All Apps and Add-ons

Using Palo Alto with syslog server funneling to splunk

be910j
Path Finder

Good afternoon,

We are currently sending all of our Palo Alto syslogs to a syslog server that collects multiple machines syslogs and forwards them via a universal forwarder to our splunk instance.

We filtered out all logs tagged with the palo alto device name and set the sourcetype to pan_log

heres the piece of our inputs.conf broken out for the palo alto logs from our syslog server
/prod/splunkforwarder/etc/apps/syslog/default/inputs.conf
[monitor:///prod/remotesyslog/logs/paloalto*/*]
blacklist=.gz$
disabled=false
sourcetype=pan_log
host_segment=4
index=syslog

The index=syslog is the generic index name we use for all syslogs rather than 'main' or 'default' etc.

we also made an update to the macros.conf on the application side via our search head and included the index name under :
opt/splunk/etc/apps/SplunkforPaloAltoNetworks/default#

Base Macros

[pan_threat]
definition = index=syslog sourcetype="pan_threat" NOT "THREAT,url"

[pan_traffic]
definition = index=syslog sourcetype="pan_traffic"

[pan_system]
definition = index=syslog sourcetype="pan_system"

[pan_config]
definition = index=syslog sourcetype="pan_config"

[pan_web_activity]
definition = index=syslog sourcetype="pan_threat" "THREAT,url"

Oddly enough under this dir
/opt/splunk/etc/apps/SplunkforPaloAltoNetworks/local#

the inputs.conf listed there is empty..? is this correct?

Now as it stands I am able to see under splunk deployment monitor a pan_log sourcetype that is receiving traffic but I am unable to view any data under the palo alto app or by doing an independent search such as sourcetype="pan_log" or 'pan_threat' etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

0 Karma
1 Solution

monzy
Communicator

adding to the summary indexing discussion: please take a look at this post: http://splunk-base.splunk.com/answers/5837/summary-indexing-on-a-search-head . also, if you plan on using multiple indexers, i would discourage the use of summary indexes for now. admittedly, the summary indexing use is not the best in this app. the summaries are of a high dimensionality, which results in a low summarized to raw data ratio. ultimately, the summaries will become very large. i am working on a better strategy for this.

'pan_threat' host="pa*" : i was unable to recreate this issue. this search works ok on a newly installed splunk instance with a fresh install of the app.

the reason for : This - index="pan_logs" pan_threat | bin _time span=5m | fillnull vsys app category src_ip dst_ip severity RISK threat_id CATEGORY | stats count by vsys app threat_id severity category src_ip dst_ip log_subtype CATEGORY RISK _time works

because the pan_logs index is not in the default search path of the user running the search.

i appreciate your feedback. i have added several things to my to do list for the next version of the app. happy to talk to you in person about some of this.

View solution in original post

colinxb
New Member

I have an existing syslog server that was already receiving PaloAlto logs. I've installed the universal forwarder on the syslog server and it is successfully sending the data to splunk. The PA app seems to be working ok, with the exception that searches by username always return no data. If I use the default splunk search page, I would like the 'host' field to be populated with the hostname of the firewall that generated the log message. Right now, it is always populated with the name of the logfile "firewall.log". I have tried several iterations of transforms.conf and props.conf on the syslog/forwarder host. Here are the current contents:

transforms.conf
[PAN_Firewall]
DEST_KEY = MetaData:Host
REGEX = \b\w*-\w*-\d\b
FORMAT = host::$1

props.conf
[source::/var/log/syslog/firewall.log]
TRANSFORMS-PAN=PAN_Firewall

Any suggestions?

0 Karma

ekost
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Syslog-ng can do all kinds of nifty tricks with a syslog stream before the data is written into the log. So the very first thing is to review the firewall.log on the syslog host to be sure the real device host name is in the event in a consistent place or marked. If it isn't, that's likely your syslog-ng configuration or the syslog stream is being forwarded through multiple hosts.

0 Karma

colinxb
New Member

True.

Usernames are present in the logs, and the charts.

Interestingly, I found that filtering the charts for auser (where my username is domain\auser) does update the charts in the PA App. Putting 'auser' in the source user field, however causes all of the charts to result in 'no results found'

I've tried a couple of other variations for transforms and props, but I can't seem to get the host field to populate correctly.

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

So your having 2 issues then, no hostname for the PA and no username data? Do you get something like 0's where a User name should be on some charts?

cheers,
Brandon

0 Karma

monzy
Communicator

adding to the summary indexing discussion: please take a look at this post: http://splunk-base.splunk.com/answers/5837/summary-indexing-on-a-search-head . also, if you plan on using multiple indexers, i would discourage the use of summary indexes for now. admittedly, the summary indexing use is not the best in this app. the summaries are of a high dimensionality, which results in a low summarized to raw data ratio. ultimately, the summaries will become very large. i am working on a better strategy for this.

'pan_threat' host="pa*" : i was unable to recreate this issue. this search works ok on a newly installed splunk instance with a fresh install of the app.

the reason for : This - index="pan_logs" pan_threat | bin _time span=5m | fillnull vsys app category src_ip dst_ip severity RISK threat_id CATEGORY | stats count by vsys app threat_id severity category src_ip dst_ip log_subtype CATEGORY RISK _time works

because the pan_logs index is not in the default search path of the user running the search.

i appreciate your feedback. i have added several things to my to do list for the next version of the app. happy to talk to you in person about some of this.

be910j
Path Finder

Just to follow up here on what was going on. It looks like the root of my dashboard issue after the macros were working was that I originally replaced my macros conf with the macros.conf.summary and forgot that this was still in my local dir and taking precedence over the default even though I had updated to the latest versions and other wise disabled summary indexing within the manager for the specific si_* scheduled searches. Dashboards worked after .old'ing my local macros conf and allowing it to use the default macros conf in my default folder. I'm good to go now! Thanks again Monzy!

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

Ah ok, - just re read the edit, so i noticed the dashboard uses index = summary Datacube etc, should I just edit that then to point to it's actual index for pan_logs / macro? In place of using the summary's that is? Or can I just modify the macros.summary.conf to get around it?

And thanks, I always get annoyed when people ask questions on forums and never report back what their results were, doesnt help the community at all that way.And, I might just take you up on that, after I get a few environment issues sorted I'll drop you a line.
Cheers!

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

Ok hate to use the answer box because this is only kinda an answer based off everything I've gathered from people on this thread, so if another noob is searching and finds this hopefully this overview will get them part way there pretty quickly without sifting and piecing together all this from the whole thread, aside from my added issue at the bottom that is

Overview: Distributed search

  • Installed app -
  • Set PA to fwd syslog to a syslog server with a UF installed -
  • Using an app "syslog" set it's inputs.conf to collect the PA logs
    and tag them as pan_log (initially was merging into an existing index - now using a newly created index of 'pan__*logs')*
  • I was able to view data by searching pan_log -
  • No transforms occurring -
  • I had not created an app props dir on the indexers for the props and transforms conf's -
  • Created an app directory and populated the props and transforms under its default dir ie /opt/splunk/etc/apps/pan_props/default
  • Restarted indexers in sequence.
  • Received errors regarding index for pan_logs (index was created on the search head but had not been created on the indexers)
  • Created the index on indexers and updated index.conf to match
  • Restarted in sequence again -
  • PA data now being transformed and residing in it's own index.
  • However macros are not searchable so no 'pan_ threat' just index=pan _logs sourcetype="pan _threat" so none of the saved searches work.
  • So just to see what would happen, re specified the index on the base macros on macros.conf on the search head (I know Monzy you said it was un-neccesary to modify the macros but for some reason it seemed to work so I went with it) ie:index=pan_logs
  • Restarted the splunk service on the search head and macros started working,
  • Able to search based off macros for 'pan_system' etc
  • Able to use saved searches. Progress!

I am still having a few other issues but I'll post those as a comment on this.

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

gotcha, and it looks like we may having something messing with our summary indexes, so I'll follow that road to sort that out and revisit this as it may be related.

Thanks!

0 Karma

ekost
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

In a typical distributed search configuration, the search head is responsible for generating 'and' hosting summary data. However, you can configure the search head to forward any generated data to be hosted on the indexers. You'd have to check your configurations on the search head for an outputs.conf that redirects output to the indexers (just like your forwarders do.) Also notable is the index named 'summary' is a system default and is created on both search heads and indexers. The PAN app does not appear to use a custom summary index.

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

Now I've checked in manager and summary indexing is enabled, and the macros.conf.summary file specifies a summary index on the search head. Is there something I'm missing on the indexers that would stop them from summary indexing? At this point I think this is my biggest hurdle left to get over.
Currently the only thing I have on the indexers is the props transforms and the pan_logs index. Do I need to create a new index for the summary there and copy over macros.conf.summary?

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

Ok so I've confirmed on issue 1. above that summary indexes arent searching.
this - search index = summary DataCube = threat | bin _time span=5m | fillnull vsys app category src_ip dst_ip severity RISK threat_id CATEGORY | stats count by vsys app threat_id severity category src_ip dst_ip log_subtype CATEGORY RISK _time

Doesnt work

This - index="pan_logs" pan_threat | bin _time span=5m | fillnull vsys app category src_ip dst_ip severity RISK threat_id CATEGORY | stats count by vsys app threat_id severity category src_ip dst_ip log_subtype CATEGORY RISK _time
works

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

Example:
Unable to search host names like host="pa-fw-name" doesnt work, but if I search 'pan_threat' and then select the host name it will append my search and work, then removing 'pan_threat' from the search it will still work, but if i type it in directly no go, also if I wild card it, it wont work (even with 'pan_threat' as a preceding entry) so 'pan_threat' host="pa*" no go but complete the host name and its ok? There are others that I have that same type of issues searching with thats just my best example of the problem.

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

What I'm not able to do at the moment:
1.
Can't see dashboard data just doesn't load at all, getting null data, but i can investigate pull the highlighted piece of syntax out of the root search happening before the summary's and that pulls data.

2.
Strangely enough I can't search allot of specific items on their own or with wild card.

0 Karma

monzy
Communicator

The app's main dashboard page has inline searches. Those searches use index=pan_logs. Other views have searches built on the macros. You have already modified those macros. But adding the index=syslog was not neccessary for those views.

Lastly, it is a good practice to keep different log types separated by indexes. I would not recommend sending all syslog type logs into one index.

be910j
Path Finder

quick question, so I've built my "pan_props" created the usual default/local/metadata folders and dropped the props and transforms from the app/default directory off the search head into my pan_props folder- haven't yet deployed this to my indexers. Question is this - since the props does a lookup on line 1 do i need to also include the lookups folder from the app into my "pan_props" that will be deployed to the indexers as well, or is it not necessary that it be avail at index and parse time? I know the lookups only happen at search but do they need to be avail on the indexer?

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

Awesome thanks a million! I'll be sure to post back my results for posterity in case someone else comes along in my shoes looking for the same answer.

0 Karma

ekost
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Yup! That covers it. Splunk recently began providing 'TA' apps that are the components for the forwarder/indexer tier in a distributed Splunk architecture. However, legacy apps and anything home-grown will be managed like this: grabbing the bits you need and deploying them where they're needed.

0 Karma

be910j
Path Finder

ah ok, so rather than taking the transforms and props and merging them into the existing conf files under /etc/system/local on the indexers, create a custom app (im assuming a bit like a deployment app under etc/apps/(app-name)/default/ and toss in the props and transforms there, and im assuming create the local dir and metadata folders, set the app.conf to enabled and then restart the indexers one after the other? Did I get that right? (I hate to ask 101 type questions, been reading all the various admin docs and find bits and pieces but never really the entire picture. Thanks!

0 Karma

ekost
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

No, that's all you need.
Grab the props/transforms and roll them into an app (pan_props).
Deploy app to the indexers (preferably using config mgmt tool or deployment server.)
Restart the indexers (serially preferred.)
Check the app is enabled on the indexers and verify that transforms are being applied (a typo is not a friend here.)

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