Virtual Honeynets

Virtual Honeynets



First discussed in the paper Know Your Enemy: Virtual Honeynets, these solutions have
the advantage of being easier to deploy and simpler to manage. The Honeynet Project has also found VMware to
make an excellent development environment for Honeynet technologies. In this paper, we will take you through
step-by-step how to build and deploy such a solution using the commercial software VMware. In this case, we will
build a GenII (2nd Generation) Virtual Honeynet with five different honeypots. It is assumed you have read and
understand the concepts discussed in both KYE: Virtual Honeynets and KYE: Honeynets. Also, if this is the first
time you have ever worked with Honeynet technologies, it is highly recommended you work in a lab environment.
Last, as with all virtual software, you need to be aware of the risk of attackers identifying, and potentially breaking
out of, the virtual environment. You have been warned.
Plan of Attack
The format of this paper is similar to KYE: User-Mode Linux, its broken down into five parts. In the first part we will
describe what VMware is, how it works, and how to install it. In the second part, we describe how to configure
VMware and install your honeypots. In the third part we describe how to implement Data Control on your VMware
Honeynet using IPTables. In the fourth part we describe how to implement Data Capture using Snort. Finally, in
the fifth part, we describe how to test your setup.
Part I: VMware
VMware is virtualization software that allows you to run multiple operating systems at the same time. Unlike User-
Mode Linux, VMware allows you to run different operating systems, as long as they can run on Intel X86
architecture. Developed and sold by VMware Inc, there are actually three different software products you can
choose; Workstation, GSX, or ESX. Of the three, we will be using GSX. GSX is more powerful then Workstation,
designed to run more then two operating systems at the same time and supports remote administration. However,
most of the information discussed here can also be applied to Workstation. For the purpose of this paper, we are
going to build our Virtual Honeynet on a laptop, specifically an IBM Thinkpad T23, utilizing a PIII 1Ghz processor
and 768 MB RAM. The base operating system is Red Hat 7.3.
VMware works by installing virtualization software on your computer. This virtualization software then allows you
to boot and run multiple operating systems at the same time. The very first operating system you install, the base
OS, is called the HostOS. This is the operating system you install VMware on. Once you have installed the
HostOS and VMware, you can then install additional operating systems that run within the virtual environment. All
of these additional operating systems are called the GuestOS's, as they are 'guests' on the Host operating
system. To get a better understanding of how this works, refer to Figure 1. Installing VMware on our Linux
HostOS is very easy, you simply install a single RPM package. The command looks similar to this.
host #rpm -vi VMware-gsx-2.0.1-2129.i386.rpm
Preparing packages for installation...
VMware-gsx-2.0.1-2129
There are additional software packages we can install, such as the remote administration package. However, our
laptop does not require this as all administration will be done locally.

Part II: Configuring VMware and Installing your Honeypots
Once installed, the next step is to configure the VMware software. Configuration is done by executing the
command 'vmware-config.pl'. During the configuration process, VMware will most likely have to recompile several
of its own kernel modules. This means you need both a compiler and the source code for your kernel. On our
laptop, we are running kernel 2.4.18-19.7.x. We then confirm we have the source code.
host #uname -r
2.4.18-19.7.x
host #
host #rpm -qa | grep source
kernel-source-2.4.18-19.7.x
marge $ls -l /usr/src
total 8
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Dec 26 13:53 linux-2.4 -> linux-2.4.18-19
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 4096 Dec 26 13:53 linux-2.4.18-19.7.x
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Jul 12 11:52 redhat
Once you have the source code installed, you can begin the installation. During the process, the only real option
is Networking, which we want. Remember, the goal is to have all the GuestOS's route through the HostOS, our
gateway. During the installation process, select Networking. Later in the installation process, you will be asked if
you want HostOnly networking. Select this option also, and give the interface an IP address. This is the gateway
IP address, which we will be using 10.10.10.1. Linked below is the series of commands executed during the
configuration process.
vmware-config.pl
Once you have completed the configuration process, VMware should now be running. However, we have one
problem. During the default configuration, VMware enabled three interfaces; vmnet0, vmnet1, and vmnet8. Of
those three networking interfaces, we want only one interface, vmnet1. vmnet0 is used for bridging, so the
GuestOS talks directly to the network, bypassing the HostOS. vmnet8 is used for NAT Networks. Only vmnet1
gives us the control of having the GuestOS's go through the HostOS. Thus, we have to run vmware-config.pl
again, then using the editor, remove the two unwanted interfaces vmnet0 and vmnet8.
vmware-config.pl (being ran for the second time)
Once you have configured VMware, the next step is to install and configure the individual honeypots. For our
Honeynet, we are going to install and run five different honeypots. The requirements for running so many
operating systems is not as intensive as you may think. Think about it, no one is going to be using them except
attackers, so there is little system activity. Also, for the Unix based systems, there is no need for a GUI, you can
administer the systems at the Command Line Interface. Thus, no need for running X-Windows. As such, memory
requirements are minimal. Also, each operating system needs no more the 2 GB of hard drive space.

Red Hat Linux 8.0 (64 MB RAM, do not run X-Windows)

Solaris8 X86 (64 MB RAM, do not run X-Windows)

OpenBSD 3.1 (64 MB RAM, do not run X-Windows)

Windows2000 (128 MB RAM)

WindowsXP (128 MB RAM)
Installing the individual honeypots is simple. First, make sure the vmware virtualization software is running with
"ps aef | grep vmnet" and that you have the interface vmnet1 "ifconfig -a". Once you have confirmed that is
running, create a new VMware window to install your honeypot. The command is
host #vmware -G &

When you start the Window, you have the option of selecting an existing GuestOS to boot up, or start the
installation of a new GuestOS. For installing a new GuestOS, select "Run the Configuration Wizard". Here you
select which type of GuestOS you are installing, the directory you will store the file system, create a new virtual
disk for the OS, size, enable the CDROM (be sure to disable the floppy, unless its attached) and HostOnly
networking. Once you have configured the GuestOS, you simply insert the installation CDROM of the Guest
operating system, and Power On the system. From there, the boot and installation of the GuestOS is as you
normally would with any operating system. You then proceed to repeat these steps for all five GuestOS
honeypots. Once installed, you have the option of installing VMware tools on the honeypots. This helps increase
the resolution of the GUI interface. For the Unix systems, you do not need VMware tools, as you can administer
from the command line. For Window based honeypots, may want to install this on the honeypots to increase
resolution, however, it will be easier for attackers to fingerprint the system as a VMware virtual system. For more
information on VMware configuration and GuestOS installation, refer to the VMware documentation.
Before we go any further, you will want to backup your installed honeypots. VMware stores each of your
honeypots in a seperate file under its own directory. To backup each honeypot, you only merely have to copy
these files. This makes recovering or rebuilding your honeypot extremly easy. With traditional Honeynets, after a
honeypot has been compromised and you are done analyzing the attack, you have to rebuild the honeypot before
putting it back online. This can be a time consuming process. However, with VMware, rebuilding a honeypot is as
simple as copying over your backups. You can have your honeypots up and running within seconds. For example,
VMware by default stores the images of each honeypot under the directory /root/vmware. You can backup all of
the honeypots by copying this directory. Whenever you want to rebuild a honeypot, you can merely copy over the
honeypot directory containing its files.
host #ls -l /root/vmware
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Oct 10 01:10 linux-6.2
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 14 19:00 linux-7.2
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 14 22:14 linux-7.3
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 25 15:15 openbsd
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 25 15:15 solaris
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 16 08:47 win2000Serv
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 25 15:15 winXPPro
host #
host #cp -a /root/vmware /root/vmware-backup
Part III: Data Control
Once you have setup VMware and the honeypots, the next step is Data Control. The purpose of Data Control is to
contain what the attacker can do inbound and outbound of the Honeynet. Typically, we allow anything inbound to
the Honeynet systems, but limit outbound connections. For the purpose of this paper, we will use IPTables, an
OpenSource firewall solution that comes with Linux. IPTables is a highly flexible stateful firewall, including the
ability for connection limiting, network address translation, logging, and many other features. We will configure
IPTables to act as a filter on our HostOS, counting outbound packets. Once a limit has been met for outbound
connections, all further attempts are blocked, preventing the compromised honeypot from harming other systems.
Configuring and implementing these capabilities can be extremely complex. However, the Honeynet Project has
develop an IPTables script called rc.firewall that does all the work for you. You merely have to modify the script
variables as they apply to your Honeynet, then run the script.
The first thing you have to decide is if you want your gateway to run in layer three routing mode, or layer two
bridging mode. Layer two bridging (also known as GenII, or 2nd generation) is the preferred method. When your
gateway is acting as a bridge, there is no routing or TTL decrement of packets, it acts as an invisible filtering
device, making it much more difficult for attackers to detect. However, for IPTables to work in bridging mode, your
kernel must be patched to support it. By default, most kernels do not support IPTables in bridging mode. Red Hat
kernel 2.4.18-3 is one of the few that does support this by default. If you want to patch your kernel, you can find
the patch at http://bridge.sourceforge.net/download.html. we will assume your
kernel DOES support IPTables in bridging mode. If your kernel does not support bridging mode, the refer to the
paper KYE: UML for more information on configuring the rc.firewall script for layer three routing.
Lets cover how to configure the rc.firewall script to implement GenII functionality. There are two critical areas to

configure, the networking issues and control issues. Actually, networking is much simpler in bridging mode then in
routing mode. In bridging mode there is no routing, nor any Network Address Translation issues. We simply
convert the HostOS to a bridge, and the GuestOS's interact directly with other networks. For connection issues,
we have to configure how many outbound connections we allow. The options we will have to configure are as
follows. First, you will need to set the public IP addresses of the Guest operating systems. These are the IP
addresses that hackers will attack, the valid IP addresses of our honeypots. Since we have five honeypots, we will
need to list the five IP addresses. The firewall filters need to know who they are.
PUBLIC_IP="10.10.10.201 10.10.10.202 10.10.10.203 10.10.10.204 10.10.10.205"
Second, you will need to identify the name of the internal interface of the HostOS. By default, this is eth1.
However, we are using the virtual interface vmnet1, and have to modify this variable.
LAN_IFACE="vmnet1"
Third, since we are building a GenII Honeynet, you may want to consider trying Snort-Inline capabilities to drop
known outbound attacks. It is beyond the scope to describe the details of Snort-Inline, that will be
discussed in the future GenII Honeynet. However, you may want to consider using the
Honeynet Snort-Inline Toolkit, which has static, precompiled binaries, configuration files, rulebases, and
documentation, which you will find . in the Honeynet Tools section. If you do want to test this capability, you will
need to enable the QUEUE option. NOTE: If you enable this option, you MUST be running Snort-Inline, or ALL
outbound packets will be dropped. If you are not sure at this point, do NOT enable this feature.
#QUEUE="yes" # Use experimental QUEUE support
QUEUE="no" # Do not use experimental QUEUE support
These are the minimum variables you will want to consider, there may be others depending on the configuration
of your system. There are additional options you can update, such as remote management, limiting what
connections the firewall can initiate, and giving your honepyots unrestricted DNS access. Also, by default, the
script limits each honeypot to the following outbound connections per hour; 9 TCP connections, 20 UDP
connections, 50 ICMP connections, and 10 IP other. Details of the script are beyond the scope of this paper. To
better understand these variables, we recommend you review the script in detail and try out the different options
in a lab environment. Once you have configured the rc.firewall script, you implement it by executing the script.
Remember, you are going to be putting your HostOS into bridging mode. For this, your HostOS must have the
bridging utilities. For Red Hat systems, this is known as "bridge-utils-0.9.3-4".
There are two gotchas when using bridging. First, you have to boot up all of your GuestOS's before enabling
bridging. When the GuestOS's boot, they look for and use the vmnet1 interface. If this interface has already been
set to bridging mode, the GuestOS will not find the interface and cannot talk to the network. So, start all of your
honeypots BEFORE you run the rc.firewall script. The second gotcha is time, it takes about 10-30 seconds for the
bridging to take effect. You have to give the bridge time to learn where all the MAC's are before it can start
bridging packets.
host #/.rc.firewall
To confirm the script was successful, there are several things to check. First, ensure that bridging has been
enabled. You can confirm this by checking your /var/log/messages file, your kernel should log going into bridging
mode. Second, you should have a new interface called 'br0', which is your bridge. Third, use the 'brctl' command
to see what interfaces are bound to the bridge. Fourth, your external and internal interfaces will no longer have an
IP address, as they are now in bridging mode. Last, review your IPTables rules to ensure you are filtering
connections.
host #tail /var/log/messages
host #ifconfig -a
host #brctl show

host #iptables -L -n
If successful, your Data Control is in place. There are also other options for implementing Data Control, such as
bandwidth throttling.
Part IV: Data Capture
Once we have completed Data Control, the next step is Data Capture. The purpose of Data Capture is to capture
all of the attacker's activity, without them knowing. There are a variety of methods to implement this, however we
will focus on two, IPTable logs and Snort. IPTable logs are the logs generated by the firewall whenever there is an
inbound or outbound connection. Snort is an OpenSource IDS solution which we will use to capture all network
activity, and generate alerts for known attacks.
For IPTables, the logging has already been configured for us with the rc.firewall script. It is configured to log all
new inbound and outbound connection to /var/log/messages. Any inbound connection is an indication of a probe,
scan, or attack. Any outbound connection indicates that a honeypot has been compromised. The value of IPTable
logs is one primarily for alerting. The logs do not have enough information to tell us what the attacker is doing. For
Snort, we configure it to capture every packet and its full payload that enters or leaves the Honeynet. Linked here
is a Snort config file that will capture and log attacker activity.. You will find a simple Snort startup script that starts
Snort and uses the recommended Snort config file. Be sure to update the startup script to monitor the vmnet1
interface of the HostOS. You will most likely want to run this script daily, running the script from cron.
host #./snort-start.sh
Since this is a GenII Honeynet, you may want to consider using more advance Data Capture techniques, such as
Sebek. This allows you to capture the attacker's activities from kernel space. There are also a variety of other
options for implementing Data Capture which are beyond the scope of this paper. For additional options, check
out Honeynet Tools Section.
Part V: Testing Your VMware Honeynet
The fifth, and final step, of building our VMware Honeynet is to test our configuration, specifically Data Control
and Data Capture. We want to ensure that our Honeynet requirements are behaving as expected. Testing Data
Control is relatively simple. We want to ensure that any attempt by the honeypot to initiate an outbound
connection is both logged and controlled. By logged, all connection attempts should log an entry
to /var/log/messages, alerting us that an outbound connection has been initiated, and the honeypot has most
likely been compromised. Also, once the limit has been met, we want to ensure that no more outbound
connections are allowed. There is one trick to testing our Honeynet, since we are bridging we need a second
computer, the attacker. The bridge will not forward any packets if it cannot match the destination IP to a valid
MAC address. If no packets are forwarded, we cannot test IPTables. For those of you who don't have a second
computer (or who are just hard core geeks), you can run a second computer virtually by starting up a UML
system. The UML system will bind to the tap0 virtual interface, while all of our VMware honeypots will bind to the
vmnet1 virutal interface. This way your HostOS is bridging two different virtual networks. Remember, you will
have to modify your rc.firewall script with tap0 being the external interface. To learn more about running UML,
refer to the paper KYE: UML. The UML can be the attacker, probing the VMware honeypots. For the purpose of
this paper, that is the testing concept we will demonstrate. Our UML attacker's IP address will be 10.10.10.100.
Yes, this really does work :)
We will test outbound TCP connections, which by default are limited to 9 attempts per hour. To test this we will
need two terminal windows open. First we open a terminal on the HostOS and monitor the IPTable logs
in /var/log/messages. When we initiate outbound connections from the GuestOS through our Host gateway, we
should see the attempts logged there. This information is critical for alerting purposes, indicating the honeypot has
been hacked, and the attacker (or automated tool) is attempting outbound connections. Starting with the 10th
outbound attempt, the TCP connections should be blocked (the limit was met) and logged. Below is the command
you want to execute before attempting any outbound connection.
host #tail -f /var/log/messages

Next, open a terminal on the honeypot system, our GuestOS. Initiate a variety of outbound TCP connections to
the external IP, in this case 10.10.10.100 (our UML systems). You will most likely have to repeat the attempts
several times.
Trying 10.10.10.100...
telnet: connect to address 10.10.10.100: Connection refused
If you see the attempts logged, and blocked after the limit, you have successfully implemented Data Control.
Next, we want to ensure that Data Capture is happening, specifically that the Snort process is capturing all
packets and their full payload that are entering and leaving the Honeynet. A Snort process should be monitoring
the internal interface of the HostOS, specifically vmnet1. To test this, attempt to ping the external system, in this
case once again 10.10.10.100.
guest #ping -c 3 10.10.10.100
The Snort process should have captured the three ICMP Echo Request packets and their full payload. It should
have logged the activity to tcpdump binary log format. To confirm, review the log file, an example is below. What
is critical is that you are not only capture every packet and its header, but you are capturing the fully payload of
every packet.
host #snort -vdr *snort.log
Thats it! You have just completed a very basic test of your Data Control and Data Capture capabilities. There are
far more advance tests you can attempt, such as using a second, seperate computer to act as a system on the
Internet and interact with the honeypot.
Specifically, the Suspend feature of VMware. Suspend allows you to
literally suspend a GuestOS (or honeypot) image. It freezes all the running processes and saves the memory
image to a file. This means you can Suspend your honeypot, turn off your computer, turn it on a week later, bring
back up the honeypot, un-suspend it, and you will have it exactly where it was before. This has some incredible
forensic applications. The Project has begun saving suspended images of hacked computers, then sending those
images to others for analysis. This allows us to analyze a hacked honeypot while its still in its running state. The
concern here is when analyzing suspended images, you have to ensure you are doing this on an isolated
network, or your hacked honey pot will attempt to connect to any systems it was communicating with before being
suspended.

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