Parsers format
Understanding parsers¶
A parser is a YAML configuration file that describes how a string is being parsed. Said string can be a log line, or a field extracted from a previous parser. While a lot of parsers rely on the GROK approach (a.k.a regular expression named capture groups), parsers can as well reference enrichment modules to allow specific data processing, or use specific expr feature to perform parsing on specific data, such as JSON.
Parsers are organized into stages to allow pipelines and branching in parsing.
See the Crowdsec Hub to explore parsers, or see below some examples :
Stages¶
Stages concept is central to data parsing in Crowdsec, as it allows to have various "steps" of parsing. All parsers belong to a given stage. While users can add or modify the stages order, the following stages exist :
s00-raw
: low level parser, such as syslogs01-parse
: most of the services parsers (ssh, nginx etc.)s02-enrich
: enrichment that requires parsed events (ie. geoip-enrichment) or generic parsers that apply on parsed logs (ie. second stage http parser)
Every event starts in the first stage, and will move to the next stage once it has been successfully processed by a parser that has the onsuccess
directive set to next_stage
, and so on until it reaches the last stage, when it's going to start to be matched against scenarios. Thus a sshd log might follow this pipeline :
s00-raw
: be parsed bycrowdsecurity/syslog-logs
(will move event to the next stage)s01-raw
: be parsed bycrowdsecurity/sshd-logs
(will move event to the next stage)s02-enrich
: will be parsed bycrowdsecurity/geoip-enrich
andcrowdsecurity/dateparse-enrich
Parser configuration format¶
A parser node might look like :
#if 'onsuccess' is 'next_stage', the event will make it to next stage if this node succeed
onsuccess: next_stage
#a 'debug' (bool) flag allow to enable node level debug in any node to enable local debug
debug: true
#a filter to decide if the Event is elligible for this parser node
filter: "evt.Parsed.program == 'kernel'"
#a unique name to allow easy debug & logging
name: crowdsecurity/demo-iptables
#this is for humans
description: "Parse iptables drop logs"
#we can define named capture groups (a-la-grok)
pattern_syntax:
MYCAP: ".*"
#an actual grok pattern (regular expression with named capture groupe)
grok:
pattern: ^xxheader %{MYCAP:extracted_value} trailing stuff$
#we define on which field the regular expression must be applied
apply_on: evt.Parsed.some_field
#statics are transformations that are applied on the event if the node is considered "successfull"
statics:
- parsed: something
expression: JsonExtract(evt.Event.extracted_value, "nested.an_array[0]")
#to which field the value will be written (here -> evt.Meta.log_type)
- meta: log_type
#and here a static value
value: parsed_testlog
#another one
- meta: source_ip
#here the value stored is the result of a dynamic expression
expression: "evt.Parsed.src_ip"
The parser nodes are processed sequentially based on the alphabetical order of stage and subsequent files.
If the node is considered successful (grok is present and returned data or no grok is present) and "onsuccess" equals to next_stage
, then the event is moved to the next stage.
Parser trees¶
A parser node can contain sub-nodes, to provide proper branching (on top of stages). It can be useful when you want to apply different parsing based on different criterias, or when you have a set of candidates parsers that you want to apply to an event :
#This first node will capture/extract some value
filter: "evt.Line.Labels.type == 'type1'"
name: tests/base-grok-root
pattern_syntax:
MYCAP: ".*"
grok:
pattern: ^... %{MYCAP:extracted_value} ...$
apply_on: Line.Raw
statics:
- meta: state
value: root-done
- meta: state_sub
expression: evt.Parsed.extracted_value
---
#and this node will apply different patterns to it
filter: "evt.Line.Labels.type == 'type1' && evt.Meta.state == 'root-done'"
name: tests/base-grok-leafs
onsuccess: next_stage
#the sub-nodes will process the result of the master node
nodes:
- filter: "evt.Parsed.extracted_value == 'VALUE1'"
debug: true
statics:
- meta: final_state
value: leaf1
- filter: "evt.Parsed.extracted_value == 'VALUE2'"
debug: true
statics:
- meta: final_state
value: leaf2
The logic is that the tests/base-grok-root
node will be processed first and will alter the event (here mostly by extracting some text from the Line.Raw
field into Parsed
thanks to the grok
pattern and the statics
directive).
The event will then continue its life and be parsed by the the following tests/base-grok-leafs
node.
This node has onsuccess
set to next_stage
which means that if the node is successful, the event will be moved to the next stage.
This node consists actually of two sub-nodes that have different conditions (branching) to allow differential treatment of said event.
A real-life example can be seen when it comes to parsing HTTP logs. HTTP ACCESS and ERROR logs often have different formats, and thus our "nginx" parser needs to handle both formats
filter: "evt.Parsed.program == 'nginx'"
onsuccess: next_stage
name: crowdsecurity/nginx-logs
nodes:
- grok:
#this is the access log
name: NGINXACCESS
apply_on: message
statics:
- meta: log_type
value: http_access-log
- target: evt.StrTime
expression: evt.Parsed.time_local
- grok:
# and this one the error log
name: NGINXERROR
apply_on: message
statics:
- meta: log_type
value: http_error-log
- target: evt.StrTime
expression: evt.Parsed.time
# these ones apply for both grok patterns
statics:
- meta: service
value: http
- meta: source_ip
expression: "evt.Parsed.remote_addr"
- meta: http_status
expression: "evt.Parsed.status"
- meta: http_path
expression: "evt.Parsed.request"
Parser directives¶
debug¶
debug: true|false
default: false
If set to to true
, enabled node level debugging.
It is meant to help understanding parser node behavior by providing contextual logging :
assignments made by statics
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] + Processing 4 statics id=withered-rain name=crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] .Meta[service] = 'http' id=withered-rain name=crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] .Meta[source_ip] = '127.0.0.1' id=withered-rain name=crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] .Meta[http_status] = '200' id=withered-rain name=crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] .Meta[http_path] = '/' id=withered-rain name=crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
assignments made by grok pattern
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] + Grok 'NGINXACCESS' returned 10 entries to merge in Parsed id=dark-glitter name=child-crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] .Parsed['time_local'] = '21/Jul/2020:16:13:05 +0200' id=dark-glitter name=child-crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] .Parsed['method'] = 'GET' id=dark-glitter name=child-crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] .Parsed['request'] = '/' id=dark-glitter name=child-crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] .Parsed['http_user_agent'] = 'curl/7.58.0' id=dark-glitter name=child-crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] .Parsed['remote_addr'] = '127.0.0.1' id=dark-glitter name=child-crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
debug of filters and expression results
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] eval(evt.Parsed.program == 'nginx') = TRUE id=withered-rain name=crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] eval variables: id=withered-rain name=crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
DEBU[31-07-2020 16:36:28] evt.Parsed.program = 'nginx' id=withered-rain name=crowdsecurity/nginx-logs stage=s01-parse
filter¶
filter: expression
filter
must be a valid expr expression that will be evaluated against the event.
If filter
evaluation returns true or is absent, node will be processed.
If filter
returns false
or a non-boolean, node won't be processed.
Here is the expr documentation.
Examples :
filter: "evt.Meta.foo == 'test'"
filter: "evt.Meta.bar == 'test' && evt.Meta.foo == 'test2'
grok¶
grok:
name: NAMED_EXISTING_PATTERN
apply_on: source_field
grok:
pattern: ^a valid RE2 expression with %{CAPTURE:field}$
apply_on: source_field
The grok
structure in a node represent a regular expression with capture group (grok pattern) that must be applied on a field of event.
The pattern can :
- be imported by name (if present within the core of Crowdsec)
- defined in place
In both case, the pattern must be a valid RE2 expression.
The field(s) returned by the regular expression are going to be merged into the Parsed
associative array of the Event
.
name¶
name: explicit_string
The mandatory name of the node. If not present, node will be skipped at runtime. It is used for example in debug log to help you track things.
nodes¶
nodes:
- filter: ...
grok: ...
nodes
is a list of parser nodes, allowing you to build trees.
Each subnode must be valid, and if any of the subnodes succeed, the whole node is considered successful.
onsuccess¶
onsuccess: next_stage|continue
default: continue
if set to next_stage
and the node is considered successful, the event will be moved directly to next stage without processing other nodes in the current stage.
pattern_syntax¶
pattern_syntax:
CAPTURE_NAME: VALID_RE2_EXPRESSION
pattern_syntax
allows user to define named capture group expressions for future use in grok patterns.
Regexp must be a valid RE2 expression.
pattern_syntax:
MYCAP: ".*"
grok:
pattern: ^xxheader %{MYCAP:extracted_value} trailing stuff$
apply_on: Line.Raw
statics¶
statics:
- target: evt.Meta.target_field
value: static_value
- meta: target_field
expression: evt.Meta.target_field + ' this_is' + ' a dynamic expression'
- enriched: target_field
value: static_value
statics
is a list of directives that will be executed when the node is considered successful.
Each entry of the list is composed of a target (where to write) and a source (what data to write).
Target
The target aims at being any part of the event object, and can be expressed in different ways :
- `meta: <target_field>`
- `parsed: <target_field>`
- `enriched: <target_field>`
- a dynamic target (please note that the **current** event is accessible via the `evt.` variable) :
- `target: evt.Meta.foobar`
- `target: Meta.foobar`
- `target: evt.StrTime`
Source
The source itself can be either a static value, or an expr result :
statics:
- meta: target_field
value: static_value
- meta: target_field
expression: evt.Meta.another_field
- meta: target_field
expression: evt.Meta.target_field + ' this_is' + ' a dynamic expression'
data¶
data:
- source_url: https://URL/TO/FILE
dest_file: LOCAL_FILENAME
[type: (regexp|string)]
data
allows user to specify an external source of data.
This section is only relevant when cscli
is used to install parser from hub, as it will download the source_url
and store it to dest_file
. When the parser is not installed from the hub, Crowdsec won't download the URL, but the file must exist for the parser to be loaded correctly.
The type
is mandatory if you want to evaluate the data in the file, and should be regex
for valid (re2) regular expression per line or string
for string per line.
The regexps will be compiled, the strings will be loaded into a list and both will be kept in memory.
Without specifying a type
, the file will be downloaded and stored as file and not in memory.
name: crowdsecurity/cdn-whitelist
...
data:
- source_url: https://www.cloudflare.com/ips-v4
dest_file: cloudflare_ips.txt
type: string
Parser concepts¶
Success and failure¶
A parser is considered "successful" if :
- A grok pattern was present and successfully matched
- No grok pattern was present