controller, using the SH command
shell. The command may or may not succeed. Otherwise, the command performs
exactly like the LOCAL CHECK ... command, discussed above.
Example:
LOCAL NOTEST CHECK LOG=local/sha1sum sha1sum /tmp/sha1sum
This command checks the SHA1 sum of the /tmp/sha1sum
program. The
resulting output is saved at BASE/local/sha1sum
. The program must
succeed (i.e., sha1sum
must return a zero exit-value).
Note that the scp(1) command can be used to copy files between the
client and the controller, using a local command. This, however, is
discouraged, as a separate ssh(1)-connection is required for each separate
scp(1) command. This subtlety was brought to the author's attention by
Hopko Meijerink (h.meijering@rug.nl
).
New ssh(1) connections may be difficult to establish if the used ssh-key is passphrase-protected (but it is not impossible to do so, see e.g., ssh-cron(1)), and using an ssh-key without a passphrase is discouraged as client computers are immediagely compromised too, once the controller is compromised. Furthermore, using scp(1) results in several additional entries showing sshd(1) connections in the client's logfiles, which in turn may disclose information that the client is intensively monitored.
To copy files between the client and the controller, the GET
and
PUT
commands (described below) should be used instead, as these commands
use the existing ssh(1) connection. In general, LOCAL
commands should
not be used to establish additional ssh(1) connections to a client.
Remote commands are commands executed on the client using the SSH
shell. These commands are executed using the standard PATH
set for the
SSH shell. However, it is advised to specify the full pathname to the
programs to be executed, to prevent ``trojan approaches'' where a trojan horse
is installed in an `earlier' directory of the PATH
-specification than the
intended program.
Two special remote commands are GET
and PUT
, which can be used to
copy files between the client and the controller. Internally, GET
and
PUT
use the DD
specification. If a non-default specification is
used, one should ensure that the alternate program accepts dd(1)'s if=,
of=, bs=
and count=
options. With GET
the options bs=, count=
and
of=
are used, with PUT
the options bs=, count=
and if=
are
used. Normally there should be no need to alter the default DD
specification.
The GET
command may be used as follows:
<client-path> <local-path>
client-path
at the client to local-path
at the controller. client-path
must be the full path of an existing file
on the client, local-path
may either be a local directory, in which case
the client's file name is used, or another file name may be specified, in
which case the client's file is copied to the specified local filename. If the
local file already exists, it is overwritten by the copy-procedure.
Example:
GET /usr/bin/sha1sum /tmp
The program /usr/bin/sha1sum
, available at the client, is copied to the
controller's /tmp
directory. If, for whatever reason, copying fails, then
stealth terminates.
<client-path> <local-path>
client-path
at the client to local-path
at the controller. client-path
must be the full path of an existing file
on the client, local-path
may either be a local directory, in which case
the client's file name is used, or another file name may be specified, in
which case the client's file is copied to the specified local filename. If the
local file already exists, it is overwritten by the copy-procedure.
Example:
GET NOTEST /usr/bin/sha1sum /tmp
The program /usr/bin/sha1sum
, available at the client, is copied to the
controller's /tmp
directory. Remaining commands in the policy file are
executed, even if the copying process wasn't successful.
The PUT
command may be used as follows:
<local-path> <remote-path>
local-path
at the controller to
remote-path
at the client. The argument local-path
must be the
full path of an existing file on the controller. The argument remote-path
must be the full path to a file on the client. If the remote file already
exists, it is overwritten by PUT
.
Example:
PUT /tmp/sha1sum /usr/bin/sha1sum
The program /tmp/sha1sum
, available at the controller, is copied to the
client as usr/bin/sha1sum
. If the copying fails, stealth terminates.
<local-path> <remote-path>
local-path
at the controller to
remote-path
at the client. The argument local-path
must be the
full path of an existing file on the controller. The argument remote-path
must be the full path to a file on the client. If the remote file already
exists, it is overwritten by PUT
.
Example:
PUT NOTEST /tmp/sha1sum /usr/bin/sha1sum
Copy the file indicated by local-path
at the controller to
remote-path
at the client. The argument local-path
must be the full
path of an existing file on the controller. The argument remote-path
must
be the full path to a file on the client. If the remote file already exists,
it is overwritten by PUT
. Remaining commands in the policy file are
executed, even if the copying process wasn't successful.
Plain commands can be executed on the client computer by merely specifying
them. Of course, this implies that programs on the client which are named,
e.g., LABEL
, LOCAL
or USE
, cannot be executed, since these names
are interpreted otherwise by stealth. It's unlikely that this restriction presents
much of a problem....
The following commands are available for execution on the client:
<command>
command
on the client, using the SSH command
shell. The command must succeed (i.e., must return a zero exit
value). However, any output generated by the the command is ignored. /usr/bin/find /tmp -type f -exec /bin/rm {} \;
/tmp
directory.
<command>
command
on the client, using the SSH command
shell. The command may or may not succeed.NOTEST /usr/bin/find /tmp -type f -exec /bin/rm {} \;
/usr/bin/find
is not interpreted.
<logfile> [pathOffset] <command>
command
on the client, using the SSH command
shell. The phrase LOG = is optional. The [pathOffset]
specification
is also optional, and has the same meaning as for the LOCAL CHECK
command,
described above. The command must succeed. The output of this command is
compared to the output of this command generated during the previous run of
stealth. Any differences are written to REPORT. If differences were found, the
existing logfile
name is renamed to logfile.YYMMDD-HHMMSS
, with
YYMMDD-HHMMSS
the datetime-stamp at the time stealth was run.
Note that the command is executed on the client, but the logfile is kept on the controller. This command represents the core of the method implemented by stealth: there will be no residues of the actions performed by stealth on the client computers.
Several examples (note the use of the backslash as line continuation characters):
CHECK LOG = remote/ls.root \
/usr/bin/find / \
-xdev -perm /6111 -type f -exec /bin/ls -l {} \;
All suid/gid/executable files on the same device as the root-directory (/)
on the client computer are listed with their permissions, owner and size
information. The resulting listing is written on the file
BASE/remote/ls.root
.
CHECK remote/sha1.root \
/usr/bin/find / \
-xdev -perm /6111 -type f -exec /usr/bin/sha1sum {} \;
The SHA1 checksums of all suid/gid/executable files on the same device as
the root-directory (/) on the client computer are determined. The resulting
listing is written on the file BASE/remote/sha1.root
.
<logfile> [pathOffset] <command>
command
on the client, using the SSH command
shell. The phrase LOG = is optional. The [pathOffset]
is also
optional, and has the same meaning as for the LOCAL CHECK
command,
described above. The command may or may not succeed. Otherwise, the program
acts identically as the CHECK ... command, described above.
Example:
NOTEST CHECK LOG = remote/sha1.root \
/usr/bin/find / \
-xdev -perm /6111 -type f -exec /usr/bin/sha1sum {} \;
The SHA1 checksums of all suid/gid/executable files on the same device as
the root-directory (/) on the client computer are determined. The resulting
listing is written on the file BASE/remote/sha1.root
. stealth does not
terminate if the /usr/bin/find
program returns a non-zero exit value.
The maximum download size (using GET or CHECK) can be specified using the
--max-size
option, see below. By default this size is set at 10M.
Short options are provided between parentheses, immediately following their long option equivalents. Option descriptions starting with (C) can only be used on the command-line, and are ignored when specified in the second section of the policy file.
--daemon (-d) <path>
: (C) run as background (daemon)
process. tt<path> specifies the absolute filename of the pid-file used
for communication with the daemon process;
--dry-run
: (C) no integrity scans or reloads are performed, but
are assumed OK. Remaining tasks are normally performed;
--help (-h)
: (C) Display help information and exit;
--log (-L) <path>
: log messages are appended to `path'. If path
does not exist, it is first created;
--logmail
: mail sent by stealth is logged (requires --log
or
--syslog
);
--max-size <size>[BKMG]
: files retrieved by GET
commands may
at most have <size>
bytes (B), KBytes (K), MBytes (M), GBytes
(G). The default size is 10M, the default unit is B.
--no-mail
: mail is not sent. By default mail is sent as
configured in the policy-file (--logmail
can be specified
independently from --no-mail
);
--parse-policy-file (-p)
: (C) parse the policy file, after which
stealth ends.--random-interval (-i) <interval>[m]>
: start the scan a random
interval of <interval> seconds (or minutes if an `m' is appended (no
blanks) to <interval>) following the delay specified at --repeat
(see below). This option requires specification of the --repeat
option;
--reload <pid-file>
: (C) reloads the configuration and skip-files
and restarts the scan of the stealth daemon process.
--repeat <seconds>
: wake up and perform an integrity scan at
interrupts or after <seconds>
seconds (or minutes if an `m' is
appended (no blanks) to <seconds>) after completing the previous
integrity scan. The option --random-interval
can be used to add a
random delay to <seconds>
until the next integrity scan is
performed.
--rerun <pid-file>
: start executing the integrity scan commands
that are specifed in the stealth daemon process's policy file;
--resume <pid-file>
: (C) resume a suspended stealth process, implies
--rerun
;
--run-command (-r) <nr>
: (C) Only execute command number <nr>
(natural number). Command numbers are shown by stealth
---parse-policy-file
;
--skip-files (-s) <skippath>
: all entries in skippath
(specified using an absolute path) are skipped. Their integrity is
not monitored. If an entry is already present in a log file then stealth
once generates an IGNORING
message in the mail sent to the address
specified at EMAIL
in the policy file. Each entry mentioned in
filepath
must be on a line of its own and must be specified using
absolute paths. Entries ending in a slash are assumed to be
directories whose full contents must be skipped. Other entries are
interpreted as the path names of files to skip. Initial and trailing
blanks, empty lines and lines having a #
as their 1st non blank
character are ignored.
--stdout (-o)
: messages are (also) written to the std. output
stream (not available when for option --daemon
);
--suspend <pid-file>
: (C) suspends a currently active stealth
process. Use --resume
to re-activate an stealth daemon or
--terminate
to end an stealth daemon;
--syslog
: write syslog messages;
--syslog-facility <facility>
: syslog facility to use. By
default facility DAEMON is used;
--syslog-priority <priority>
: syslog priority to use. By
default priority NOTICE is used;
--syslog-tag <tag>
: <tag>
specifies the identifier that is
prefixed to syslog messages. By default the tag `STEALTH' is used, see
also the next section;
--terminate <pid-file>
: (C) terminate a currently active stealth
process;
--time-stamp (-t) <type>
: the time-stamps to use. By default
UTC. To use the local time specify --time-stamp
LT
. The --time-stamp
option does not apply to time-stamps
generated by syslog (see also the next section);
--usage
: (C) Display help information and exit;
--verbosity <value>
: determines the amount of logged
information. Requires options --log
or --syslog
. Possible
values are:--version (-v)
: (C) Display stealth's version information and
terminate;
<pid-file>
: absolute filename of a file that is used for
communication with a stealth daemon process;
policy
: path to the policy file;
Only one of the options --daemon, --reload, --rerun, --resume,
--suspend,
and --terminate
can be specified. The options --reload,
--rerun, --resume, --suspend,
and --terminate
ignore any other options.
The following options are still recognized for backward compatibility with stealth pre-3.00 versions and will be removed in future versions. They generate error messages suggesting alternatives:
--echo-commands (-e)
:
echo commands to std error when they are processed; use --log
instead.
--keep-alive
: run as a daemon; use --daemon
instead.
--only-stdout
: scan report is written to stdout; use
--stdout
instead.
--quiet (-q)
: suppresses progress messages written to stderr; use
--verbosity 0
instead.
--suppress <pid-file>
: suppresses a currently active stealth
process; use --suspend
instead.
The following options were discontinued starting with stealth version 3.00.00:
--debug
(option --verbosity
or --dry-run
could be used
instead);
--no-child-processes
;
--parse-config-file
.
When specifying long options in policy files the initial hyphens should be omitted. Here are some examples:
%% log /tmp/stealth.log verbosity 3
When using rsyslogd(1) property based filters may be used to filter
syslog messages and write them to a file of your choice. E.g., to filter
messages starting with the syslog message tag (e.g., STEALTH
) use
:syslogtag, isequal, "STEALTH:" /var/log/stealth.log :syslogtag, isequal, "STEALTH:" ~Note that the colon is part of the tag, but is not specified with the
syslog-tag
option.
This causes all messages having the STEALTH:
tag to be written on
/var/log/stealth.log
after which they are discarded. More extensive
filtering is also supported, see, e.g.,
http://www.rsyslog.com/doc/rsyslog_conf_filter.html
and
http://www.rsyslog.com/doc/property_replacer.html
Time stamps written by rsyslogd
are not controlled by stealth's
--time-stamp
option, but, e.g., by a TZ
specification in
/etc/default/rsyslog
. Simply add the line
export TZ=UTCto
/etc/default/rsyslog
, followed by restarting rsyslogd
configures
rsyslogd
to generate time stamps using UTC.
/etc/logrotate.d/stealth...
configuration files.
/usr/share/doc/stealth/
;
the policy
file;
files under the BASE directory as defined in the policy
file;
the report file as defined by the policy's USE REPORT directive.
None reported
http://stealth.sourceforge.net/
.