Upgrading

This document constitutes a per-version listing of changes of configuration which are non-backwards compatible.

0.4.2 to 0.5.0

METRON-941: native PaloAlto parser corrupts message when having a comma in the payload

While modifying the PaloAlto log parser to support logs from newer PAN-OS version and to not break when a message payload contains a comma, some field names were changed to extend the coverage, fix some duplicate names and change some field names to the Metron standard message format.

Installations making use of this parser should check, if the resulting messages still meet their expectations and adjust downstream configurations (i.e. ElasticSearch template) accordingly.

Note: Previously, the samples for the test contained a full syslog line (including syslog header). This did - and will continue to - create a broken “domain” field in the parsed message. It is recommended to only feed the syslog message part to the parser for now.

0.4.1 to 0.4.2

METRON-1277: STELLAR Add Match functionality to language

As we continue to evolve the Stellar language, it is possible that new keywords will be added to the language. This may cause compatablity issues where these reserved words and symbols are used in existing scripts.

Adding match to the Stellar lanaguage has introduced the following new reserved keywords and symbols:

match, default, {, }, ‘=>’

Any stellar expressions which use these keywords not in quotes will need to be modified.

METRON-1158: Build backend for grouping alerts into meta alerts

In order to allow for meta alerts to be queries alongside regular alerts in Elasticsearch 2.x, it is necessary to add an additional field to the templates and mapping for existing sensors.

Two steps must be done for each sensor, but not on each index for each sensor.

First is to update the Elasticsearch template for each sensor, so any new indices have the field:

export ELASTICSEARCH="node1"
export SENSOR="bro"
curl -XGET "http://${ELASTICSEARCH}:9200/_template/${SENSOR}_index*?pretty=true" -o "${SENSOR}.template"
sed -i '2d;$d' ./${SENSOR}.template
sed -i '/"properties" : {/ a\
"alert": { "type": "nested"},' ${SENSOR}.template
curl -XPUT "http://${ELASTICSEARCH}:9200/_template/${SENSOR}_index" -d @${SENSOR}.template

To update existing indexes, update Elasticsearch mappings with the new field for each sensor. Make sure to set the ELASTICSEARCH variable appropriately.

curl -XPUT "http://${ELASTICSEARCH}:9200/${SENSOR}_index*/_mapping/${SENSOR}_doc" -d '
{
        "properties" : {
          "alert" : {
            "type" : "nested"
          }
        }
}
'
rm ${SENSOR}.template

For a more detailed description, please see metron-platform/metron-elasticsearch/README.md

Description

In the 0.4.2 release,

0.3.1 to 0.4.0

METRON-671: Refactor existing Ansible deployment to use Ambari MPack

Description

Since the Ansible Deployment uses the MPack, RPMs must be built prior to deployment. As a result, Docker is required to perform a Quick-Dev, Full-Dev or Ansible deployment. This effectively limits the build environment to Docker supported platforms.

0.3.0 to 0.3.1

METRON-664: Make the index configuration per-writer with enabled/disabled

Description

As of 0.3.0 the indexing configuration

  • Is held in the enrichment configuration for a sensor
  • Has properties which control every writers (i.e. HDFS, solr or elasticsearch).

In the 0.3.1 release, this configuration has been broken out and control for individual writers are separated.

Please see the description of the configurations in the indexing README

Migration

Migrate the configurations from each sensor enrichment configuration and create appropriate configurations for indexing.

For instance, if a sensor enrichment config for sensor foo is in $METRON_HOME/config/zookeeper/enrichments/foo.json and looks like

{
  "index" : "foo",
  "batchSize" : 100
}

You would create a file to configure each writer for sensor foo called $METRON_HOME/config/zookeeper/indexing/foo.json with the contents

{
  "elasticsearch" : {
    "index" : "foo",
    "batchSize" : 100,
    "enabled" : true
  },
  "hdfs" : { 
    "index" : "foo",
    "batchSize" : 100,
    "enabled" : true
  }
}

METRON-675: Make Threat Triage rules able to be assigned names and comments

Description

As of 0.3.0, threat triage rules were defined as a simple Map associating a Stellar expression with a score. As of 0.3.1, due to the fact that there may be many threat triage rules, we have made the rules more complex. To help organize these, we have made the threat triage objects in their own right that contain optional name and optional comment fields.

This essentially makes the risk level rules slightly more complex. The format goes from:

"riskLevelRules" : {
    "stellar expression" : numeric score
}

to:

"riskLevelRules" : [
     {
        "name" : "optional name",
        "comment" : "optional comment",
        "rule" : "stellar expression",
        "score" : numeric score
     }
]

Migration

For every sensor enrichment configuration, you will need to migrate the riskLevelRules section to move from a map to a list of risk level rule objects.

METRON-283: Migrate Geo Enrichment outside of MySQL

Description

As of 0.3.0, a MySQL database was used for storage and retrieval of GeoIP information during enrichment. As of 0.3.1, the MySQL database is removed in favor of using MaxMind's binary GeoIP files and stored on HDFS

After initial setup, this change is transparent and existing enrichment definitions will run as-is.

Migration

While new installs will not require any additional steps, in an existing install a script must be run to retrieve and load the initial data.

The shell script geo_enrichment_load.sh will retrieve MaxMind GeoLite2 data and load data into HDFS, and update the configuration to point to this data. In most cases the following usage will grab the data appropriately:

$METRON_HOME/bin/geo_enrichment_load.sh -z <zk_server>:<zk_port>

Additional options, including changing the source file location (which can be a file:// location if the GeoIP data is already downloaded), are available with the -h flag and are also detailed in the metron-data-management README.me file.

One caveat is that this script will NOT update on disk config files. It is recommended to retrieve the configuration using

$METRON_HOME/bin/zk_load_configs.sh -z <zk_server>:<zk_port> -m DUMP

The new config will be geo.hdfs.file in the global section of the configuration. Append this key-value into the global.json in the config directory. A PUSH is unnecessary

METRON-684: Decouple Timestamp calculation from PROFILE_GET

Description

During 0.3.1 we decoupled specifying durations for calls to the profiler into a separate function. The consequence is that existing calls to PROFILE_GET will need to migrate.

Migration

Existing calls to PROFILE_GET will need to change from PROFILE_GET('profile', 'entity', duration, 'durationUnits') to PROFILE_GET('profile', 'entity', PROFILE_FIXED(duration, 'durationUnits'))

0.2.0BETA to 0.3.0

METRON-447: Monit fails to reload when upgrading from 0.2.0BETA to master

Description

/etc/monit.d/enrichment-elasticsearch.monit was renamed to /etc/monit.d/indexing-elasticsearch.monit, however the old file isn't removed via ansible, which causes the below error during an upgrade: Starting monit: /etc/monit.d/enrichment-elasticsearch.monit:18: Service name conflict, enrichment already defined '/usr/local/monit/status_enrichment_topology.sh'

METRON-448:Upgrading via Ansible deployment does not add topology.classpath

Description

When using Ansible to deploy the latest Metron bits to an existing installation, storm-site is not being updated with the new 0.2.1BETA parameter topology.classpath. Topologies are unable to find the client configs as a result.

Workaround

Set the topology.classpath property for storm in Ambari to /etc/hbase/conf:/etc/hadoop/conf