Examples

A couple of examples are presented to give the reader a quick and direct overview of ntopng plugins.

Blacklisted Flows

Aim of this plugin is to trigger an alert every time a flow is found to have its client or server (or both) in a blacklist. ntopng loads custom and predefined blacklists as explained in Category Lists / Blacklists. This plugin tests each flow for its client and server, and possibly create an alert when they are found to be blacklisted.

Full plugin sources are available on GitHub blacklisted flows plugin page.

The complete structure of the plugin is as follows:

blacklisted
    |-- manifest.lua
    |-- checks
        `-- flow
            `-- blacklisted.lua
    |-- alert_definitions
        `-- alert_flow_blacklisted.lua
    |-- status_definitions
        `-- status_blacklisted.lua

As it can be seen from the file system tree, a plugin is a set of Lua files, placed in predefined sub-directories.

The root directory, blacklisted, carries a name which is representative for the plugin. This directory contains other sub-directories and a manifest.lua (see Manifest) file containing basic plugin information:

--
-- (C) 2019-20 - ntop.org
--

return {
   title = "Blacklisted Hosts",
   description = "Detects blacklisted hosts and triggers alerts",
   author = "ntop",
   dependencies = {},
}

Sub-directories define the alerts the plugin is going to trigger, whereas Flow Definitions define flow statues the plugin is going to set. In this specific plugin, alert_flow_blacklisted.lua tells ntopng the plugin is willing to create an alert for blacklisted flows. Similarly, status_blacklisted.lua tells ntopng the plugin is going to set a blacklisted status for certain flows. Those two directories, as said by their names, contain just definitions of alerts and flow status, the actual logic which sets the status and trigger the alert resides in directory checks.

As this plugin requires flows to carry on its task, directory checks (see Checks) with the logic must contain a sub-directory flow, which, in turn, contains file blacklisted.lua. ntopng knows it has to execute blacklisted.lua against each flow it sees because blacklisted.lua is found under the flow directory.

Let’s have a look at the contents of blacklisted.lua:

--
-- (C) 2019-20 - ntop.org
--

local flow_consts = require("flow_consts")

-- #################################################################

local script = {
   -- NOTE: hooks defined below
   hooks = {},

   gui = {
      i18n_title = "flow_checks_config.blacklisted",
      i18n_description = "flow_checks_config.blacklisted_description",
   }
}

-- #################################################################

function script.hooks.protocolDetected(now)
   if flow.isBlacklisted() then
      local info = flow.getBlacklistedInfo()
      local flow_score = 100
      local cli_score, srv_score

      if info["blacklisted.srv"] then
         cli_score = 100
         srv_score = 5
      else
         cli_score = 5
         srv_score = 10
      end

      flow.triggerStatus(flow_consts.status_types.status_blacklisted.status_key, info,
         flow_score, cli_score, srv_score)
   end
end

-- #################################################################

return script

The first thing to observe, is that blacklisted.lua contains a single function with a predefined name script.hooks.protocolDetected. This name tells ntopng to execute the plugin for every flow, as soon as the flow has its protocolDetected, which is one of the several Check Hooks a plugin can attach to.

The body of the function has access to a flow Lua table, with several methods available to be called, among which flow.isBlacklisted(). Method flow.isBlacklisted() returns a boolean which is either true or false, depending on whether any of the client or server is blacklisted. As this plugin wants to trigger an alert then the flow is blacklisted, method is called and tested in the first if. When the flow is blacklisted and the method returns true, a couple of scores are computed. Scores are numbers associated to the client and server of the flow and attempt to summarize how critical is the issue for both the client and the server.

The client score is much higher when the server is blacklisted because in this case it is assumed that the client is infected and attempting to contact malicious hosts. When is the client to be blacklisted, then it may just be a scan attempt by a malicious host and thus the score is lower.

Once the scores have been computed, the function calls flow.triggerStatus. This is the actual call that causes ntopng to set the blacklisted status and trigger an alert! This call wants the scores as parameters, along with the flow status defined in status_definitions and an info table which contains certain extra details and description of the flow blacklisted peers.

From this point on, the flow will appear as alerted and with status blacklisted in the ntopng Web GUI, along with the scores specified for its client and server. That is pretty much all to create a flow script.

A quick note on the Checks GUI section. It has just a title and a description that will be used by ntopng in the web GUI, to allow a user to enable/disable the plugin.

Flow Flooders

Aim of this plugin is to trigger an alert when an host or a network is having more than a predefined number of flows over a minute. As an host can be either the client or the server of a flow, two types of alerts are meaningful in this case, namely, a flow flood attacker alert and a flow flood victim alert. The same reasoning can be applied to networks as well. A network can either be considered a flow flood attacker or a flow flood victim, depending on whether its host are the clients or servers of the monitored flows. For the sake of this example, only flow flood victim alerts are considered for networks.

This plugin also exposes a threshold so that it can be configured from the Checks GUI. The threshold is configurable on an host-by-host or CIDR basis. Indeed, a threshold which is meaningful for an host is not necessarily meaningful for another host.

Full plugin sources are available on GitHub flow flood plugin page.

The complete structure of the plugin is as follows:

flow_flood/
    |-- manifest.lua
    |-- alert_definitions
    |   `-- alert_flows_flood.lua
    `-- checks
        |-- host
        |   |-- flow_flood_attacker.lua
        |   `-- flow_flood_victim.lua
        `-- network
            `-- flow_flood_victim.lua

From the file system tree, it can be seen that the plugin is self-contained in flow_flood, a directory which carries a name representative for the plugin. The manifest.lua (see Manifest) script contains basic information and description:

--
-- (C) 2019-20 - ntop.org
--

return {
  title = "Flow Flood detector",
  description = "Detects flow flood attacks and triggers alerts",
  author = "ntop",
  dependencies = {},
}

This plugin doesn’t work on flows, so no flow directory is present under checks and no status_definitions is necessary as it has been seen for the Blacklisted Flows. However, as this plugin generates alerts, alert_flows_flood.lua is needed under alert_definitions to tell ntopng about this.

The logic stays under checks (see Checks) which has two sub-directories: host and network, each one containing Lua files with the logic necessary to trigger the alert. ntopng will execute scripts under the host directory on every host and scripts under the network directory on every network.

Let’s have a closer look at host s :code:flow_flood_attacker.lua`, of the scripts executed on hosts (the other Lua script are similar):

--
-- (C) 2019-20 - ntop.org
--

local alerts_api = require("alerts_api")
local alert_consts = require("alert_consts")
local checks = require("checks")

local script = {
  default_enabled = true,
  default_value = {
    -- "> 50"
    operator = "gt",
    threshold = 50,
  },

  -- This script is only for alerts generation
  is_alert = true,

  -- See below
  hooks = {},

  gui = {
    i18n_title = "entity_thresholds.flow_attacker_title",
    i18n_description = "entity_thresholds.flow_attacker_description",
    i18n_field_unit = checks.field_units.flow_sec,
    input_builder = "threshold_cross",
    field_max = 65535,
    field_min = 1,
    field_operator = "gt";
  }
}

-- #################################################################

function script.hooks.min(params)
  local ff = host.getFlowFlood()
  local value = ff["hits.flow_flood_attacker"] or 0

  -- Check if the configured threshold is crossed by the value and possibly trigger an alert
  alerts_api.checkThresholdAlert(params, alert_consts.alert_types.alert_flows_flood, value)
end

-- #################################################################

return script

The first thing to observe is that the script has only one function with a predefined name script.hooks.min which is part of the Check Hooks table. This name tells ntopng to call this function on every host, every minute. The body of the function is fairly straightforward. It access a Lua table host, with several methods available to be called. This Lua table contains references and methods that can be called on every host of the system. As the aim of this plugin is to determine whether the host is a flow flooder, method host.getFlowFlood() is called which contains flooding information. Then, a value is read from key hits.flow_flood_attacker of the returned table.

At this point, checking whether to trigger an alert or not, depending on whether the value is above the predefined threshold, is up to the ntopng engine. From the perspective of this script, it suffices to call method alerts_api.checkThresholdAlert. The method takes as input some params which falls outside the scope of this example, along with the type of alert that needs to be generated, and the actual value. That is pretty much all. The ntopng engine will evaluate value and possibly trigger the alert.

Let’s now have a closer look at the local script table, which basically contains all the necessary configuration, default values, and information to properly render a configuration page on the Checks GUI.

The table tells ntopng this script is enabled by default (default_enabled = true) and also specify the default threshold values that should be used when no configuration has been input from the web GUI (default_value).

Then, a boolean flag is_alert = true is used to indicate the purpose of this user script is to generate alerts.

An empty hooks table is then specified. This table is used by ntopng to determine when a certain check needs do be called. Remember the function script.hooks.min? That actually adds the entry min to the hooks table so this plugin will be executed every minute!

Finally, there is a gui table to give ntopng instructions on how to render the configuration page of this check. Basically, a title, description and unit of measure are indicated, along with an input builder and upper and lower bounds for the input. Input builders, as it will be seen in the next section, are used by ntopng to render the configuration of the check.

Log Network Traffic

This example shows how to log the traffic of a local network.

network_monitor/
    |-- manifest.lua
    `-- checks
        `-- network
            `-- traffic_log.lua

The main structure is very similar to the Flow Flooders example above so it won’t be discussed again. The core logic is contained into the traffic_log.lua script which can be seen below:

local checks = require("checks")
require("lua_utils")

local script = {
  -- This is a network related script
  category = checks.script_categories.network,

  -- This module is enabled by default
  default_enabled = true,

  -- No configuration needed
  default_value = {},

  -- Hooks are defined below
  hooks = {},

  -- No GUI defined
  gui = {},
}

-- #################################################################

function script.hooks.min(info)
  print(string.format("[%s]: in=%u, out=%u, inner=%u",
    info.entity_info.network_key,
    bytesToSize(info.entity_info.ingress),
    bytesToSize(info.entity_info.egress),
    bytesToSize(info.entity_info.inner),
  ))
end

-- #################################################################

return(checks)

The script.hooks.min hook is called by ntopng every minute for every local network. It prints into the console the local network CIDR along with the ingress, egress and inner traffic since startup.

All the network information is contained into the info parameter. The most relevant fields are:

• granularity: how often this script is called (60 for this example)
• alert_entity: the alert entity, can be passed to the alerts API to trigger alerts
• entity_info: information about the network, see below for details
• check_config: the current configuration of this check

The current network status is available into the info.entity_info field. Here are reported the most important fields:

network_key string fe80::3252:cbff:fe6c:9c1b/64
inner number 0
broadcast table
broadcast.inner number 0
broadcast.egress number 0
broadcast.ingress number 0
egress number 19661
num_hosts number 5
ingress number 0
throughput_bps number 35.692886352539
engaged_alerts number 0

In particular:

• network_key: the local network CIDR
• inner: inner traffic value of the network since startup
• ingress: ingress traffic value of the network since startup
• egress: egress traffic value of the network since startup
• broadcast: a table which contains inner, egress and ingress counters values for the broadcast traffic
• num_hosts: number of active hosts of the network
• throughput_bps: the current cumulative througput of the traffic of the network.
• engaged_alerts: the currently engaged alerts of the network

A straightforward modification to the above script is to retrieve the last minute ingress/egress/inner bytes instead of the startup values. This can be easily accomplished by using the network_delta_val function:

local egress_delta_bytes = alerts_api.network_delta_val("egress_delta", info.granularity, info.entity_info.egress)

The egress_delta identifier is a unique key that ntopng uses to hold the values in subsequent calls to the function. The current network id is automatically retrieved by ntopng. The granularity parameter is needed to differentiate between different granularities. The last parameter, info.entity_info.egress, specifies the current value. ntopng calculates the delta between this value and the previous one, which is stored into the egress_delta_bytes variable.

SNMP Topology Changed

The full plugin source is available at the GitHub SNMP topology change page. The script requires the ntopng Enterprise M license in order to be run.

The complete structure of the plugin is as follows:

snmp_topology_change/
    |-- manifest.lua
    |-- alert_definitions
    |   `-- alert_snmp_topology_changed.lua
    `-- checks
        `-- snmp_device
            `-- lldp_topology_changed.lua

This plugin uses the LLDP information that ntopng has collected to determine changes in the SNMP network topology. When a new link is added or an old link is removed, the alert_snmp_topology_changed alert is generated.

Here is an analysis of the check reponsible for the alert generation.

local script = {
   category = checks.script_categories.network,

   hooks = {},

   default_enabled = false,

   gui = {
      i18n_title = "snmp.lldp_topology_changed_title",
      i18n_description = "snmp.lldp_topology_changed_description",
   },
}

-- #################################################################

function script.setup()
   return(ntop.isEnterpriseM())
end

-- #################################################################

local function storeTopologyChangedAlert(info, arc, nodes, subtype)
   local parts = split(arc, "@")

   if(#parts == 2) then
      alerts_api.store(
         info.alert_entity, {
            alert_type = alert_consts.alert_types.alert_snmp_topology_changed,
            alert_subtype = subtype,
            alert_severity = alert_consts.alert_severities.warning,
            alert_granularity = info.granularity,
            alert_type_params = {
               node1 = parts[1], ip1 = nodes[parts[1]],
               node2 = parts[2], ip2 = nodes[parts[2]],
            },
      })
   end
end

-- #################################################################

function script.hooks.snmpDevice(device_ip, info)
   local arcs_key = "ntopng.cache.snmp_topology_arcs_monitor." .. device_ip
   local old_arcs = ntop.getPref(arcs_key)

   if not isEmptyString(old_arcs) then
      old_arcs = json.decode(old_arcs) or {}
   else
      old_arcs = {}
   end

   local nodes, arcs = snmp_utils.snmp_load_devices_topology(device_ip)
   local is_first_run = table.empty(old_arcs)
   local new_arcs = {}

   for arc in pairs(arcs) do
      if(not is_first_run) then
         if(not old_arcs[arc]) then
            storeTopologyChangedAlert(info, arc, nodes, "arc_added")
         else
            old_arcs[arc] = nil
         end
      end

      new_arcs[arc] = true
   end

   for arc in pairs(old_arcs) do
      storeTopologyChangedAlert(info, arc, nodes, "arc_removed")
   end

   ntop.setPref(arcs_key, json.encode(new_arcs))
end

-- ################################################################

return script

Here is a description of the general structure:

• script.category the category for this script is network
• script.default_enabled the script is disabled by default
• script.gui defines the essential metadata, necessary to print the configuration into the GUI
• script.setup: this returns false if the Enterprise M edition is not available, disabling the script
• script.hooks.snmpDevice: defines the hook to be called after ntopng has processed a specific SNMP device. The device_ip contains the IP address of the SNMP device, whereas the info field contains some computed information on the device (use tprint(info) to get a list of fields). See below for a detailed description of this example.
• storeTopologyChangedAlert: this function is responsible for the alert triggering part.

The script.hooks.snmpDevice function uses the snmp_utils.snmp_load_devices_topology function to retrieve the latest LLDP information for the current SNMP device. The function returns a list of nodes and arcs involved in this particular SNMP device topology. The nodes are Lua tables which maps node_name -> node_ip, for example:

 table
AccessSW-1 string 172.16.24.1
NetworkSpine-2 string 172.16.23.1

The arcs are Lua tables which contains links information between the SNMP device and other devices. Here is an example:

 table
AccessSW-1@NetworkSpine-2 table
AccessSW-1@NetworkSpine-2.1 number 25151496709
AccessSW-1@NetworkSpine-2.2 string 2111493

The above information can be interpreted as:

• Exists a link between AccessSW-1 and NetworkSpine-2
• AccessSW-1 is connected to NetworkSpine-2 via the interface with index 2111493
• The total traffic registered from AccessSW-1 to NetworkSpine-2 is 25151496709 bytes

The check keeps track of the old arcs by storing them into the Redis key ntopng.cache.snmp_topology_arcs_monitor.<device_ip>. By comparing the old registered arcs with the new ones it can determine if an arc was removed or added.