Using BSDStats

If you want to have hardware manufacturers and applicationn vendors take you seriously, it helps to have metrics. Today I learned of BSDStats, which uses the sysutils/bsdstats shell script to collect information on hosts. I decided to try it and see what data is collected.

First I installed the script.

orr:/usr/ports/sysutils/bsdstats# make install
...edited...
===>  Installing for bsdstats-2.0_5
===>   Generating temporary packing list
===>  Checking if sysutils/bsdstats already installed
/bin/mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/periodic/monthly
/bin/cp /usr/ports/sysutils/bsdstats/files/300.statistics /usr/local/etc/periodic/monthly
/bin/cat /usr/ports/sysutils/bsdstats/pkg-message

********************
To enable the port, edit or create /etc/periodic.conf and add this line:
        monthly_statistics_enable=yes

To enable device reporting, add this line:
        monthly_statistics_report_devices=yes

To run it manually the first time, just run it as:
        /usr/local/etc/periodic/monthly/300.statistics

To view current statistics, go to:
        http://bsdstats.hub.org
********************

===>   Registering installation for bsdstats-2.0_5

I looked at /usr/local/etc/periodic/monthly/300.statistics and saw it was a shell script. To enable it I added the lines to /etc/periodic.conf as recommended above. Next I set a HTTP proxy environment variable and ran the script.

orr:/home/richard$ HTTP_PROXY=http://192.168.2.12:3128; export HTTP_PROXY
orr:/home/richard$ env | grep HTTP
HTTP_PROXY=http://192.168.2.12:3128
orr:/home/richard$ sh -x /usr/local/etc/periodic/monthly/300.statistics
+ [ -r /etc/defaults/periodic.conf ]
+ . /etc/defaults/periodic.conf
+ periodic_conf_files=/etc/periodic.conf /etc/periodic.conf.local
+ local_periodic=/usr/local/etc/periodic /usr/X11R6/etc/periodic
+ daily_output=root
+ daily_show_success=YES
...edited...
+ /bin/hostname
+ HN=orr.taosecurity.com
+ /usr/bin/uname -r
+ SYS=6.1-RELEASE
+ /usr/bin/uname -m
+ ARCH=i386
+ /usr/bin/uname -s
+ OS=FreeBSD
+ /usr/bin/fetch -qo /dev/null http://bsdstats.hub.org/scripts/getid.php?hn=orr.taosecurity.com
 &sys=6.1-RELEASE&arch=i386&opsys=FreeBSD
+ IFS=

+ /usr/bin/fetch -qo /dev/null http://bsdstats.hub.org/scripts/clear_devices.php?
 hn=orr.taosecurity.com
+ /usr/sbin/pciconf -l
+ /usr/bin/grep -v none
+ echo agp0@pci0:0:0:   class=0x060000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x71908086 rev=0x03 hdr=0x00
+ awk -F@ {print $1}
+ DRIVER=agp0
+ awk {print $4}
+ echo agp0@pci0:0:0:   class=0x060000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x71908086 rev=0x03 hdr=0x00
+ cut -c12-15
+ VEN=8086
+ echo agp0@pci0:0:0:   class=0x060000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x71908086 rev=0x03 hdr=0x00
+ awk {print $4}
+ cut -c8-11
+ DEV=7190
+ /usr/bin/fetch -qo /dev/null http://bsdstats.hub.org/scripts/report_device.php?driver=agp0&vendor=8086
 &device=7190&hn=orr.taosecurity.com
+ echo pcib1@pci0:1:0:  class=0x060400 card=0x00000000 chip=0x71918086 rev=0x03 hdr=0x01+ awk
 -F@ {print $1}
+ DRIVER=pcib1
+ echo+ awk+ cut pcib1@pci0:1:0:        class=0x060400 card=0x00000000 chip=0x71918086
 rev=0x03 hdr=0x01 {print $4} -c12-15
...truncated...

As you can see, various aspects of the system are being posted to a PHP script at bsdstats.hub.org. These populate the release and driver statistics.

Consider running this script to let vendors know you're using their products.

Comments

tychotithonus (Royce Williams) said…
I'll be using this wherever I can. We should tell Pair Networks, Yahoo! and some other big FreeBSD shops.
8:51 PM
Anonymous said…
See also this post for the most recent improvements.
3:22 PM
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
11:04 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zeek in Action Videos

Image
This is a quick note to point blog readers to my Zeek in Action YouTube video series for the Zeek network security monitoring project .  Each video addresses a topic that I think might be of interest to people trying to understand their network using Zeek and adjacent tools and approaches, like Suricata, Wireshark, and so on.  I am especially pleased with Video 6 on monitoring wireless networks . It took me several weeks to research material for this video. I had to buy new hardware and experiment with a Linux distro that I had not used before -- Parrot .  Please like and subscribe, and let me know if there is a topic you think might make a good video.
Read more

MITRE ATT&CK Tactics Are Not Tactics

Image
Just what are "tactics"? Introduction MITRE ATT&CK  is a great resource, but something about it has bothered me since I first heard about it several years ago. It's a minor point, but I wanted to document it in case it confuses anyone else. The MITRE ATT&CK Design and Philosophy document from March 2020 says the following: At a high-level, ATT&CK is a behavioral model that consists of the following core components: • Tactics, denoting short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack; • Techniques, describing the means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals; • Sub-techniques, describing more specific means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals at a lower level than techniques; and • Documented adversary usage of techniques, their procedures, and other metadata. My concern is with MITRE's definition of "tactics" as "short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack," which is oddly recursive. The key word in the tacti...
Read more

New Book! The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4

Image
  I've completed the TaoSecurity Blog book series . The new book is  The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4: Beyond the Blog with Articles, Testimony, and Scholarship .  It's available now for Kindle , and I'm working on the print edition.  I'm running a 50% off promo on Volumes 1-3 on Kindle through midnight 20 April. Take advantage before the prices go back up. I described the new title thus: Go beyond TaoSecurity Blog with this new volume from author Richard Bejtlich. In the first three volumes of the series, Mr. Bejtlich selected and republished the very best entries from 18 years of writing and over 18 million blog views, along with commentaries and additional material.  In this title, Mr. Bejtlich collects material that has not been published elsewhere, including articles that are no longer available or are stored in assorted digital or physical archives. Volume 4 offers early white papers that Mr. Bejtlich wrote as a network defender, either for technica...
Read more