NAME

sratool —

SIE Remote Access (SRA) tool

SYNOPSIS

[-dhNV] [-c cfile] [-n config] [-E ciphers] [-F fields] [-S certs] [commands]

DESCRIPTION

Sratool connects and sends Advanced Exchange Access (AXA) protocol messages to SIE Remote Access (SRA) servers and displays the responses. It can also tunnel SIE data like sratunnel(1).

Sratool is a programming example for the Advanced Exchange Access (AXA) applications programming interface to SRA servers, the AXA protocol. It also demonstrates the use of the AXA helper library, libaxa.a.

Start using sratool with the connect command described below. Use one or more watch commands to specify interesting patterns of SIE messages or IP packets. Limit the number of packets or messages transmitted from the SRA server or displayed with the rate limit and count commands. Turn on one or more channels of messages or packets with the channel command.

Unless more output is enabled with the verbose command, most messages or packets are displayed in two lines. The first line includes the channel number on which it was received, the SIE message vendor of the message, the name of the field that caused the message to be selected, and the contents of the field. The second line is a summary of the message or packet.

When more verbose output is enabled or when sratool does not understand the message, IP packets are printed in ASCII and SIE messages are printed in the standard nmsg presentation format also seen from nmsgtool(1).

OPTIONS

The following arguments are available:

-c cfile: reads commands from cfile as if the first command string on the command line were “source cfile”.
-d: turns on tracing and debugging reports. Additional -d turn on more messages.
-E ciphers: specifies the TLS encryption ciphers to use with TLS connections.
-n config: overrides the default location of the config file that contains AXA client configuration data. Details are below. The default is ~/.axa/config.
-F fields: overrides the default location of the fields file that defines relationships among and semantics among SIE message fields. The default is $AXACONF/fields, ~/.axa/fields, or /usr/local/etc/axa/fields.
-h: display options summary.
-N: instructs sratool to not display a command line prompt.
-S certs: specifies the directory containing SSL certificates and keys. If -S is not used, sratool uses the first directory among $AXACONF/certs, ~/.axa/certs, and /usr/local/etc/axa/certs.
-V: displays the version of sratool and its preferred version of the AXA protocol.
commands: are optional commands strings that are executed before sratool starts accepting commands from the use. There can be more than one string of commands. Multiple commands within a string are separated by semicolons.

COMMANDS

sratool executes commands read from the standard input. Command history is available if the standard input is a terminal. Multiple commands can be specified at once by separating them with semicolons. The following commands are available:

accounting

Tell the server to report counts of packets seen, missed, sent, and lost.

alias

List the available connection aliases (culled from the axa client config file).

buffer

Toggle NMSG output buffering. By default, this is enabled, which buffers network writes until the container is full. If disabled, NMSG payloads are emitted as quickly as possible.

ciphers [cipher-list]

set the list of ciphers for the next TLS connection or show the current contents of the list.

By itselfconnectshows the current connection.Otherwise connect to the specified SRA server.

alias:use a connection alias specified in the AXA config file (see FILES).

apikey:identify and authenticate the user via a Farsight Security provided apikey. The connection will be encrypted using the same TLS semantics as the tls transport below.

ssh:connections usessh(1)configuration files including ssh_config(5)to specify the required public keys and optionally the fully qualified host names and user names associated with the public key. Use the "debug 4" command to diagnose ssh connection problems. Note that SSH transport is deprecated and users are encouraged to use TLS.

tls:connections use the SSL certificate in the certfile and the private key in the keyfile.If not absolute, the files are in the-Scertsdirectory.

tcp:unused.

unix:unused.

count[N|off]

sets terminal output to stop displaying packets after anumber of packets (including immediately with a number of 0), show the currently remaining count, or turn off the packet count limit.

debug[on|off|quiet|N]

increases, decreases or shows the level of debugging and tracing messagesthat is also controlled by -d.Debug quietturns off reports of successful AXA commands.

disconnect

disconnects from the SRA server.

errormode[disconnect|off]

disconnects from the SRA server and exitswhen the server reports an error or the connection breaks. In the default mode error mode off,errors are only reported.

exit

Ends the program.

go

Tell the SRA server to resume sending data.sratool.

help[command]

lists all commands or describes a single command.

mode[SRA|RAD]

Show the current command mode orexpect to connect to an SRA or RAD server.The default command mode is set by the name of the program.

nop

sends a command to the server that does nothing but test the connection.

forward

Start, stop or show the state of forwarding packets received from the server. Received NMSG messages and IP packets can be forwarded as NMSG messages to a TCP or UDP port. Received IP packets can be forwarded as a pcap stream to a file, to a FIFO created with separately with mkfifo(1),or in Ethernet frames on a named network interface to a 48-bit address.

nmsg:[tcp:|udp:]host,port Op Ar count: sends NMSG messages to the UDP or optional TCP host name and port number host,port. UDP is the default. IP packets are converted to NMSG messages.
nmsg:file:path Op Ar count: sends NMSG messages to the file named path. IP packets are converted to NMSG messages.
nmsg:file_json:path Op Ar count: sends NMSG json blobs to the file named path.
pcap[-fifo]:path Op Ar count: sends IP packets to a file or FIFO named path for examination with tcpdump(1) or another packet tracing tool. An ordinary file is the default. Only IP packets but not NMSG messages are sent.
pcap-if:[dst/]ifname Op Ar count: transmits IP packets on the network interface named ifname for examination with tcpdump(1) or another packet tracing tool. dst optionally specifies a destination 48-bit Ethernet address other than all 0:0:0:0:0:0 default. This output usually requires that sratool be run by root. Only IP packets but not NMSG messages are sent.

If count is present, forwarding stops after that many packets.

pause

Tell the SRA server to stop sending data.

rate limit [[-|MAX|per-sec] [-|NEVER|report-secs]]

Tell the SRA server to report its rate limits or set rate limits and the interval between rate limit reports. Hits in excess of the rate limit are discarded by the server.

radd

Change to RAD mode.

sample [X%]

Get and optionally set the percentage of hits that the SRA servers sends.

sleep x.y

Do nothing for x.y seconds.

source filename

reads and executes commands from a file.

srad

Change to SRA mode.

status

Show information about the current connection state including time connected.

trace N

Set the server trace level to N.

user name

sends a username to the server (not used for SSH/TLS-based connections).

verbose [on | off | N]

controls the length of SIE message and IP packet descriptions. The default, verbose off, generally displays one line summaries.

version

displays the version of sratool and its version of the AXA protocol.

window [bufsize]

Get and optionally set the TCP output buffer size or maximum send window used by the server.

zlib

Toggle NMSG zlib container compression.

channel {list | {on|off} {all|chN}}

List available SRA channels or enable or disable one or all SIE channels.

[tag] delete [watches [all]]

With a tag (numeric label), stop or delete the specified watch. Without a tag (or with the keyword "all"), delete all watches.

get channels

List all SIE channels available to the user on the SRA server.

[tag] get watches

With a tag (numeric label), get (list) the specified watch. Without a tag (or with the keyword "all"), list all watches.

tag watch {ip=IP[/n] | dns=[*.]dom | ch=chN | errors}

Tell the SRA server to send NMSG messages or IP packets that are to, from, or contain the specified IP addresses, that contain the specified domain name, that arrived at the server on the specified SIE channel, or are SIE messages or IP packets that could not be decoded. Tag is a number labeling the watch.


ip=IP[/n]: The IPv4 or IPv6 address IP specifies a host address unless a prefix length is specified.

dns=[*.]dom: watches for the domain anywhere in the IP packets or SIE messages on the channels selected with -c. A wild card watches for occurrences of the domain and all sub-domains.

ch=all
Sm off ch=ch N Sm on: selects SIE messages or IP packets on the specified channel number or all channels.

error: selects SIE messages or IP packets that could not be decoded.

[tag] list watches

Synonym for the get watches command.

[tag] stop [watch [all]]

Synonym for the delete command.

EXAMPLES

The following captures and displays one SIE newdomain message. The "dns=*." watch or pattern was matched by the "nflxso.net" domain in DNS NS rdata.

$ sratool
sra> connect apikey:<yourapikey>@axa.sie-remote.net,1011
* HELLO srad v2.0.0 dev-axa-multi-1 supporting AXA protocols v1 to v2; currently using v1
* Using AXA protocol 2
* OK USER mschiffm authorized
sra> count 1
sra> channel 213 on
* OK CHANNEL ON/OFF channel ch213 on
sra> 1 watch dns=*.
1 OK WATCH started
1 ch213  SIE newdomain
 ad6uq65jvhekifbbgu36u.r.nflxso.net/CNAME: nflxso.net

packet count limit exceeded
sra> exit

FILES

certs

is the directory set with -S that contains TLS certificate and key files.

~/.axa/config

is a required file that contains AXA client configuration data. Currently supported are connection aliases that provide the user with a facility to create shortcut mnemonics to specify the SRA server connection string. For example:

$ cat ~/.axa/config
# SRA
alias:sra-apikey=apikey:<elided>@axa.sie-remote.net,1011

If the user wanted to connect to SRA, she would only have to remember "sra-apikey" and could do:

$ sratool
sra> connect sra-apikey

This config file is shared for sratool, radtool, sratunnel, and radtunnel. Because this file can contain sensitive information such as apikeys, it must not be readable or writeable to anybody other than "owner" or sratool will not load.

~/.ssh/config

is the ssh_config(5) configuration file used with connect ssh:... connections. The usual ssh(1) sequence is used, starting with ~/.ssh/config. "Host" stanzas in the file can simplify connections to SRA servers.

fields

defines relationships among and meanings of SIE message fields. Its contents should rarely if ever need to be changed.

~/.sratool_history

contains the command history from previous sratool and/or radtool invocations

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

If set, AXACONF specifies the AXA configuration directory instead of the default, ~/.axa or /usr/local/etc/axa.