Netdude Continues to Amaze

Last week I posted a method to extract individual pcap files from a larger pcap file. Originally I thought it would be useful to have a tool which would extract all individual flows from a pcap file into pcap format. Note this is different from the capability offered by the excellent Tcpflow, which extracts the application data from all TCP flows.

I thought the tool Netdude might have this capability when I saw its libnetdude plugin Flow Demultiplexer. I was familiar with plugins for Netdude, the graphical interface. Flow Demultiplexer is not available within Netdude and must be invoked using libnetdude.

First, install Netdude. I used the FreeBSD net/netdude port. Next download and install the following from source code, in the order specified:

- Connection State Tracker
- Trace Set
- Flow Demultiplexer

I didn't know how to proceed. I asked Netdude's author Christian Kreibich for help, and he sent a very helpful email. To access libnetdude plugins, use the lndtool program:

orr:/$ lndtool --help
lndtool -- libnetdude configuration and execution tool.
USAGE: lndtool [OPTIONS]

--help, -help, -h, -? This message.
--prefix Installation prefix.
--version, -v Prints out version info.
--cflags Preprocessor flags needed for compilation.
--libs Linker flags needed when linking..
--plugin-dir Plugin installation directory.
--proto-dir Protocol installation directory.
--include-dir Header files directory.
--plugins, -p Lists all plugins that register successfully.
--run, -r PLUGINNAME PARAMS Run plugin PLUGINNAME with PARAMS.

Using the -p option showed the registered plugins:

orr:/$ lndtool -p
libnetdude protocol plugins:
--------------------------------------------------
Ethernet 0.6
ICMP 0.6
IPv4 0.6
SLL 0.6
LLC/SNAP 0.6
TCP 0.6
UDP 0.6
ARP 0.6
FDDI 0.6

libnetdude feature plugins:
--------------------------------------------------
BPF-Filter 0.6
Checksum-Fix 0.6
Conntrack 0.4
Demux 0.2
Trace-Set 0.2

Now I was ready to get help with the Demux plugin:

orr:/$ lndtool -r Demux --help
Flow Demultiplexer plugin
USAGE: lndtool -r demux [--debug|-d] [--output-dir|-o DIR] [--progress|-p]
[--names-file|-f FILE] [ ...]

--help, -h, -? This message.
--output-dir, -o DIR Output directory in which to dump output. Default: cwd.
--progress|-p Displays a progress indicator at the shell.
--names-file|-f FILE Take filenames of traces from flatfile FILE.

Then I ran Demux on an old trace:

orr:/$ lndtool -r Demux -o demux/ comcast3.lpc

The demux/ directory contained two directories and one file:

17 6 non_ip.trace

The '17' directory contained UDP traffic, with directories named for the source address of the first packet in each "flow."

0.0.0.0 10.71.136.1 192.168.100.1 192.168.100.11 68.48.43.26

In the 68.48.43.26 directory, I found more directories, each named for the destination address:

172.30.100.36 68.48.0.13 68.48.43.127

Each of these directories contained individual pcap files. For example, there was only one file in the 68.48.43.127 directory:

1085778073.273396-137-137.trace

The first part of the file name is a timestamp:

date -r 1085778073
Fri May 28 17:01:13 EDT 2004

The second part is the source and destination port of the flow. Here is what the "flow" looked like:

orr:/demux/17/68.48.43.26/68.48.43.127$ tcpdump -n -r 1085778073.273396-137-137.trace
17:01:13.273396 68.48.43.26.137 > 68.48.43.127.137: NBT UDP PACKET(137): REGISTRATION; REQUEST; BROADCAST
17:01:19.271012 68.48.43.26.137 > 68.48.43.127.137: NBT UDP PACKET(137): RELEASE; REQUEST; BROADCAST
17:02:59.206324 68.48.43.26.137 > 68.48.43.127.137: NBT UDP PACKET(137): QUERY; REQUEST; BROADCAST
17:03:00.691252 68.48.43.26.137 > 68.48.43.127.137: NBT UDP PACKET(137): QUERY; REQUEST; BROADCAST
17:03:02.193178 68.48.43.26.137 > 68.48.43.127.137: NBT UDP PACKET(137): QUERY; REQUEST; BROADCAST

This doesn't look very "flow-like" for UDP, so consider this TCP flow in a different directory:

orr:/demux/6/68.48.43.26/66.179.151.30$ tcpdump -n -r 1085778514.142047-1082-80.trace
17:08:34.142047 68.48.43.26.1082 > 66.179.151.30.80: S 971414932:971414932(0) win 16384 (DF)
17:08:40.060862 68.48.43.26.1082 > 66.179.151.30.80: S 971414932:971414932(0) win 16384 (DF)
17:08:40.092702 66.179.151.30.80 > 68.48.43.26.1082: S 2030305390:2030305390(0) ack 971414933 win 16384 (DF)
17:08:40.092921 68.48.43.26.1082 > 66.179.151.30.80: . ack 1 win 17520 (DF)
17:08:40.093626 68.48.43.26.1082 > 66.179.151.30.80: P 1:150(149) ack 1 win 17520 (DF)
17:08:52.077789 68.48.43.26.1082 > 66.179.151.30.80: P 1:150(149) ack 1 win 17520 (DF)
17:09:16.111018 68.48.43.26.1082 > 66.179.151.30.80: P 1:150(149) ack 1 win 17520 (DF)
17:10:04.177622 68.48.43.26.1082 > 66.179.151.30.80: P 1:150(149) ack 1 win 17520 (DF)
17:11:09.376959 66.179.151.30.80 > 68.48.43.26.1082: R 2030305391:2030305391(0) win 17520 (DF)

The non_ip.trace file is also a pcap file. For the sample I used, it contained ARP traffic and Cisco switch loopback traffic:

17:16:30.074041 0:c:ce:4e:53:a0 0:c:ce:4e:53:a0 9000 60:
0000 0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000

I think this Netdude Demux plugin is very useful, and I thank Christian for his help learning how to use it. If you'd like to see some of Netdude's other capabities, I feature Netdude in chapter 6 of The Tao of Network Security Monitoring.

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