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Argus How To File

    1. How do I join the Argus mailing list?
    2. How do I report bugs?
    3. How do I compile Argus?
    4. How do I install Argus?
    5. How do I configure Argus?
    6. How do I run Argus?
    7. How do you run argus on your systems?
    8. How do I audit my web servers?
    9. How do I audit the traffic between my corporate network and my ISP?
   10. Who are the 10 top talkers on my network? 
   11. How can I log all http GET and POST requests to my web servers? 
   12. How do I log intrusion attempts into my network?
   22. What is the performance of my DNS services?



1. How do I join the Argus mailing list?
      Send "subscribe argus" in the body of a piece of mail
      to majordomo@lists.andrew.cmu.edu

2. How do I report bugs?
      Use the tool ./bin/argusbug to send your bug report
      to the argus mailing list.  Argusbug will present you
      with a bug reporting form, that includes some system
      information.  If you are unhappy providing the information
      supplied by Argusbug, you are free to delete it.

      Send any comments/fixes/opinions/whatever to the
      mailing list.  Someone will send a reply.


3. How do I compile Argus?
      Building specifics for argus are described in the ./INSTALL file.
      The quick method is:

         % ./configure
         % make


4. How do I install Argus?
      Detail installation instructions are in the ./INSTALL file.
      But the fast an easy way is to:

         make install


5. How do I configure Argus?
      For most uses, Argus will require only a few simple
      configuration variable set to do work.   For the
      custom minded, Argus supports a large number of options.
      
      Argus is generally configured using the .argusrc file that
      is normally found in $ARGUSHOME.  The variables that are
      set by this file can be overriden by the use of command
      line switches or an alternative configuration file
      that is specified using the "-F configfile" option.

      See ./example/.argusrc for a description of options and
      their default settings.  This sample file sets most of
      the common options.


6. How do I run Argus?
      Argus is run either as a persistant daemon, reading live
      packets from a network interface, or as a program,
      reading packets from a packet capture file.  The default,
      i.e. when it is run without any configuration, is to run
      as a daemon. 

      The only real question to answer is where do you want
      argus to send its output.  The basic options are to write
      to a file, or to offer remote access via a socket, or both.

      Most installations will run configure argus to write its
      output to a file.  To do this, run argus as:

         # argus -w outputfile

      This will cause Argus to run as a daemon, reading packets
      from the first available network interface, and writing
      its output to an outputfile.

      If you intend to remotely attach to this argus, you'll need to
      tell argus what port to put a listen down on.  The default
      port for clients is port 561.  We recommend using this port
      number.

         # argus -P 561 -w outputfile


      In order to configure argus to read packets from a packet 
      capture file, use the "-r" option.

         % argus -r ./packetfile

      Argus has a large number of options, which can be set
      through an .argusrc file, the use of command line options,
      or through a separate configuration file that is specifed
      at run time.  These options are designed to specify things
      like, what type of information Argus should capture, how
      often it should generate output records, whether it should
      put the network interface in promiscuous mode when run,
      should it create a pid file, etc...  The complete list is
      described int the argus.8 man page.


7. How do you run argus on your systems?

      argus -e `hostname` -P 561 -U128 -mRS 30 -w $ARGUSHOME/argus.out


8. How do I audit my web servers?

      Argus can be deployed either on the network using a tapping
      strategy that captures all the packets destined to and from
      the target web server, or Argus can be deployed on the web
      server itself.  In any case, if the desire is to measure
      web performance itself, Argus should be deployed as close
      to the server as physically possible.

      Deploying Argus on the server itself is my preferred
      strategy as it solves some basic problems with monitoring
      multi-interface load balanced servers.  Some sites will
      be concerned with the cycles used by Argus and stability
      issues, but for the majority of servers in use in the
      Internet today, this will be the right strategy, as it
      is the least expensive.

              +-----------+       +-----------+     
              |       +-+ |       |       +-+ |   
              |       | | |       |       | | +------
              |       | | +-------+       | | |
              |       | | |       |       | | +------
              |       +-+ |       |       +-+ |   
              +-----------+       +-----------+   
              Web Back End        Web Front End  
              with resident       with resident
                  Argus               Argus
                          
                           Figure 1.

      When off server deployment is indicated, Argus can be
      deployed any where in the network where there is access
      to packets of interest.  Usually using a switch or
      hub that is inline with the target packet data is the
      way to go.

                 +-----------+     Switch
                 |           |      Hub
                 |           |     +---+
                 |           +-----+   +-------
                 |           |     +-+-+
                 |           |       | 
                 +-----------+       |
                   Web Server    +---+---+
                                 | Argus |
                                 +-------+
            
                           Figure 2.


       There are situations where the effects of load balancers
       will want to be monitored.  In this case, multiple Argi
       can be deployed to monitor pre and post load balanced
       flow data.


                    Switch                    Switch
      +-------+      Hub       +-------+       Hub      
      |       |     +---+      |       |      +---+    
      |       +-----+   +------+       +------+   +------
      |       |     +-+-+      |       |      +-+-+    
      +-------+       |        +-------+        |       
      Web Server      |      Load Balancer      |        
                  +---+---+                 +---+---+
                  | Argus |                 | Argus |
                  +-------+                 +-------+

                           Figure 3.



9. How do I audit the traffic between my corporate network and my ISP?

      The trick here is to deploy Argus such that it can see
      all the packets between the corp network and the Internet.
      In many networks there is a network ethernet DMZ.  This is the
      ideal location to place Argus, a common link that is physically
      accessible that can have complete cover over all the packets.

      This is especially true when there are multiple ISP links being
      used by the corporation.

      A Switch or a Hub can be used to tap into the DMZ so that
      the Argus host can see the full duplex channel between the
      two routers, as shown below.

                            Switch    +-----------+
               +------+      Hub      |           +------- ISP
               |      |    +-----+    |           |
   corp  ------+      +----+     +----+   Router  +------- ISP
               |      |    +--+--+    |           |
               +------+       |       |           +------- ISP
                router        |       +-----------+
                          +---+---+
                          | Argus |
                          +-------+

                           Figure 4.

      If you can't insert a switch or a hub into the link as
      shown in Figure 4, then you've got a bit of a puzzle.

      In some cases you can configure your router to "port steer"
      or port copy the packets that you are interested in to a
      common monitoring port.  When a switch or hub cannot be
      installed on the DMZ link, this would be the next likely
      strategy.

                        +-----------+ B
                        |           +------- ISP
                      A |   Router  | C
           Corp    -----+   Switch  +------- ISP
                        |           | D
                        |           +------- ISP
                        +-----+-----+
                              | E
                          +---+---+
                          | Argus |
                          +-------+

      If the router/switch can be configured to copy both
      incoming and outgoing packets from Interface A to 
      Interface E, then the problem is solved, as this
      will get all the packets (assuming you don't support
      routing between interfaces B, C or D).

      Interface E should have the bandwidth needed to handle
      the full load of the traffic.  In our example above,
      If interface A is a 10 Mbps ethernet link, interface
      E should be a 100Mpbs interface, so that it can handle
      the 20 Mbps of total load interface A can support.

      If the device does not support full duplex port copy,
      then a strategy that copies all the incoming interfaces
      of the router/switch to a common monitor interface will
      also get all the packets.
      
      If none of the above is possible, then ~here are WAN
      probe taps available that will support packet capture
      from ISP links.  These are pretty expensive, sometimes
      more than the entire cost of the Argus probe itself,
      but they are available.


10. How do I determine the top talkers on my network? 

      To get top talker type data, use ramon, with the
      TopN option.
 
          ramon -M TopN -r * - filter
 
      If you want top pairs of talkers, use ramon with the
      Matrix option.
 
          ramon -M Matrix -r * - filter


11. How can I log all http GET and POST requests to my web servers? 

12. How do I log intrusion attempts into my network?



24. How do I generate near real-time link byte and packet counts 
    every 10 seconds from a remote argus server?

    ragator() is the tool of choice here.  But getting a 10 sec
    interval statistic will require that you to make some changes
    to the runtime configuration of argus.  The ragator
    configuration file needed to do this described below. 
    
    The problem is that Argus outputs microflow audit records
    based on state and a time interval.  The -S option specifies
    what that time interval will be.  The default is setup so
    that the maximum time duration of any argus audit record
    is 60 seconds.  With this type of granular data, deriving
    a usable 10 second status counter is not possible.

    The best you could do would be a 180 second status counter
    (3 * (minimum period)).  In order to get 10 second 
    link stats, you will need to lower the status reporting
    timer run Argus to 2-3 seconds, using the -S option.

    Depending on your traffic loads, this may or may not be
    a lot of records. 

    If you want to go for 10 second stats, run 

       argus -S 2 [raoptions]

    And then use ragator to collect the microflow data from
    the above argus, using the flowmodel.conf file that is
    described below.

       ragator -S remoteargus -f flowmodel.conf

    
    Where this is the contents of flowmodel.conf 
    # 
    #label   id    SrcCIDRAddr  DstCIDRAddr   Proto  SrcPort  DstPort   ModelList  Duration 
    Flow     106       *             *          *       *        *         100        10 
    
    # label  id      SrcAddrMask     DstAddrMask      Proto  SrcPort  DstPort 
    Model    100      0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0          no      no       no 
    
    
    If you want to do the same thing but count based on IP protocol, put a "yes" 
    in the proto field of Model 100.  Anyway, read the ./examples/fmodel.conf 
    file for suggestions on configuring ragator(). 


