crowdsec/docker
2023-01-19 11:02:23 +01:00
..
config.yaml Docker config/auth/TLS refactoring from from v1.4.4 (#1967) 2023-01-04 16:43:35 +01:00
docker_start.sh Fix docker_start.sh not properly handling env vars (#1993) 2023-01-14 19:56:27 +01:00
README.md docker: replace BUILD_ENV with --target (#1995) 2023-01-19 11:02:23 +01:00

Quick reference

What is Crowdsec

Crowdsec - An open-source, lightweight agent to detect and respond to bad behaviors. It also automatically benefits from our global community-wide IP reputation database.

How to use this image

Image flavors

All the following images are available on Docker Hub for the architectures 386, amd64, arm/v6, arm/v7, arm64.

Alpine

  • crowdsecurity/crowdsec:{version}

Recommended for production usage. Also available on GitHub (ghcr.io).

  • crowdsecurity/crowdsec:latest

For development and testing.

since v1.4.2:

  • crowdsecurity/crowdsec:slim

Reduced size by 60%, does not include notifier plugins nor the GeoIP database. If you need these details on decisions, running cscli hub upgrade inside the container downloads the GeoIP database at runtime.

Debian (since v1.3.3)

  • crowdsecurity/crowdsec:{version}-debian
  • crowdsecurity/crowdsec:latest-debian

The debian version includes support for systemd and journalctl.

Custom

You can build your images with Dockerfile and Dockerfile-debian.

For example, if you want a Debian version without plugin notifiers:

$ docker build -f Dockerfile.debian --target slim

The supported values for target are: full, with-geoip, with-plugins, slim.

Note: for crowdsec versions < 1.5.0, the syntax is

$ docker build -f Dockerfile.debian --build-arg=BUILD_ENV=slim

Required configuration

Journalctl (only for debian image)

To use journalctl as a log stream, with or without the DSN environment variable, it's important to mount the journal log from the host to the container itself. This can be done by adding the following volume mount to the docker command:

-v /var/log/journal:/run/log/journal

Logs ingestion and processing

Collections are a good place to start: https://docs.crowdsec.net/docs/collections/intro

Find collections, scenarios, parsers and postoverflows in the hub: https://hub.crowdsec.net

  • Specify collections | scenarios | parsers | postoverflows to install via the environment variables (by default crowdsecurity/linux is installed)
  • Mount volumes to specify your log files that should be ingested by crowdsec

Acquisition

/etc/crowdsec/acquis.yaml maps logs to the provided parsers. Find out more here: https://docs.crowdsec.net/docs/concepts/#acquisition

acquis.yaml example:

filenames:
 - /logs/auth.log
 - /logs/syslog
labels:
  type: syslog
---
filename: /logs/apache2/*.log
labels:
  type: apache2

labels.type: use syslog if the logs come from syslog, otherwise check the collection's documentation for the relevant type.

Volumes

We strongly suggest mounting named volumes for Crowdsec configuration and database to avoid credentials and decisions loss in case of container destruction and recreation, version update, etc.

  • Credentials and configuration: /etc/crowdsec
  • Database when using SQLite (default): /var/lib/crowdsec/data

Start a Crowdsec instance

docker run -d \
    -v local_path_to_crowdsec_config/acquis.yaml:/etc/crowdsec/acquis.yaml \
    -v crowdsec_config:/etc/crowdsec \
    -v crowdsec_data:/var/lib/crowdsec/data \
    -v /var/log/auth.log:/logs/auth.log:ro \
    -v /var/log/syslog.log:/logs/syslog.log:ro \
    -v /var/log/apache:/logs/apache:ro \
    -e COLLECTIONS="crowdsecurity/apache2 crowdsecurity/sshd" \
    -p 8080:8080 -p 6060:6060 \
    --name crowdsec crowdsecurity/crowdsec

... or docker-compose

Check this full-stack example using docker-compose: https://github.com/crowdsecurity/example-docker-compose

How to extend this image

Full configuration

The container is built with a specific docker configuration. If you need to change it and the docker variables (see below) are not enough, you can bind /etc/crowdsec/config.yaml to your configuration file.

Notifications

If you wish to use the notification system, you will need to mount at least a custom profiles.yaml and a notification configuration to /etc/crowdsec/notifications

Deployment use cases

Crowdsec is composed of an agent that parses logs and creates alerts, and a local API (LAPI) that transforms these alerts into decisions. Both functions are provided by the same executables, so the agent and the LAPI can run in the same or separate containers. In complex configurations, it makes sense to have agents on each machine that runs the protected applications, and a LAPI that gathers all signals from agents and communicates with the central API.

Register a new agent with LAPI

Without TLS authentication:

docker exec -it crowdsec_lapi_container_name cscli machines add agent_user_name --password agent_password

With TLS authentication:

Agents are automatically registered and don't need a username or password. The agents' names are derived from the IP address from which they connect.

Run an agent connected to LAPI

Add the following environment variables to the docker run command:

  • DISABLE_LOCAL_API=true
  • AGENT_USERNAME="agent_user_name" - agent_user_name previously registered with LAPI
  • AGENT_PASSWORD="agent_password" - agent_password previously registered with LAPI
  • LOCAL_API_URL="http://LAPI_host:LAPI_port"

Next steps

Bouncers

Crowdsec being a detection component, the remediation is implemented using bouncers. Each bouncer protects a specific component. Find out more:

https://hub.crowdsec.net/browse/#bouncers

https://docs.crowdsec.net/docs/user_guides/bouncers_configuration/

Automatic Bouncer Registration

Without TLS authentication:

You can register bouncers with the crowdsec container at startup, using environment variables or Docker secrets. You cannot use this process to update an existing bouncer without first deleting it.

To use environment variables, they should be in the format BOUNCER_KEY_<name>=<key>. e.g. BOUNCER_KEY_nginx=mysecretkey12345.

To use Docker secrets, the secret should be named bouncer_key_<name> with a content of <key>. e.g. bouncer_key_nginx with content mysecretkey12345.

A bouncer key can be any string but we recommend an alphanumeric value for consistency with the keys generated by crowdsec and to avoid problems with escaping special characters.

With TLS authentication:

Bouncers are automatically registered and don't need an API key. The bouncers' names are derived from the IP address from which they connect.

Console

We provide a web-based interface to get more from Crowdsec: https://docs.crowdsec.net/docs/console

Subscribe here: https://app.crowdsec.net

Caveats

Using binds rather than named volumes (complete explanation here) results in more complexity as you'll have to bind the relevant files one by one whereas with named volumes you can mount full configuration and data folders. On the other hand, named volumes are less straightforward to navigate.

Reference

Environment Variables

Note for persistent configurations (i.e. bind mount or volumes): when a variable is set, its value may be written to the appropriate file (usually config.yaml) each time the container is run.

Variable Default Description
CONFIG_FILE /etc/crowdsec/config.yaml Configuration file location
DISABLE_AGENT false Disable the agent, run a LAPI-only container
DISABLE_LOCAL_API false Disable LAPI, run an agent-only container
DISABLE_ONLINE_API false Disable online API registration for signal sharing
TEST_MODE false Don't run the service, only test the configuration: -e TEST_MODE=true
TZ Set the timezone to ensure the logs have a local timestamp.
LOCAL_API_URL http://0.0.0.0:8080 The LAPI URL, you need to change this when DISABLE_LOCAL_API is true: -e LOCAL_API_URL="http://lapi-address:8080"
PLUGIN_DIR /usr/local/lib/crowdsec/plugins/ Directory for plugins: -e PLUGIN_DIR="<path>"
METRICS_PORT 6060 Port to expose Prometheus metrics
LAPI (useless with DISABLE_LOCAL_API)
USE_WAL false Enable Write-Ahead Logging with SQLite
CUSTOM_HOSTNAME localhost Name for the local agent (running in the container with LAPI)
Agent (these don't work with DISABLE_AGENT)
TYPE Labels.type for file in time-machine: -e TYPE="<type>"
DSN Process a single source in time-machine: -e DSN="file:///var/log/toto.log" or -e DSN="cloudwatch:///your/group/path:stream_name?profile=dev&backlog=16h" or -e DSN="journalctl://filters=_SYSTEMD_UNIT=ssh.service"
Bouncers
BOUNCER_KEY_<name> Register a bouncer with the name <name> and a key equal to the value of the environment variable.
Console
ENROLL_KEY Enroll key retrieved from the console to enroll the instance.
ENROLL_INSTANCE_NAME To set an instance name and see it on the console
ENROLL_TAGS Tags of the enrolled instance, for search and filter
Password Auth
AGENT_USERNAME Agent username (to register if is LAPI or to use if it's an agent): -e AGENT_USERNAME="machine_id"
AGENT_PASSWORD Agent password (to register if is LAPI or to use if it's an agent): -e AGENT_PASSWORD="machine_password"
TLS Encryption
USE_TLS false Enable TLS encryption (either as a LAPI or agent)
CACERT_FILE CA certificate bundle (for self-signed certificates)
INSECURE_SKIP_VERIFY Skip LAPI certificate validation
LAPI_CERT_FILE LAPI TLS Certificate path
LAPI_KEY_FILE LAPI TLS Key path
TLS Authentication (these require USE_TLS=true)
CLIENT_CERT_FILE Client TLS Certificate path (enable TLS authentication)
CLIENT_KEY_FILE Client TLS Key path
AGENTS_ALLOWED_OU agent-ou OU values allowed for agents, separated by comma
BOUNCERS_ALLOWED_OU bouncer-ou OU values allowed for bouncers, separated by comma
Hub management
COLLECTIONS Collections to install, separated by space: -e COLLECTIONS="crowdsecurity/linux crowdsecurity/apache2"
PARSERS Parsers to install, separated by space
SCENARIOS Scenarios to install, separated by space
POSTOVERFLOWS Postoverflows to install, separated by space
DISABLE_COLLECTIONS Collections to remove, separated by space: -e DISABLE_COLLECTIONS="crowdsecurity/linux crowdsecurity/nginx"
DISABLE_PARSERS Parsers to remove, separated by space
DISABLE_SCENARIOS Scenarios to remove, separated by space
DISABLE_POSTOVERFLOWS Postoverflows to remove, separated by space
Log verbosity
LEVEL_INFO false Force INFO level for the container log
LEVEL_DEBUG false Force DEBUG level for the container log
LEVEL_TRACE false Force TRACE level (VERY verbose) for the container log
Developer options
CI_TESTING false Used during functional tests
DEBUG false Trace the entrypoint

Volumes

  • /var/lib/crowdsec/data/ - Directory where all crowdsec data (Databases) is located

  • /etc/crowdsec/ - Directory where all crowdsec configurations are located

File Locations

  • /usr/local/bin/crowdsec - Crowdsec binary

  • /usr/local/bin/cscli - Crowdsec CLI binary to interact with crowdsec

Find Us

Contributing

Please read contributing for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.