source: src/router/snort/doc/README.stream5

Overview
========
The Stream5 preprocessor is a target-based TCP reassembly module
for Snort.  It is intended to replace both the Stream4 and flow 
preprocessors, and it is capable of tracking sessions for both
TCP and UDP.  With Stream5, the rule 'flow' and 'flowbits' keywords
are usable with TCP as well as UDP traffic.

Since Stream5 replaces Stream4, both cannot be used simultaneously.
Remove the Stream4 and flow configurations from snort.conf when the
Stream5 configuration is added.

Transport Protocols
-------------------
TCP sessions are identified via the classic TCP "connection".  UDP
sessions are established as the result of a series of UDP packets
from two end points via the same set of ports.  ICMP messages are
tracked for the purposes of checking for unreachable and service
unavailable messages, which effectively terminate a TCP or UDP
session.

Target-Based
------------
Stream5, like Frag3, introduces target-based actions for handling
of overlapping data and other TCP anomalies.  The methods for handling
overlapping data, TCP Timestamps, Data on SYN, FIN and Reset sequence
numbers, etc. and the policies supported by Stream5 are the results of
extensive research with many target operating systems.

Stream API
----------
Stream5 fully supports the Stream API (partly supported by Stream4),
allowing other protocol normalizers/preprocessors to dynamically
configure reassembly behavior as required by the application layer
protocol, identify sessions that may be ignored (large data transfers,
etc), and update the identifying information about the session
(application protocol, direction, etc) that can later be used by rules.

Anomaly Detection
-----------------
TCP protocol anomalies, such as data on SYN packets, data received
outside the TCP window, etc are configured via the detect_anomalies
option to the TCP configuration.  Some of these anomalies are
detected on a per-target basis.  For example, a few operating systems
allow data in TCP SYN packets, while others do not.

Rule Options
============
Stream5 adds support for a few rule options described below.

stream_size
-----------
The 'stream_size' rule option allows a rule to match traffic according to
the number of bytes observed, as determined by the TCP sequence numbers.

stream_size takes a number of comma-separated arguments in the following 
format:

    stream_size:<direction>,<operator>,<size>

Where direction is one of:

    client  -   Client side traffic only
    server  -   Sever side traffic only
    both    -   Traffic from both sides
    either  -   Traffic from either side

Valid operators are:

    =
    <
    >
    !=
    <=
    >=

For example:

    stream_size:client,<,6;

stream_reassemble
-----------------
The 'stream_reassemble' rule option allows a rule to enable or disable TCP
stream reassembly on matching traffic.

stream_reassemble takes a number of comma-separated arguments in the following
format:

    stream_reassemble:<enable|disable>,<server|client|both> [,noalert] [,fastpath]

- The optional noalert parameter causes the rule to not generate an alert when it matches.
- The optional fastpath parameter causes Snort to ignore the rest of the connection.

For example:

To disable TCP reassembly for client traffic when we see a HTTP 200 Ok Response message:

    alert tcp any 80 -> any any (flow:to_client,established;  content:"200 OK";
        stream_reassemble:disable,client,noalert;)

Configuration
=============
Global Configuration
--------------------
Global settings for the Stream5 preprocessor

- Preprocessor name: stream5_global
- Options:
    track_tcp <yes|no>      - Track sessions for TCP.  The default is "yes".
    max_tcp <number>        - Max concurrent sessions for TCP.  The default
                              is "262144", maximum is "1048576", minimum is "1".
    memcap <bytes>          - Memcap for TCP packet storage.  The default
                              is "8388608" (8MB), maximum is "1073741824" (1GB),
                              minimum is "32768" (32KB).
    track_udp <yes|no>      - Track sessions for UDP.  The default is "yes".
    max_udp <number>        - Max concurrent sessions for UDP.  The default
                              is "131072", maximum is "1048576", minimum is "1".
    track_icmp <yes|no>     - Track sessions for ICMP.  The default is "no".
    max_icmp <number>       - Max concurrent sessions for ICMP.  The default
                              is "65536", maximum is "1048576", minimum is "1".
    flush_on_alert          - Backwards compatibility.  Flush a TCP stream
                              when an alert is generated on that stream.  The
                              default is set to off.
    show_rebuilt_packets    - Print/display packet after rebuilt (for
                              debugging).  The default is set to off.
    prune_log_max <bytes>   - Print a message when a session terminates that
                              was consuming more than the specified number of
                              bytes.  The default is "1048576" (1MB), minimum
                              can be either "0" (disabled) or if not disabled 
                              the minimum is "1024" and maximum is "1073741824".
    disabled                - This optional keyword is allowed with any policy
                              to avoid packet processing. This option disables
                              the preprocessor. When the preprocessor is disabled 
                              only the options memcap, max_tcp, max_udp and 
                              max_icmp are applied when specified with the 
                              configuration. The other options are parsed but 
                              not used. Any valid configuration may have 
                              "disabled" added to it.
                              

TCP Configuration
-----------------
Provides a means on a per IP address target to configure a TCP policy.
This can have multiple occurrences, per policy that is bound to an IP
address or network.  One default policy must be specified, and that policy
is not bound to an IP address or network.

- Preprocessor name: stream5_tcp
- Options:
    bind_to <ip_addr>       - IP address for this policy.  The default is set
                              to any.
    timeout <number (secs)> - Session timeout.  The default is "30", the
                              minimum is "1", and the maximum is "86400"
                              (approximately 1 day).
    policy <policy_id>      - The Operating System policy for the target OS.
                              The policy_id can be one the following:
                                   first     - Favor first overlapped segment.
                                   last      - Favor last overlapped segment.
                                   bsd       - FreeBSD 4.x and newer
                                               NetBSD 2.x and newer
                                               OpenBSD 3.x and newer
                                               AIX
                                   linux     - Linux 2.4 and 2.6
                                   old-linux - Linux 2.2 and earlier
                                   windows   - Windows 98, NT, 2000, XP (and
                                               others not specifically listed
                                               below)
                                   win2003   - Windows 2003 Server
                                   vista     - Windows Vista
                                   solaris   - Solaris 9.x and newer
                                   hpux10    - HPUX 10
                                   hpux      - HPUX 11 and newer
                                   irix      - IRIX 6 and newer
                                   macos     - MacOS 10.3 and newer
                              The default is "bsd".

    overlap_limit <number>  - Limits number of overlapping packets. 
                              The default is "0" (unlimited), the minimum is
                              "0", and the maximum is "255".
    max_window <number>     - Maximum allowed TCP window.  The default is "0"
                              (unlimited), the minimum is "0", and the maximum
                              is "1073725440" (65535 left shift 14).  That is
                              the highest possible TCP window per RFCs.  This
                              option is intended to prevent a DoS against
                              Stream5 by an attacker using an abnormally large
                              window, so using a value near the maximum is
                              discouraged.
    detect_anomalies        - Detect TCP protocol anomalies.  The default is set
                              to off.
    require_3whs [<number secs>]
                            - Establish sessions only on completion
                              of a SYN/SYN-ACK/ACK handshake.  The default is
                              set to off.  The optional number of seconds
                              specifies a startup timeout.  This allows a grace
                              period for existing sessions to be considered
                              established during that interval immediately
                              after Snort is started.  The default is "0"
                              (don't consider existing sessions established),
                              the minimum is "0", and the maximum is "86400"
                              (approximately 1 day).
    use_static_footprint_sizes
                            - Emulate Stream4 behavior for flushing
                              reassembled packets.  The default is set to off.
    dont_store_large_packets
                            - A performance improvement which does not queue
                              large packets in reassembly buffer if set.
                              Setting this option could result in missed
                              packets.  The default is set to off.
    check_session_hijacking - Check for TCP session hijacking.  This check
                              validates the hardware (MAC) address from both
                              sides of the connect -- as established on the
                              3-way handshake against subsequent packets
                              received on the session.  If an ethernet layer
                              is not part of the protocol stack received by
                              Snort, there are no checks performed.  Alerts 
                              are generated (per 'detect_anomalies' option)
                              for either the client or server when the MAC
                              address for one side or the other does not match.
                              The default is set to off.
    dont_reassemble_async   - Don't queue packets for reassembly if traffic
                              has not been seen in both directions.  The
                              default is set to queue packets.
    max_queued_bytes <bytes> - Limit the number of bytes queued for reassembly
                              on a given TCP session to bytes.  Default is
                              "1048576" (1MB).  A value of "0" means unlimited,
                              with a non-zero minimum of "1024", and a maximum
                              of "1073741824" (1GB).  A message is written to
                              console/syslog when this limit is enforced.
    max_queued_segs <num>   - Limit the number of segments queued for reassembly
                              on a given TCP session.  The default is "2621",
                              derived based on an average size of 400 bytes.
                              A value of "0" means unlimited, with a non-zero
                              minimum of "2", and a maximum of "1073741824"
                              (1GB).  A message is written to console/syslog
                              when this limit is enforced.
    small_segments <num1> bytes <num2> [ignore_ports port list]
                            - Configure the maximum small segments queued.  
                              This feature requires that detect_anomalies be enabled. 
                              num1 is the number of consecutive segments that will
                              trigger the detection rule. The default value is 
                              "0" (disabled),with a maximum of "2048".  
                              num2 is the minimum bytes for a segment to be 
                              considered "small". The default value is "0" (disabled),
                              with a maximum of "2048".  
                              ignore_ports is optional, defines the list of
                              ports in which will be ignored for this rule.
                              The number of ports can be up to "65535".
                              Example:
                                small_segments 3 bytes 15 ignore_ports 33 44 55
                              A message is written to console/syslog when this 
                              limit is enforced. The generated alert is 129:12
    ports <client|server|both> [all|space separated port list] 
                            - Specify the client, server, or both and list of
                              ports in which to perform reassembly.  This can
                              appear more than once in a given config.
                              For example:
                                ports both 80 23
                                ports server 37
                                ports client 21 25
                              The default settings are:
                                ports client 21 23 25 42 53 80 110 111 135 136 \
                                             137 139 143 445 513 514 1433 1521 2401 3306
                              The minimum port allowed is "1" and the maximum
                              allowed is "65535".
    ignore_any_rules        - Don't process any -> any (ports) rules for
                              TCP that attempt to match payload if there are
                              no port specific rules for the src or destination
                              port.  Rules that have flow or flowbits will
                              never be ignored.  This is a performance
                              improvement, but may result in missed attacks. 
                              Using this does not affect rules that look at
                              protocol headers, only those with content, PCRE,
                              or byte test options.  The default is "off". This
                              option can be present only in default policy.

If no options are specified for a given TCP policy, that is the default
TCP policy.  If only a bind_to option is used with no other options that
TCP policy uses all of the default values.

UDP Configuration
-----------------
Configuration for UDP session tracking.  Since there is no target based
binding, there should be only one occurrence of the UDP configuration.
- Preprocessor name: stream5_udp
- Options:
    timeout <number (secs)> - Session timeout.  The default is "30", the
                              minimum is "1", and the maximum is "86400"
                              (approximately 1 day).
    ignore_any_rules        - Don't process any -> any (ports) rules for
                              UDP that attempt to match payload if there are
                              no port specific rules for the src or destination
                              port.  Rules that have flow or flowbits will
                              never be ignored.  This is a performance
                              improvement, but may result in missed attacks. 
                              Using this does not affect rules that look at
                              protocol headers, only those with content, PCRE,
                              or byte test options.  The default is "off".

NOTE: with the ignore_any_rules option, a UDP rule will be ignored except when
there is another port specific rule that may be applied to the traffic.  For
example, if a UDP rule specifies destination port 53, the 'ignored' any -> any
rule will be applied to traffic to/from port 53, but NOT to any other
source or destination port.  A list of rule SIDs affected by this option are
printed at Snort's startup.

NOTE: with the ignore_any_rules option, if a UDP rule that uses any -> any
ports includes either flow or flowbits, the ignore_any_rules option is
effectively pointless.  Because of the potential impact of disabling a flowbits
rule, the ignore_any_rules option will be disabled in this case.

ICMP Configuration
------------------
NOTE: ICMP is currently untested, in minimal code form and is NOT ready
for use in production networks.  It is not turned on by default.

Configuration for ICMP session tracking.  Since there is no target based
binding, there should be only one occurrence of the ICMP configuration.
- Preprocessor name: stream5_icmp
- Options:
    timeout <number (secs)> - Session timeout.  The default is "30", the
                              minimum is "1", and the maximum is "86400"
                              (approximately 1 day).

Example Configurations
======================
1) This example configuration emulates the behavior of Stream4 (with
   UDP support enabled).

preprocessor stream5_global: max_tcp 8192, track_tcp yes, \
                            track_udp yes, track_icmp no
preprocessor stream5_tcp: policy first, use_static_footprint_sizes
preprocessor stream5_udp: ignore_any_rules

2) This configuration maps two network segments to different reassembly
   policies, one for Windows, one for Linux, with all other traffic falling
   to the default policy Solaris.

preprocessor stream5_global: track_tcp yes
preprocessor stream5_tcp: bind_to 192.168.1.0/24, policy windows
preprocessor stream5_tcp: bind_to 10.1.1.0/24, policy linux
preprocessor stream5_tcp: policy solaris

Alerts
======
Stream5 uses generator ID 129.  It is capable of alerting on 10
anomalies, all of which relate to TCP anomalies.  There are no
anomaly detection capabilities for UDP or ICMP.

SID   Description
---   -----------
1     SYN on established session
2     Data on SYN packet
3     Data sent on stream not accepting data
4     TCP Timestamp is outside of PAWS window
5     Bad segment, overlap adjusted size less than/equal 0
6     Window size (after scaling) larger than policy allows
7     Limit on number of overlapping TCP packets reached
8     Data after Reset packet
9     Possible Hijacked Client
10    Possible Hijacked Server
11    TCP packet with any control flags set
12    Limit on number of consecutive small segments reached
13    4-way handshake detected
14    Packet missing timestamp