El Proxy Configuration¶
Enabling El Proxy¶
El Proxy receives streams of log files from Logstash, signs them in real time into a blockchain, and forwards them to Elasticsearch. For more information, please check section El Proxy
To make the use of El Proxy easier, different default pipelines, called input_beats, auditbeat, filebeat, winlogbeat and ebp_persistent pipelines have been provided. The input_beats pipeline redirects logs to main or to the beat specific pipelines (auditbeat, filebeat, winlogbeat). If El Proxy is enabled for a specific host and the log matches the conditions specified in the beat specific pipelines, logs will also be redirected to ebp_persistent pipeline.
Check out Sending custom logs to El Proxy for more information on redirecting other types of events to El Proxy.
Fig. 205 NetEye Logstash El Proxy architecture¶
Specifically, the ebp_persistent pipeline enables disk persistency, extracts client certificate details and redirects data to the El Proxy.
Please note that you need to have enough space in /neteye/shared/logstash/data/ for disk persistency.
The ebp_persistent pipeline is configured with three parameters:
queue.type: specify if the queue is in memory or disk-persisted. If set topersistedthe queue will be disk-persisted.
path.queue: the path where the events will be persisted, by default/neteye/shared/logstash/data/ebp
queue.max_bytes: the maximum amount of data the queue can write, by default512mb. Exceeding this limit may lead to a loss of events.
You can check and adjust the parameters for the queue in the file
/neteye/shared/logstash/conf/pipelines.yml.
The user can customize the ebp_persistent pipeline by adding custom Logstash filters in the form of .filters
files in the directory /neteye/shared/logstash/conf/conf.ebp.d.
Please note that the user must neither add .input or .output files nor modify existing configuration files.
Warning
Enabling El Proxy via the variable
EBP_ENABLED in the file /neteye/shared/logstash/conf/sysconfig/logstash-user-customization
is not anymore supported. Please enable it per host as described below.
El Proxy can be enabled per host via Icinga Director. A Host Template, called logmanager-blockchain-host is made available for this purpose.
To enable El Proxy on a host (we’ll call the host ACME), we strongly suggest to first create a dedicated host template, which imports logmanager-blockchain-host. Then, configure the host ACME to inherit from this host template.
You can refer to Sections Host Templates and to Adding a Host for further information about how to manage host templates and hosts in the Icinga Director.
As soon as you use the new dedicated template, the following fields are shown in the Host Configuration Panel under Custom properties:
Enable Logging: specify if logging for the current host must be enabled. If set toYeslog collection is enabled.
Blockchain Enable: it appears only ifEnable Loggingis enabled. Specify if the log signature must be enabled for the current host. If set toYes, El Proxy is enabled for the host.
Blockchain Retention: it becomes available only ifBlockchain Enableis enabled. The retention policy specified for the logs of the current host (default value is 2 years or 730 days). Refer to Section Elasticsearch Templates and Retentions for further information on retention policies.
Note
Enable Logging works in combination with Blockchain Enable, both properties must
be set to Yes to fully enable the log collection and the log signing.
Log and Blockchain properties of a hosts are regularly checked by the logmanager-director-es-index-neteyelocal service, which automatically stores them in Elasticsearch where they can be queried and accessed when needed.
For additional information about El Proxy refer to section El Proxy.
By default, El Proxy uses the common name (CN) specified in the Beats certificate as the customer name.
If the CN is not available, El Proxy uses a default customer name as a fallback.
The user can configure a custom default customer name by setting the variable EBP_DEFAULT_CUSTOMER
in the file /neteye/shared/logstash/conf/sysconfig/logstash-user-customization,
as follows:
EBP_DEFAULT_CUSTOMER="mycustomer"
If the variable EBP_DEFAULT_CUSTOMER is not set, El Proxy will use the value “neteye” as default customer.
You must restart Logstash for the changes to take effect.
For additional information about El Proxy refer to El Proxy
Sending custom logs to El Proxy¶
By default only Beats events are sent to El Proxy, if enabled. NetEye, however, provides an output also in the main pipeline to redirect events to El Proxy.
Logstash sends logs to El Proxy when field [EBP_METADATA][event][module] is set to elproxysigned,
with the logs being redirected to the ebp_persistent pipeline.
For example, to send all syslog logs to El Proxy, you can use a filter similar to the
following
filter {
if [type] == "syslog" {
if [EBP_METADATA][event][module] {
mutate {
replace => {"[EBP_METADATA][event][module]" => "elproxysigned"}
}
} else {
mutate {
add_field => {"[EBP_METADATA][event][module]" => "elproxysigned"}
}
}
}
}
All logs passed through the ebp_persistent pipeline will be disk-persisted.
El Proxy Commands¶
El Proxy is carried out with the CLI commands that allow you to use the functionality provided. Running the executable without any arguments returns a list of all available commands and global options that apply to every command.
Available commands:
acknowledge : Acknowledges a corruption in a blockchain.
dlq recover : Recovers signed logs inside the Dead Letter Queue.
export-logs : Exports the signed logs from ElasticSearch to a local file.
serve : Starts El Proxy server ready for processing incoming requests.
verify : Verify the validity of a blockchain.
verify-cpu-bench : Benchmark the underlying hardware for verification.
El Proxy configuration is partly based on configuration files and partly based on command line parameters. The location of configuration files in the file system is determined at startup based on the provided CLI options. In addition, each command can have specific CLI arguments required.
Global command line parameters:
config-dir: (Optional) The filesystem folder from which the configuration is read. The default path is
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/.static-config-dir: (Optional) The filesystem folder from which the static configuration (i.e. configuration files that the final user cannot modify) is read. The default path is
/usr/share/elastic-blockchain-proxy.
Below you will find available command line parameters for all El Proxy commands.
acknowledge command
key-file: The path to the file that contains the iteration 0 signature key
corruption-id: The CorruptionId produced by the verify command to be acknowledged
description: (Optional) A description of the blockchain corruption. It will be prompted if not provided
reason: (Optional) The reason why the corruption happened. It will be prompted if not provided
elasticsearch-authentication-method: (Optional) The method used to authenticate to Elasticsearch. This can be:
none: (Default) the command does not authenticate to Elasticsearch
basicauth: Username and password are used to authenticate. If this method is specified, the following parameter is required (and a password will be prompted during the execution):
elasticsearch-username: the name Elasticsearch user used to perform authentication
pemcertificatepath: PKI user authentication is used. If this method is specified, the following parameters are required:
elasticsearch-client-cert path to the client certificate. A client certificate suitable for the acknowledge command is present under
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/ElasticBlockchainProxyAcknowledge.crt.pemelasticsearch-client-private-key path to the private key of the client certificate. A client private key suitable for the acknowledge command is present under
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/private/ElasticBlockchainProxyAcknowledge.key.pemelasticsearch-ca-cert path to the CA certificate to be trusted during the requests to Elasticsearch
For example, if you want to acknowledge the corruption with corruption-id abc123, you can execute the following command:
elastic_blockchain_proxy acknowledge \
--key-file /path/to/secret/key \
--corruption-id 'abc123' \
--elasticsearch-authentication-method 'pemcertificatepath' \
--elasticsearch-client-cert '/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/ElasticBlockchainProxyAcknowledge.crt.pem' \
--elasticsearch-client-private-key '/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/private/ElasticBlockchainProxyAcknowledge.key.pem'
dlq recover command
dlq-dir: (Optional) The path to the Dead Letter Queue folder. The path defaults to the dlq_dir entry of the configuration file
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/elastic_blockchain_proxy.toml. The dlq recover command expects a specific file structure inside the dlq-dir folder. The dlq-dir folder should only contain subfolders and the subfolders should only contain NDJSON files with specific names.dlq-recovered-dir: (Optional) The path to the folder where the successfully recovered logs will be stored. The path defaults to the dlq_recovered_dir entry of the configuration file
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/elastic_blockchain_proxy.toml.batch-size: (Optional) The size of each read/write operation. Default is 500.
elasticsearch-authentication-method: (Optional) The method used to authenticate to Elasticsearch. This can be:
none: (Default) the command does not authenticate to Elasticsearch
basicauth: Username and password are used to authenticate. If this method is specified, the following parameter is required (and a password will be prompted during the execution):
elasticsearch-username: the name Elasticsearch user used to perform authentication
pemcertificatepath: PKI user authentication is used. If this method is specified, the following parameters are required:
elasticsearch-client-cert path to the client certificate. A client certificate suitable for the dlq recover command is present under
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/ElasticBlockchainProxyRecover.crt.pemelasticsearch-client-private-key path to the private key of the client certificate. A client private key suitable for the dlq recover command is present under
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/private/ElasticBlockchainProxyRecover.key.pemelasticsearch-ca-cert path to the CA certificate to be trusted during the requests to Elasticsearch
In the most common scenarios you can run the following command, which will recover the DLQ logs that are present under the default directory where El Proxy stores DLQ logs:
elastic_blockchain_proxy dlq recover \
--elasticsearch-authentication-method 'pemcertificatepath' \
--elasticsearch-client-cert '/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/ElasticBlockchainProxyRecover.crt.pem' \
--elasticsearch-client-private-key '/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/private/ElasticBlockchainProxyRecover.key.pem'
If instead you want to recover DLQ logs stored under a custom directory /my/custom/dlq-dir
and let the successfully recovered logs be stored under /my/custom/dlq-recovered-dir,
you can execute the following command:
elastic_blockchain_proxy dlq recover \
--dlq-dir '/my/custom/dlq-dir'
--dlq-recovered-dir '/my/custom/dlq-recovered-dir'
--elasticsearch-authentication-method 'pemcertificatepath' \
--elasticsearch-client-cert '/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/ElasticBlockchainProxyRecover.crt.pem' \
--elasticsearch-client-private-key '/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/certs/private/ElasticBlockchainProxyRecover.key.pem'
export-logs command
output-file: The output file path where the exported logs are written
index-name: The name of the target Elasticsearch index to be used
format: (Optional) The output file format. This can be:
ndjson: (Default) the logs are exported in Newline delimited JSON format
from-date: (Optional) An inclusive ‘From’ date limit in ISO 8601 format
to-date: (Optional) An exclusive ‘To’ date limit in ISO 8601 format
batch-size: (Optional) The size of a each read/write operation. Default is 500.
elasticsearch-authentication-method: (Optional) The method used to authenticate to Elasticsearch. This can be:
none: (Default) the command does not authenticate to Elasticsearch
- basicauth: Username and password are used to authenticate. If this method is specified,
the following parameter is required (and a password will be prompted during the execution):
elasticsearch-username: the name Elasticsearch user used to perform authentication
pemcertificatepath: PKI user authentication is used. If this method is specified, the following parameters are required:
elasticsearch-client-cert path to the client certificate
elasticsearch-client-private-key path to the private key of the client certificate
elasticsearch-ca-cert path to the CA certificate to be trusted during the requests to Elasticsearch
verify command
index-name: The name of the target Elasticsearch index to be used
key-file: The path to the file that contains the iteration 0 signature key
batch-size: (Optional) The size of each read/verify operation. Default is 500.
concurrent-batches: (Optional) The number of concurrent threads verifying the blockchain. Default is 2.
from-iteration: Deprecated, same behaviour as skip-iterations-before.
skip-iterations-before: (Optional) The inclusive iteration number from which the verification has to be performed. Default is 0.
Note
It is not recommended to use this parameter when verifying the blockchain in production as it is intended for testing purposes only.
We highlight that this parameter is retention-aware, which means it will be considered only if the specified iteration number is present, when performing the verification, given the set retention. Otherwise, in case for example it refers to an older iteration number already deleted by Elasticsearch when applying the retention, the specified iteration will be ignored.
elasticsearch-authentication-method: (Optional) The method used to authenticate to Elasticsearch. This can be:
none: (Default) the command does not authenticate to Elasticsearch
basicauth: Username and password are used to authenticate. If this method is specified, the following parameter is required (and a password will be prompted during the execution):
elasticsearch-username: the name Elasticsearch user used to perform authentication
pemcertificatepath: PKI user authentication is used. If this method is specified, the following parameters are required:
elasticsearch-client-cert path to the client certificate
elasticsearch-client-private-key path to the private key of the client certificate
elasticsearch-ca-cert path to the CA certificate to be trusted during the requests to Elasticsearch
elasticsearch-indexing-delay: (Optional) The expected maximum time in seconds spent by Elasticsearch to index a document. Useful when verifying recently created logs that could need some time to be indexed by Elasticsearch. Default is 60 seconds.
For example, given a blockchain which refers to:
module:
elproxysignedcustomer:
mycustomerretention:
6_monthsblockchain_tag:
0
You can verify the blockchain with the command:
elastic_blockchain_proxy verify \
--index-name '*-*-elproxysigned-mycustomer-6_months-0-*' \
--key-file /path/to/secret/key \
--elasticsearch-authentication-method 'pemcertificatepath' \
--elasticsearch-client-cert '/neteye/local/elasticsearch/conf/certs/admin.crt.pem' \
--elasticsearch-client-private-key '/neteye/local/elasticsearch/conf/certs/private/admin.key.pem'
Warning
To verify blockchains built before the upgrade to NetEye 4.18 (blockchains which do not include the fields retention and blockchain_tag in the name of the indices), please use instead an index-name a like the following:
elastic_blockchain_proxy verify \
--index-name '*-*-elproxysigned-mycustomer-*,-*-*-elproxysigned-mycustomer-*-*-*' \
--key-file /path/to/secret/key
verify-cpu-bench command
batch-size: (Optional) The size of each read/verify operation. Default is 1000.
n-logs: (Optional) The number of logs to verify. Default is 1,000,000.
log-size: (Optional) The size of each log in KB. Default is 1KB.
concurrent-batches: (Optional) The number of concurrent threads for the benchmark. Default is 2.
You can check, how much data throughput your server can handle, based on the number of threads with the following command:
elastic_blockchain_proxy verify-cpu-bench
Besides these parameters, additional configuration entries are available in the following files:
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/elastic_blockchain_proxy.toml/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/elastic_blockchain_proxy_fields.toml/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/elastic_blockchain_proxy.d/verification_history.toml
To customize the available options, described below, one or more file must be created
in the /neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/elastic_blockchain_proxy.d folder, specifying on each line
an option and its value in the OPTION = VALUE format, e.g. message_queue_size = 20000.
The /neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/elastic_blockchain_proxy.toml file contains
the following configuration entries:
logger:
level: The Logger level filter; valid values are trace, debug, info, warn, and error. The logger level filter can specify a list of comma separated per-module specific levels, for example: warn,elastic_blockchain_proxy=debug
failure_max_retries: A predefined maximum amount of retry attempts for writing logs to Elasticsearch and for writing DLQ files. A value of 0 means that no retries will be attempted.
failure_sleep_ms_between_retries: A fixed amount of milliseconds to sleep between each retry attempt.
data_dir: The path to the folder that contains the
key.jsonfile. If the file is not present, El Proxy will generate one when needed.data_backup_dir: The path where El Proxy creates a backup copy of the automatically generated keys. for security reasons, the user is in charge of moving these copies to a protected place as soon as possible.
dlq_dir: The path where the Dead Letter Queue with the failed logs is saved.
dlq_recovered_dir: The path where the successfully recovered logs are saved after running the dlq recover command.
message_queue_size: The size of the in-memory queue where messages will be stored before while waiting for being processed
web_server:
address: The address where El Proxy Web Server will listen for HTTP requests
tls: TLS options to enable HTTPS (See the
Enabling TLSsection below)
elasticsearch:
url: The URL of the ElasticSearch server
timeout_secs: the timeout in seconds for a connection to Elasticsearch
ca_certificate_path: path to CA certificate needed to verify the identity of the Elasticsearch server
auth: The authentication method to connect to the ElasticSearch server (See the
Elasticsearch authenticationsection below)
The /neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/elastic_blockchain_proxy_fields.toml file contains
the following configuration entry:
include_fields: List of fields of the log that will be included in the signature process. Every field not included in this list will be ignored. The dot symbol is used as expander processor; for example, the field “name1.name2” refers to the “name2” nested field inside “name1”.
The /neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/elastic_blockchain_proxy.d/blockchain_state_history.toml file contains
the following configuration entry:
blockchain_state_history_dir: path to the folder that contains the Blockchain State History BSH files used by the verification process.
Elasticsearch Templates and Retentions¶
Several ILM policies are provided by default and should cover most of the retention use cases. A set of Index Templates installed by El Proxy match indexes against some index patterns to map each index to one ILM policy.
For example, the index with name
filebeat-7.17.4-elproxysigned-exampletenant-6_months-exampletag-2022.01.01 will match the
index pattern filebeat-7.17.4-elproxysigned-*-6_months-*-* of the template
filebeat-7.17.4-el-proxy-6_months-retention, which assigns the 6_months_retention
lifecycle policy to the index.
The retention policies available by default are the following:
3_months : delete index after 90 days from creation
6_months : delete index after 180 days from creation
1_year : delete index after 365 days from creation
2_years : delete index after 730 days from creation
default (2_years) : delete index after 730 days from creation
infinite : never delete the index
Some of the Index Templates installed by El Proxy are composable Index Templates (with the associated Component Templates), while other are Legacy Index Templates.
The main difference between composable Index Templates and Legacy Index Templates is that when multiple Legacy Index Templates match an index they are merged together, using the templates’ order as a discriminant to address conflicting settings. On the contrary, if multiple composable Index Templates match an index, only one of them is applied, based on its priority. Moreover, when a composable Index Template matches an index, it completely overrides all the Legacy Index Templates that match the index.
This means that if a composable Index Template has index pattern filebeat-7.17.4-elproxysigned-*-6_months-*-*
while a Legacy Index Template has index pattern filebeat-*-elproxysigned-*, an index with name
filebeat-7.17.4-elproxysigned-exampletenant-6_months-exampletag-2022.01.01 will only receive the settings
of the composable Index Template.
From Elastic 7.17 the Index Templates for Filebeat are shipped as composable Index Templates. In order to allow El Proxy indices generated by Filebeat agents to have both the settings coming from the Filebeat Index Template and the settings needed by El Proxy, El Proxy by default installs a set of composable Index Templates that only import the following Component Templates:
neteye-autoexpand-replicas: sets the index.auto_expand_replicas to 0-1.el-proxy-mappings: defines static and dynamic mapping for El Proxy objectsEBP_METADATAandES_BLOCKCHAIN.<beats_agent_name>-<beats_agent_version>@settings: configures the settings for the Beats agent <beats_agent_name> with version <beats_agent_version>. This Component Template is generated by NetEye and is the transformation of the mappings of the Composable Index Template<beats_agent_name>-<beats_agent_version>into a Component Template.<beats_agent_name>-<beats_agent_version>@mappings: configures the mappings for the Beats agent <beats_agent_name> with version <beats_agent_version>. It is constructed in a similar way as the<beats_agent_name>-<beats_agent_version>@settingsComponent Template.el-proxy-<retention_name>-retention: sets the lifecycle of the index to the ILM policy <retention_name>_retention.<index_template_name>@custom: contains possible User customizations for the current Index Template, where <index_template_name> represents the name of the current Index Template.
All default Index Templates, Component Templates (with the exception of the @custom Component Templates) and ILM policies are automatically overwritten during every neteye_secure_install. For this reason you must never modify them.
Generating Templates for Additional Beats¶
El Proxy only ships by default the composable Index Templates for the Filebeat agent since the Index Templates of the other Beats are not present in NetEye.
In case you install templates for any additional Beats agents (e.g. Winlogbeat), you must create create El Proxy composable Index Templates for this Beats agent. If you do not perform this operation El Proxy retention policy and mappings will not be correctly applied on that Beats’ indices.
Supposing you want to create El Proxy Index Templates for the Beats winlogbeat with version 7.17.5, you can execute this script as follows:
bash /usr/share/neteye/elasticsearch/scripts/elasticsearch-generate-el-proxy-beats-template.sh \
-b "winlogbeat" -v "7.17.5"
Hint
If for any reason the composable Index Templates for the Beats agent has a name different than the standard
<beats_agent_name>-<beats_agent_version>, you can call the script with the argument -t <index_template_name>.
Customizing the Composable Index Templates¶
As described in Section Elasticsearch Templates and Retentions, the composable Index Templates installed by El Proxy specify no settings, they only import the settings from a set of Component Templates.
Since all the Index Templates installed by El Proxy are overwritten during every neteye_secure_install, you must not add your customizations by modifying the Index Templates in place.
Instead, supposing you need to customize the composable Index Template filebeat-7.17.4-el-proxy-1_year-retention,
you can simply add your customizations in the Component Template filebeat-7.17.4-el-proxy-1_year-retention@custom.
This Component Template is empty by default, is included by default in the relative Index Template and will
not be overwritten during the neteye_secure_install.
Configuring El Proxy Retentions¶
El Proxy retention policies are to be configured via the Icinga Director. Retention policies are host-based, and so a blockchain retention should be set as one of the Custom properties in the Host Configuration Panel, as described in Enabling El Proxy.
Some particular logs may require a special, custom retention configuration to be applied. Below you will find information on how to customize Logstash pipelines to apply different retention policies in El Proxy.
To specify which ILM policy to use from a variety of available ones you can set
the field EBP_METADATA.retention in a logstash filter.
For example, if you want to set a 6 months policy for authentication logs you can create a new filter
in the directory /neteye/shared/logstash/conf/conf.ebp.d called 1_f10000_auth_retention.filter
which contains the following condition:
filter {
if "authentication" in [event][category] {
mutate {
replace => {"[EBP_METADATA][retention]" => "6_months" }
}
}
}
If the index pattern does not match any valid retention policy name, the default (2_years) ILM policy will be applied.
Changing the retention policy for an existing blockchain results in the creation of a new blockchain: a new key will be generated and must be saved in a safe place. All new logs will be saved in the new blockchain while the old blockchain will not receive any new log. For the verification process you need to use the appropriate key for each blockchain.
The retention policy change is not retroactive: the old blockchain will maintain the original retention period.
Adding Custom Retentions to El Proxy¶
As described in Section Elasticsearch Templates and Retentions, El Proxy ships by default
a set of retention policies and maintains a mapping between their names and corresponding duration in days
in the /neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/retention_policies.toml.
During the El Proxy Verification Setup, /etc/neteye-dpo file should specify
the retention of a blockchain to be verified.
Apart from a set of retention policies El Proxy ships by default, you can also add a custom retention of your own choice.
For instance, if you would like to use a custom retention policy for a blockchain, such as a 1 month retention, you have to:
Create a specific file, in this case
/1_month_retention.toml, in the/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/conf/retention_policies.d/folder, defining the corresponding duration in days:[1_month] duration_in_days = 30
Create a new index template to apply the new ILM policy e.g.:
{ "order": 150, "index_patterns": [ "*-elproxysigned-*-1_month-*" ], "settings": { "index": { "lifecycle": { "name": "my_1_month_ilm_policy" } } } }
Warning
In this example we are creating a Legacy Index Template. Before proceeding please ensure it will not be overridden by existing composable Index Templates. For more information on the interaction between Legacy and composable Index Templates visit Section Elasticsearch Templates and Retentions.
Create a new retention entry in the Icinga Director:
In the Provide Data Lists of the Director find Data lists tab
In the Blockchain Retention List add a new retention entry; specify the key value respecting the format sampled in default retention policies.
New blockchain retention should now be available in the selection of retentions in the Host Configuration Panel.
You must never change the deletion period with a shorter one otherwise you will have missing logs in the middle of the blockchain and this will cause the verification to fail.
Handling Logs in Dead Letter Queue¶
Logs which could not be indexed in Elasticsearch are written in the DLQ of El Proxy.
Since events written in the DLQ are not part of the secured blockchain indices, the NetEye Administrator needs to recover or explicitly acknowledge the presence of the events in the DLQ.
As soon as any log ends up in the DLQ, the Icinga2 service logmanager-blockchain-creation-neteyelocal will enter in CRITICAL state, indicating that some log could not be indexed in the blockchain.
To recover the logs, the NetEye admin can use the dlq recover command, which will try to write the DLQ logs on Elasticsearch in their original target index (see How the index name is determined). If some of the logs cannot be recovered, they will remain in the DLQ.
Warning
In case the dlq recover command is executed to recover logs that should have been deleted due to retention policy of Elasticsearch, successfully recovered logs persist on the blockchain for a maximum amount of time defined by the Elasticsearch ILM poll interval. If the the blockchain verification is performed during this time interval, the verification will throw a warning indicating that the blockchain contains logs that should have been deleted earlier.
In case the Elasticsearch target index where logs should be written is in warm (or cold) phase,
the dlq recover command will write the logs in a separate index, that will acquire a
suffix, e.g. -000001 as an addition to the original target index name. This operation is transparent for the user
and is reported here for completeness of information.
To acknowledge the presence of logs in the DLQ the NetEye admin must:
Ensure that the logs in the DLQ do not contain any sign of malicious activities.
To do so, please inspect the content of the DLQ log files
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/data/dlq/<customer>/<filename>, where <customer> is the name of the customer who generated the log, and <filename> is the name of the log file.Move all the DLQ log files
/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/data/dlq/<customer>/<filename>in the path/neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/data/dlq_archived/<customer>/<filename>Hint
To move all the DLQ files in the archive folder you can execute the following CLI commands:
mkdir /neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/data/dlq_archived/ mv /neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/data/dlq/* /neteye/shared/elastic-blockchain-proxy/data/dlq_archived/
How to Setup the Automatic Verification of Blockchains¶
This chapter illustrates the best practices for the setup of a secure and automatic verification of El Proxy blockchains. We will setup an environment where the verification of a specific blockchain is performed every day. Moreover, we will describe how we can notify of the blockchain verification results in Icinga 2 via Tornado Webhook Collectors and Tornado rules.
This guide is organized as follows: we first introduce the Prerequisites and then we describe the NetEye setup. After that, we provide indications on how to test the deployed configuration.
Prerequisites¶
For the start you will need to have the file containing the initial key of the blockchain to be verified
The automated verification needs to be set up on a machine which is external to the NetEye installation, accessible only by you, referred to as DPO machine. The DPO machine must meet the following requirements:
Run a Linux distribution
Support Docker
The DPO machine must be reachable, from the NetEye Master, on port 22 for the SSH connection during the setup procedure
Note
The SSH connection will be necessary only when executing the setup command and will be performed using password authentication. Credentials to access the DPO machine are never stored inside NetEye.
The DPO machine must reach the NetEye Master on port 9200 for contacting Elasticsearch.
The DPO machine must reach the webhook_collector_host on port 443 to connect to the Tornado Webhook Collector.
The DPO machine must reach DockerHub to be able to pull El Proxy container images
The DPO machine must be a known host on the NetEye Master. This is needed for the setup procedure to safely connect to the DPO machine through SSH. Run the following command in order to add the DPO machine to the list of known hosts on the NetEye Master: ssh-keyscan <dpo-hostname> > /root/.ssh/known_hosts.
The DPO machine and the NetEye installation must be configured in the same timezone
The backup of the DPO machine must be performed on the customer’s part
Note
If you would like to setup the automatic verification of the blockchain on a Windows system, you can download the Docker image from DockerHub and perform a manual setup of the automatic verification. For more information, please refer to the official channels: sales, consultants, or support portal.
Verification Setup¶
Step 1. Configure the blockchain verification
Configuration is to be carried out on the NetEye Master in the /etc/neteye-dpo JSON-formatted file.
As an example, we can configure, using the DPO root user on the dpo-host DPO machine, the verification of a
blockchain having a 6_months retention. The blockchain belongs to the test_tenant and we would like the verification
to run each day at 7PM, sending the results to a Tornado Webhook Collector hosted at satellite1 with the test_token token.
In this case, the configuration in the /etc/neteye-dpo file is to be built as follows:
{ "dpo_host": "dpo-host", "dpo_user": "root", "blockchains_verification": [ { "tenant": "test_tenant", "retention": "6_months", "tag": "0", "webhook_host": "satellite1", "webhook_token": "test_token", "cron_scheduling": { "minute": "0", "hour": "19", "day": "*", "month": "*", "week_day": "*" } } ] }
For looking up a full list of configuration file attributes please consult neteye dpo setup section.
Step 2. Run the neteye dpo setup command
The command should be run from the NetEye Master. Upon running the command, you will be prompted to provide the password of the user, specified in the configuration. This will allow you to connect to the DPO machine and the initial key of the blockchain.
Note
If you are not using the root account, you will be asked also for the password to be used to perform some actions with sudo. If the password equals to the one used to connect via SSH to the DPO machine, you can press enter to use it also for the commands execution.
The command will connect to the DPO machine and set up the verification launching a container for each verification, which will then be performed at the specified schedule.
Note
Among the different actions performed by the command, this also tries to install Docker on the system. However, the automatic installation may fail for some OS which require a more specific installation path. If the command fails due to this error, please manually install Docker on the system and then run the command with the –skip-tags install_docker_packages option:
neteye dpo setup --skip-tags install_docker_packages
Step 3. Configure a Tornado Webhook Collector (executable)
Tornado Webhook Collector is to be configured on either the NetEye Master, or a NetEye Satellite. It will take care of receiving El Proxy blockchain verification result from the DPO machine and forwarding it to Tornado, which will then set an Icinga 2 status.
On the node where the Tornado Webhook Collector is running, create the file
/neteye/shared/tornado_webhook_collector/conf/webhooks/elproxy_verification.jsonSet its content to:
{ "id": "elproxy_verification", "token": "<webhook_token>", "collector_config": { "event_type": "elproxy_verification", "payload": { "data": "${@}" } } }Restart the Tornado Webhook Collector service to load the webhook
Step 4. Configure a Rule in Tornado to set a status in Icinga 2
Via NetEye Tornado GUI, create a Rule that matches the Events with type
elproxy_verification and executes an Action of type SMART_MONITORING_CHECK_RESULT,
where we set as check_result -> exit_status the value event.payload.data.exit_status and as
check_result -> plugin_output the value event.payload.data.output.
Moreover, if you are sending the results of the verification of multiple blockchains to the same Tornado Webhook Collector,
you can filter them by using the event.payload.data.tenant, event.payload.data.retention and event.payload.data.tag
values.
Configure the rest of the Rule as you prefer.
Testing the Configuration¶
Now everything should be configured correctly. To test your configuration, on the DPO machine, you can Manually trigger a pre-configured automatic verification.
Manually trigger a pre-configured automatic verification¶
As a user I want to be able to manually trigger a verification even though the automatic verification has already been configured, for example to immediately report the status of the blockchain to the management.
Connect to the DPO machine using the same credentials specified when performing the setup of the automatic verification.
Note
If you connected to the DPO machine with a user different from root, run the following commands using sudo
Open a shell in the verification container you would like to trigger manually. To do so, run the docker exec -it elproxy-verify-<tenant>-<retention>-<tag> bash where the tenant, retention and tag match the properties of your blockchain.
Hint
To check which verification containers are running on the DPO machine you can execute the docker ps command
Extract the verification command from the cron file defining its schedule, located at
/etc/cron.d/elproxy-verify-<tenant>-<retention>-<tag>For example, for the blockchain defined in automatic verification, the file, located at/etc/cron.d/elproxy-verify-test_tenant-6_months-0will have the following content:0 19 * * * root /bin/elproxy_verify_blockchain_and_send_result test_tenant 6_months 0 satellite1 test_token
In this case, the verification command will be /bin/elproxy_verify_blockchain_and_send_result test_tenant 6_months 0 satellite1 test_token
Run the extracted verification command.
Expected results:
The verification is performed and the result is sent to the configured Tornado Webhook Collector. The output of the command is saved in the
/root/elproxy-verification/logsfolder, with the file being identified by the verified blockchain and the current timestamp.
Manual Blockchain Verification¶
This section aims to define the guidelines for the manual verification of a blockchain. The following naming convention is used while defining the guidelines for manual verification:
<tenant>: The tenant (also referred to as “customer” in the previous chapters) of the blockchain that needs to be verified
<retention>: the retention of the blockchain to be verified
<tag>: the tag of the blockchain to be verified
Note
While following this guide and executing commands, remember to always substitute the placeholders <…> with their real value.
The guide is based on the two examples which should cover most of the use cases.
For both examples, we assume the following:
El Proxy has been correctly set up by following the the NetEye Setup section
Every month has exactly 30 days (to facilitate the date calculations)
- Manual verification with existing BSH file
In this example, we assume the following:
The current date is
2022-08-30Stored on the NetEye machine, there is a non-empty blockchain created on
2022-05-01with the following properties:TENANT:exampletenantRETENTION:3_monthsTAG:exampletag
The BSH file is stored under its default path on the DPO machine and contains 90 entries (one entry for each day) from
2022-05-01to2022-07-30
Note that, on the current date, the blockchain is already missing some logs. Since the retention policy is three months and the blockchain was created on
2022-05-01, the logs indexed from2022-05-01to2022-05-30have been automatically deleted by Elasticsearch.In order to start the verification manually, the DPO admin needs to connect to the running verification container, see Manually trigger a pre-configured automatic verification, and then run:
/usr/bin/elastic_blockchain_proxy verify \ --key-file "/root/elproxy-verification/data/keys/elproxysigned-exampletenant-3_months-exampletag_key.json" \ --index-name "*-*-elproxysigned-exampletenant-3_months-exampletag-*" \ --elasticsearch-authentication-method pemcertificatepath \ --elasticsearch-client-cert /root/elproxy-verification/conf/certs/neteye_ebp_verify_exampletenant.crt.pem \ --elasticsearch-client-private-key /root/elproxy-verification/conf/certs/private/neteye_ebp_verify_exampletenant.key.pem
Internally, the verify command tries to retrieve the iteration from which to start the verification; based on the current date and the retention policy of the blockchain, El Proxy expects the first iteration of the blockchain to be the first log indexed on
2022-06-01.This date was calculated as follows:
date = current_date - retention_policy_in_days + 1
Where
dateis the resulting date,current_dateis the current date, andretention_policy_in_daysis the retention policy in days of the blockchain. For completeness, the final+ 1avoids the resulting date being the date on which Elasticsearch is applying the retention policy.To retrieve the actual first iteration from which to start the verification, El Proxy fetches the BSH file searching for the entry corresponding to
date. As an example, a section of the BSH file could look like the following one:"2022-05-30": { "first_iteration": 15 "last_iteration": 20 }, "2022-06-01": { "first_iteration": 21 "last_iteration": 23 }, "2022-06-02": { "first_iteration": 24 "last_iteration": 30 }
In this case, the first iteration from which to start the verification is iteration
21. At this point, El Proxy can start verifying the logs from the retrieved first iteration. If the verification is successful, the old BSH file will be overwritten with a new one containing one entry for each day from2022-06-01to the current date.- Manual verification of newly created blockchain
In this example, we suppose the following:
The current date is
2022-09-01Stored on the NetEye machine, there is a non-empty blockchain created on the current date with the following properties:
TENANT:exampletenantRETENTION:3_monthsTAG:exampletag
The BSH file does not exist
To start the verification manually, the DPO admin needs to connect to the running verification container, see Manually trigger a pre-configured automatic verification, and then run:
/usr/bin/elastic_blockchain_proxy verify \ --key-file "/root/elastic-blockchain-proxy/data/keys/elproxysigned-exampletenant-3_months-exampletag_key.json" \ --index-name "*-*-elproxysigned-exampletenant-3_months-exampletag-*" \ --elasticsearch-authentication-method pemcertificatepath \ --elasticsearch-client-cert /root/elproxy-verification/conf/certs/neteye_ebp_verify_exampletenant.crt.pem \ --elasticsearch-client-private-key /root/elproxy-verification/conf/certs/private/neteye_ebp_verify_exampletenant.key.pem
Internally, the verify command tries to retrieve the iteration from which to start the verification. Since the BSH file is missing, El Proxy tries to get the first existing log by querying Elasticsearch.
In this example, since the blockchain is new and all its logs are still present, Elasticsearch will return the log with iteration zero as the first log in the blockchain.
El Proxy will then start the verification from the log with iteration zero. If the verification succeeds, a BSH file will be created and stored on the DPO machine.
El Proxy Metrics¶
El Proxy performance metrics can be useful for inspecting the workload, identifying bottlenecks, and debugging issues. For more info about the individual metrics collected by El Proxy, please refer to the El Proxy REST Endpoints section.
You can configure the parameters for retrieving and storing metrics via GUI under . There are two parameters available:
El Proxy Monitoring Retention Policy: defines the number of days for which metrics are retained in InfluxDB and defaults to 7 days, after which data will no longer be available.
El Proxy Monitoring Polling Interval: sets how often the Telegraf agent queries El Proxy APIs to gather metrics and defaults to 2 seconds.
To apply changes, you can either run neteye_secure_install for both options or execute /usr/share/neteye/kibana/scripts/apply_elproxy_monitoring_retention_policy.sh or /usr/share/neteye/kibana/scripts/apply_elproxy_monitoring_polling_interval.sh, depending on the parameter to be changed.
Note
On a NetEye Cluster, execute the command on any PCS node.
NetEye also provides an out-of-the-box solution for visualizing the metrics, which consists of a set of dashboards that allow you to analyze the work of El Proxy. To check out the dashboards please click on the ITOA module and navigate to the El Proxy folder of the Grafana Organization Main Org.. Here you will see dashboards regarding troubleshooting and performance of El Proxy.
El Proxy dashboards rely on the ElProxyMonitoring Grafana Data Source, which is also automatically created by NetEye and you should never modify it manually.
Note
The dashboards present in El Proxy folder and the ElProxyMonitoring Data Source are managed by NetEye and you should never modify them manually because they will be overwritten by NetEye itself. If you would like to modify one of the dashboards, first you should copy it and then modify a copied version.
