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SCANLOGD(8)		      System Administration		     SCANLOGD(8)

NAME
     scanlogd - detects and logs TCP port scans

SYNOPSIS
     scanlogd

DESCRIPTION
     scanlogd  detects port scans and writes one line per scan via the syslog(3)
     mechanism.  If a source address sends multiple packets to	different  ports
     in a short time, the event will be logged.  The format of the messages is:

     saddr[:sport]  to	daddr  [and others,] ports port[, port...], ..., flags[,
     TOS TOS][, TTL TTL] @HH:MM:SS

     The fields in square brackets are optional; sport, TOS, and TTL  will  only
     be displayed if they were constant during the scan.

     The  flags  field represents TCP control bits seen in packets coming to the
     system from the address of the scan.  It is a combination of eight  charac-
     ters,  with  each	corresponding to one of the six defined and two reserved
     TCP control bits (see RFC 793).  Control bits that were always set are  en-
     coded  with  an uppercase letter, and a lowercase letter is used if the bit
     was always clear.	A question mark is used to indicate  bits  that  changed
     from packet to packet.

INTERFACES
     In  order to do its job, scanlogd needs a way to obtain raw IP packets that
     either come to the system scanlogd is running on, or travel across  a  net-
     work segment that is directly connected to the system.  Current versions of
     scanlogd can be built with support for one of several packet capture inter-
     faces.

     scanlogd  is aware of the raw socket interface on Linux, libnids, and libp-
     cap.

     The use of libpcap alone is discouraged.  If you're on a system other  than
     Linux  and/or want to monitor the traffic of an entire network at once, you
     should be using libnids in order to handle fragmented IP packets.

COMPILE-TIME DEFAULTS
     At least 7 different privileged or 21 non-privileged ports, or  a	weighted
     combination of those, have to be accessed with no longer than 3 seconds be-
     tween  the  accesses to be treated as a scan.  If more than 5 scans are de-
     tected within 20 seconds, that event will be logged  and  logging	will  be
     stopped temporarily.

     Logging is done with a facility of daemon and a priority level alert.

     scanlogd  should  be started as root since it needs access to a packet cap-
     ture interface.  By default, it chroots to /var/empty and switches to  run-
     ning as user scanlogd after the packet capture interface is initialized.

EXIT STATUS
     If the daemon couldn't start up successfully, it will exit with a status of
     1.

USAGE
     You're  expected  to create a dummy user for scanlogd to run as.  Make sure
     you allocate unique UID and GID to the user.

     In most cases, scanlogd should be started from  a	rc.d  script  on  system
     startup.

     In /etc/syslog.conf you may use something like:

     daemon.alert   /var/log/alert

SECURITY NOTES
     As  the name indicates, scanlogd only logs port scans.  It does not prevent
     them.  You will only receive summarized information in the system's log.

     Obviously, the source address of port scans can be spoofed.  Don't take any
     action against the source of attacks unless other	evidence  is  available.
     Sometimes IP addresses are shared between many people; this is the case for
     ISP  shell servers, dynamic dialup pools, and corporate networks behind NAT
     (masquerading).

BUGS
     Due to the nature of port scans, both false  positives  (detecting  a  scan
     when  there  isn't  one)  and  false  negatives  (not detecting a scan when
     there's one) are possible.  In particular, false positives occur when  many
     small files are transferred rapidly with passive mode FTP.

AUTHORS
     Solar Designer <solar at openwall.com>
     Steffen Dettmer <steffen at dett.de> wrote the initial version of this man-
     ual page.

SEE ALSO
     syslog(3), syslog.conf(5), libnids(3), pcap(3)
     scanlogd home page: http://www.openwall.com/scanlogd/
     Phrack Magazine, issue 53, article 13

Openwall Project		   2 June 2004			     SCANLOGD(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=scanlogd&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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