NETRESEC Network Security Blog - Tag : systemctl

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Capturing Decrypted TLS Traffic with Arkime

PolarProxy and Arkime Logo

The latest version of Arkime (The Sniffer Formerly Known As Moloch) can now be fed with a real-time stream of decrypted HTTPS traffic from PolarProxy. All that is needed to enable this feature is to include "pcapReadMethod=pcap-over-ip-server" in Arkime's config.ini file and start PolarProxy with the "--pcapoveripconnect 127.0.0.1:57012" option. PolarProxy will then connect to Arkime's PCAP-over-IP listener on TCP port 57012 and send it a copy of all TLS packets it decrypts.

Note: The required PCAP-over-IP feature is available in Arkime 2.7.0 and PolarProxy 0.8.16.

About Arkime

Arkime is an open source packet capture solution that indexes the PCAP data it collects. Arkime also comes with a web frontend for browsing and searching through the captured, and indexed, network traffic. The Arkime project recently changed name from Moloch, probably in an attempt to convince users that the tool doesn't eat children.

How to Install Arkime with PolarProxy

This guide demonstrates how TLS traffic, or more specifically HTTPS traffic, can be decrypted and ingested in real-time into Arkime.

The TLS decryption is performed with PolarProxy, which is a transparent TLS interception proxy that is freely available under a Creative Commons BY-ND 4.0 license.

TLS decryption with PolarProxy and Arkime. TLS added and removed here.

PolarProxy and Arkime can be installed on a server to intercept, decrypt, index and store decrypted TLS network traffic from multiple clients on a network. It is even possible to install PolarProxy and Arkime on separate servers, so that PolarProxy forwards a stream of decrypted traffic to the Arkime server. However, to avoid unnecessary complexity, Arkime and PolarProxy are installed locally on a Linux client in this howto guide. The Linux client is a Ubuntu 20.04.1 machine, but the instructions can also be used on other Linux flavors that use systemd, such as Arch, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, SUSE and Red Hat Linux.

Download and Install Arkime

Arkime can be downloaded as a pre-built installation packages for CentOS and Ubuntu here: https://arkime.com/#download

Note: You can alternatively visit the Arkime GitHub page if there is no pre-built installation package for your Linux distro or you prefer to build Arkime from source.

After installing the Arkime package, configure Arkime by running:

sudo /data/moloch/bin/Configure
Found interfaces: lo;enp0s3 Semicolon ';' seperated list of interfaces to monitor [eth1] none
  • Enter "none" as the interface to monitor (the interface setting will be ignored when Arkime gets configured as a PCAP-over-IP server)
  • Install the ElasticSearch server by typing "yes" when prompted

Edit /data/moloch/etc/config.ini and add "pcapReadMethod=pcap-over-ip-server" to configure Arkime to listen for PCAP-over-IP connections.

pcapReadMethod=pcap-over-ip-server in Arkime's config.ini

Next, enable and start the ElasticSearch systemd service.

sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl start elasticsearch.service

Initiate the Arkime search cluster.

/data/moloch/db/db.pl http://localhost:9200 init

Create a new admin user.

/data/moloch/bin/moloch_add_user.sh admin "Admin User" THEPASSWORD --admin
Note: Feel free to pick a more secure password than "THEPASSWORD" for the admin user.

You can now enable and start the Moloch capture and viewer services.

sudo systemctl enable molochcapture.service
sudo systemctl start molochcapture.service
sudo systemctl enable molochviewer.service
sudo systemctl start molochviewer.service

Verify that Arkime now listens for incoming connections on TCP port 57012.

ss -nta | grep 57012
LISTEN 0 10 0.0.0.0:57012 0.0.0.0:*

Install PolarProxy to Decrypt TLS Traffic

Create a user for PolarProxy's systemd service and download PolarProxy like this:

sudo adduser --system --shell /bin/bash proxyuser
sudo mkdir /var/log/PolarProxy
sudo chown proxyuser:root /var/log/PolarProxy/
sudo chmod 0775 /var/log/PolarProxy/
sudo su - proxyuser
mkdir ~/PolarProxy
cd ~/PolarProxy/
curl https://www.netresec.com/?download=PolarProxy | tar -xzf -
exit

Copy the default PolarProxy service config to the systemd location.

sudo cp /home/proxyuser/PolarProxy/PolarProxy.service /etc/systemd/system/PolarProxy.service

Modify /etc/systemd/system/PolarProxy.service by adding "--pcapoveripconnect 127.0.0.1:57012" at the end of the ExecStart command.

PolarProxy.service with --pcapoveripconnect 127.0.0.1:57012

It's now time to enable and start the PolarProxy service.

sudo systemctl enable PolarProxy.service
sudo systemctl start PolarProxy.service

Verify that PolarProxy has connected to Arkime's PCAP-over-IP listener on TCP port 57012.

ss -nta | grep 57012
LISTEN 0 10 0.0.0.0:57012 0.0.0.0:*
ESTAB 0 0 127.0.0.1:40801 127.0.0.1:57012
ESTAB 0 0 127.0.0.1:57012 127.0.0.1:40801

Take it For a Test Run

PolarProxy is listening for incoming TLS connections on TCP port 10443. We can therefore run traffic through the TLS decryption proxy with this curl command:

curl --insecure --connect-to www.netresec.com:443:127.0.0.1:10443 https://www.netresec.com/

The decrypted traffic will show up in Arkime if everything is working. Open http://localhost:8005/sessions in a browser and look for a connection to www.netresec.com.

Note: The Arkime username and password is admin/THEPASSWORD if you've followed the instructions in this tutorial.

Also: You might have to wait a minute or two for the traffic to appear in Arkime's user interface.

Moloch Sessions showing curl connection to www.netresec.com

Trust PolarProxy's Root CA Certificate

The root CA certificate used by your PolarProxy service must be trusted by both the operating system and browser in order to run TLS traffic through the decryption proxy without errors. Follow these instructions to add trust the root CA:

sudo mkdir /usr/share/ca-certificates/extra
sudo openssl x509 -inform DER -in /var/log/PolarProxy/polarproxy.cer -out /usr/share/ca-certificates/extra/PolarProxy-root-CA.crt
sudo dpkg-reconfigure ca-certificates
  • Select the "extra/PolarProxy-root-CA.crt" Certificate Authority
  • Press <Ok>

Start Firefox

  • Download the root CA certificate from: http://localhost:10080/polarproxy.cer
  • Open: about:preferences#privacy
  • Scroll down to "Certificates" and click "View Certificates"
  • Import > Select "polarproxy.cer"
  • Select: ☑ Trust this CA to identify websites

Firefox: Trust this CA to identify websites

Configure Firewall Redirect of Outgoing HTTPS Traffic

The final step in this tutorial is to redirect the local user's outgoing HTTPS traffic to the PolarProxy service listening on TCP port 10443. Add the following lines at the top of /etc/ufw/before.rules (before the "*filter" section) to redirect outgoing HTTPS traffic to the local PolarProxy service listening on port 10443.

*nat
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
-A OUTPUT -m owner --uid 1000 -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to 10443
COMMIT

Firefox: Trust this CA to identify websites

Note: The UFW config in "before.rules" is equivalent to running "iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT -m owner --uid 1000 -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to 10443"

Make sure to modify the uid value (1000) in the firewall rule to match that of the local user that PolarProxy should decrypt the HTTPS traffic for. You can see your uid value by running the command "id -u". You can even redirect traffic from several users to PolarProxy, but it's important that you DON'T forward the outgoing HTTPS traffic from the "proxyuser" account. You will otherwise generate an infinite firewall redirect loop, where outgoing HTTPS traffic from PolarProxy is redirected back to PolarProxy again. You can check the proxyuser's uid with the command "id -u proxyuser".

After saving before.rules, reload UFW to activate the port redirection.

sudo ufw reload

Surf 'n' Snoop

Your Linux machine is now configured to send decrypted HTTPS traffic to Arkime for inspection. Open Firefox and visit some websites, then go back to Arkime and have a look at the traffic. Again, remember that there might be a few minutes' delay before the traffic appears in Arkime's user interface

HTTP/2 Session in Moloch

You'll probably notice that the majority of all HTTPS traffic is actually using the HTTP/2 protocol. Unfortunately Arkime's http2 support is still quite limited, but I'm hoping it will improve in future releases.

Luckily, both Wireshark and NetworkMiner (which runs fine in Linux by the way) can be used to parse and extract contents from HTTP/2 traffic. Just hit Arkime's "Download PCAP" button and open the capture file in a tool of your choice.

NetworkMiner 2.6 showing files ectracted from HTTP/2 traffic

Image: NetworkMiner in Linux with files extracted from decrypted HTTP/2 traffic

Posted by Erik Hjelmvik on Tuesday, 01 December 2020 07:50:00 (UTC/GMT)

Tags: #Arkime#PolarProxy#TLS#HTTPS#decrypt#PCAP#systemd#systemctl#UFW#http2#HTTP/2#PCAP-over-IP#pcapoverip#ASCII-art

Short URL: https://netresec.com/?b=20C3247


PolarProxy in Podman

PolarProxy + Podman Logo

Podman is a daemonless Linux container engine, which can be used as a more secure alternative to Docker. This blog post demonstrates how to run PolarProxy in a rootless container using Podman. If you still prefer to run PolarProxy in Docker, then please read our blog post "PolarProxy in Docker" instead.

Install Podman and fuse-overlayfs

Install Podman according to the official Podman installation instructions. Then install fuse-overlayfs, which is an overlay file system for rootless containers. Fuse-overlayfs can be installed in Debian/Ubuntu with "sudo apt install fuse-overlayfs" and in CentOS with "sudo yum install fuse-overlayfs".

Create a Podman Image for PolarProxy

Create a Dockerfile with the following contents:

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/runtime:6.0
EXPOSE 10443
EXPOSE 10080
EXPOSE 57012
RUN groupadd -g 31337 polarproxy && useradd -m -u 31337 -g polarproxy polarproxy && mkdir -p /var/log/PolarProxy /opt/polarproxy && chown polarproxy:polarproxy /var/log/PolarProxy && apt-get update && apt-get install -y curl && curl -s https://www.netresec.com/?download=PolarProxy | tar -xzf - -C /opt/polarproxy
USER polarproxy
WORKDIR /opt/polarproxy/
ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "PolarProxy.dll"]
CMD ["-v", "-p", "10443,80,443", "-o", "/var/log/PolarProxy/", "--certhttp", "10080", "--pcapoverip", "57012"]

Save the Docker file as "Dockerfile" (no extension) in an empty directory and start a shell in that directory. Build a PolarProxy Podman image with:

podman build -f Dockerfile -t polarproxy

Test the PolarProxy Podman Image

Take the polarproxy Podman image for a test run. Start it with:

podman run -it --rm --name polarproxy -p 10443 localhost/polarproxy

Establish an HTTPS connection through PolarProxy by running this curl command from another shell on the same machine:

curl --insecure --connect-to www.netresec.com:443:127.0.0.1:10443 https://www.netresec.com/

If everything works alright, then curl should output HTML and the interactive Podman session running the polarproxy image should print something like:

<6>[10443] 127.0.0.1 -> N/A Connection from: 127.0.0.1:44122
<6>[10443] 127.0.0.1 -> www.netresec.com Connection request for: www.netresec.com from 127.0.0.1:44122
<6>[10443] 127.0.0.1 -> www.netresec.com Action: DECRYPT

Create a Podman Container for PolarProxy

Create directories "pcap" and "polarproxy", where PolarProxy should store the decrypted network traffic and its root CA certificate.

mkdir pcap polarproxy
podman unshare chown 31337:31337 pcap polarproxy

Create a container called "polarproxy", which has the "pcap" and "polarproxy" directories mounted as volumes. The service on TCP 10080 will serve the proxy's public root cert over HTTP. The localhost:57012 service is a Pcap-over-IP server, from which the decrypted network traffic can be streamed in real-time.

podman create --name polarproxy -v $(pwd)/pcap:/var/log/PolarProxy -v $(pwd)/polarproxy:/home/polarproxy -p 10443 -p 10080 -p 127.0.0.1:57012:57012 localhost/polarproxy

Create and enable a systemd user service that will run the container.

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user/
podman generate systemd -n polarproxy > ~/.config/systemd/user/container-polarproxy.service
systemctl --user enable container-polarproxy.service

Start the systemd user service to activate the PolarProxy container.

systemctl --user start container-polarproxy.service

Verify that the service is running and that you can view the logs from PolarProxy.

systemctl --user status container-polarproxy.service
podman logs polarproxy

Expose PolarProxy to the Network

Create a firewall rule to redirect incoming TCP 443 packets to the PolarProxy service listening on port 10443.
sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -d 10.11.12.13 -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to 10443
Note: Replace "10.11.12.13" with the IP of the PolarProxy machine

Try making an HTTPS connection via PolarProxy from another PC on the network.

C:\> curl --insecure --resolve www.netresec.com:443:10.11.12.13 https://www.netresec.com/
Note: Replace "10.11.12.13" with the IP of the PolarProxy machine

Don't forget to save the firewall redirect rule if it is working as desired!

Redirect HTTPS and Trust the Root CA

You can now redirect outgoing TCP 443 traffic from your network to your Podman/PolarProxy host. Review the "Routing HTTPS Traffic to the Proxy" section on the PolarProxy page for recommendations on how to redirect outgoing traffic to PolarProxy.

Finally, configure the operating system, browsers and other applications that will get their TLS traffic proxied by PolarProxy to trust the root CA of the PolarProxy service running in your Podman container. Follow the steps in the "Trusting the PolarProxy root CA" section of the PolarProxy documentation in order to install the root cert.

Accessing Decrypted TLS Traffic

You should be able to access PCAP files with the decrypted HTTPS traffic in the "pcap" directory.

It is also possible view the decrypted traffic in real-time by using netcat and tcpdump as a Pcap-over-IP client like this:

nc localhost 57012 | tcpdump -nr - -X

It probably makes more sense to forward the decrypted traffic to an IDS or other type of network security monitoring tool though. See our blog posts "Sniffing Decrypted TLS Traffic with Security Onion" and "Capturing Decrypted TLS Traffic with Arkime" for instructions on how to forward the decrypted network traffic to a network monitoring solution like Security Onion or Arkime.

PolarProxy in Podman on ARM Linux

PolarProxy can also run on ARM Linux installations, such as a Raspberry Pi. However, the Dockerfile must be modified slightly in order to do so.

ARM 32-bit / AArch32 / ARMv7 If you're running an "arm32" Linux OS, then change the download link in the "RUN" instruction to the following URL:
https://www.netresec.com/?download=PolarProxy_linux-arm

ARM 64-bit / AArch64 / ARMv8 If you're running an "arm64" Linux OS, then change the download link in the "RUN" instruction to the following URL:
https://www.netresec.com/?download=PolarProxy_linux-arm64

Don't know if you're running a 32-bit or 64-bit OS? Run "uname -m" and check if the output says "armv7*" (arm32), "armv8*" (arm64) or "aarch64" (arm64).

See our blog post "Raspberry PI WiFi Access Point with TLS Inspection" for more details about deploying PolarProxy on a Raspberry Pi.

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ + 🦭 = 💜

Posted by Erik Hjelmvik on Tuesday, 27 October 2020 18:33:00 (UTC/GMT)

Tags: #PolarProxy#Docker#TLS#HTTPS#Proxy#curl#PCAP#Dockerfile#DNAT#container#arm32#arm64#AArch64#PCAP-over-IP#pcapoverip#systemctl#systemd

Short URL: https://netresec.com/?b=20A16ef

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