Hi Since the first call a few weeks ago didn't suceed (more mentors were asked), I would like to call a second vote for accepting the security information and event management tool "ALOIS" for incubation in the Apache Incubator. Thanks Christian Grobmeier we now have two mentors at least. But any additional mentors are still warmly welcome. The full proposal is available below and on the proposal wiki page (http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/AloisProposal).
Please cast your vote:
[ ] +1, bring ALOIS into Incubator
[ ] +0, I don't care either way,
[ ] -1, do not bring ALOIS into Incubator, because...
This vote will be open for 72 hours and, at least that's the way I
understood, only votes from the Incubator PMC are binding.
Thanks,
Urs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
= Preface =
ALOIS is a log collection and correlation software with reporting and
alarming functionalities. It has been implemented by the Swiss company
IMSEC for a customer about five years ago. GPL-licenced, implemented in
Ruby and completely based on other OSS-licensed components, it was
designed for the open source community right from the start. Now that
the software has shown its functioning over several years in production
with the one customer and one IMSEC-internal installation, it seems to
be the right time to open it to a wider community.
= Abstract =
ALOIS stands for „Advanced Logging and Intrusion Detection System“ and
is meant to be a fully implemented open source SIEM (security
information and event management) system.
= Proposal =
While almost all other SIEM software, be it closed or open source,
concentrate on the technological part of security monitoring, ALOIS is
aimed to monitor the security of the content. It intends to be
pro-active in the detection of potential loss, theft, mistaken
modification or unauthorized access. ALOIS works on log messages and
thus contains all the basic functionality of a conventional SIEM, as
centralized collecting, normalizing, aggregation, analyzing and
correlating of all log messages, as well as reporting all security
related events. Therefore it can be used as any other SIEM.
ALOIS consists of five modules interacting to ensure a scaleable
functionality of a SIEM:
* Insink is the message sink, which is the receiving entry point for
all the different log messages into ALOIS. It is partly based on the
syslog-ng software. Insink listens for messages (UDP), waits for
messages (TCP), receives message collections (files, emails) and
pre-filters them to prevent from message flow overload.
* Pumpy is the incoming FIFO buffer, implemented as a relational
database tables. which contain the incoming original messages (in raw
format). In a complex system setup, there may be several insink
instances, e.g. for a group of hosts, for specific types of messages, or
for high-avaliablity.
* Prisma contains logic to split up the text of log messages into
separate fields, based on regular expressions. Actually, "prisma" is a
set of "prismi", each one prisma for one type of log message (apache,
cisco etc. Several prismi can be applied to the same message. This
allows for stacked messages, i.e. forwarded log messages contained in
compressed files contained in e-mail messages. The data retrieved form
the log messages is stored in a database called Dobby. Due to prisma
being written in Ruby, prismi can be applied interactively (when having
system access).
* Dobby is the central log database. It should be separated from the
Pumpy database for availability and performance reasons. The current
implementation is based on MySQL.
* The Analyzer contains the two sub-systems Lizard and Reptor. Lizard
is the analysis engine and user interface of ALOIS, implemented in Ruby
on Rails using AJAX. It allows for interactive browsing through the
collected data, exclusion/inclusion/selection of data, data sorting,
data filtering, creation of views, ad-hoc textual and graphical
reporting. Reptor allows for automatic activation of views and
comparison of these views' results to a predefined result (pattern
matching). In case of mismatch, Reptor sends the result to predefined
e-mail addresses.
Its modular design guarantees ALOIS to scale from little to large
organizations. Since there exists a Debian package, it's easy to build a
test system or even a productive system for small environments.
Although the software has been in productive use for a few years, there
is still a lot of desired functionality missing. The plugability of new
connected systems is given, but needs some revision. It is a given goal
of the project to allow modules in other programming language.
Furthermore, it has been discussed if parts of the existing
implementation may be replaced with other proven open source software,
e.g. the correlation engine or the web frontend. The other way round, it
has been discussed that the filter creation engine would make a good
tool for any kind of structured data, and thus could be separated from
ALOIS and standardized as a stand-alone tool.
= Background =
It's not simple to know what happens in a bigger network. There's a
multitude of applications, services and appliances working together.
Many of them provide some kind of events or state information. The
network administrator needs to get hands on all of them. But they come
in many different flavors and multiple canals. Therefore, it's hard to
get the big picture. Furthermore, we have learned that it's impossible
to protect a system against all malicious attacks and to keep all the
possible faulty handling away. A monitoring of the systems to guarantee
a pro-active handling is therefore needed..
Therefore, more and more organizations collect and analyze all logfiles
in a centralized system, called a SIEM (security information and event
management). The technology provides two major functions for security
events from networks, systems and applications: log management and
compliance reporting (SIM – security information management) and
real-time monitoring and incident management (SEM – security event
management).
= Rationale =
Why another security information and event management system? It's true,
there's already plenty of them. While the proprietary software is way
too expensive for smaller to mid-sized companies, we find that the open
source solutions are either too simple or not completely open. For
example, behind each of the well known systems “OSSIM” and “Prelude”,
there is a company that either closes central functionality for its own
business or has dual licensing and therefore asks the full copyright for
all contributed code.
ALOIS is aimed to be totally free and open for all contributions. The
openness provided for other programming languages is certainly proof of
this. The plug-ability - yet to be further developed - is meant to
guarantee that individual needs can be realized without stressing the
whole system too much. In our opinion, the Linux kernel is a good
example that this can work very well.
Since we are in accordance with „the Apache way“, we would be very
pleased if ALOIS could become part of the Apache community. In Addition,
the Apache Logging Services would be a perfect home for the software.
Furthermore, it's not the intention to compete with the already existing
log viewer and analyzing tool „Chainsaw“. Since Chainsaw is a relatively
easy tool, it meets a rather different need. Nevertheless, if the two
projects use synergies, both can profit.
= Initial Goals =
When this project started ins 2005, there was no proven SIEM open source
software and the commercial tools were way too expensive for the needed
environment. Therefore, we decided together with a customer of ours to
implement an open source SIEM tool from scratch. Now the software has
run in a production environment for several years and has proven its
functionality and reliabilty.
= Current Status =
== Meritocracy ==
As already mentioned, ALOIS is already in production use in two
organizations. All the code has been written by two persons of the same
company in a paid employment relationship. It is obvious that this is
way different from the open source approach within Apache. But
nevertheless, the two developers have always worked as a team and the
decisions were made in consensus whenever possible. But it is no secret,
that these developers have to learn to behave in an open community.
Understanding this potential problem, they already got support by a
freelance consulter, who has the corresponding experience and knowledge.
== Community ==
Until today there is no real community, because the project hasn't been
published officially, although it had been completely published on the
web site for a couple of months (until a server relaunch). Convinced by
the concept and design of the software, we are open and hope to reach
many contributors and users. We think that it is realistic, because the
SIEM issue has yet not been resolved in the OSS space.
== Core Developers ==
ALOIS was developed by Simon Hürliman and Flavio Pellanda, both employed
by the company IMSEC. Concerning Design and Architecture, Marcus
Holthaus, owner of IMSEC, gave his input as security specialist. Since
the beginning of this year, Urs Lerch, a doctorate on the subject of
commercial open source software development, supports the team with his
knowledge. Simon Hürlimann has left the company three years ago, but is
still active in the OSS environment (although not for ALOIS). Current
employee Daniel Lutz (a Debian Developer) has also contributed to the
project.
== Alignment ==
Besides that we strongly believe in the „Apache way“, we think that
although that Apache hosts the Logging Services and different security
projects, there is a gap when it comes to a superordinate security view.
We therefore think it a good idea to add our SIEM project to the Apache
repository. On the other side, Apache would become an even more complete
software repository.
= Known Risks =
== Orphaned products ==
Since the software is only maintained by employers of one company, there
is a severe risk of being orphaned. But, on the one hand, the company
has a sustained interest in keeping the project alive, because there are
plans to offer services on top of ALOIS, and IMSEC uses the software for
SIEM on their own systems. For this reason there exists a budget for the
development and support of ALOIS. On the other hand, we believe that
ALOIS is of great interest for other people and companies tied to IT
security. Therefore, our step to the Apache incubator is also a step to
a bigger community.
== Inexperience with Open Source ==
While ALOIS has always been licenced under the GPL, access to the source
code, bug tracker and version control system has been restricted to
internal users for most of the time. But the company has a strong
believe in the open source movement and therefore engages its employees
to take part in the community. Furthermore, it is also a strategic
decision to build services on top of linux.
We understand that the Apache Incubator is a great opportunity for us to
get assistance, when it comes to specific questions on the open source
development. Even more, the company has created a part time position for
the open source community work.
== Homogenous Developers ==
Although ALOIS has been developed by employees of only one company,
there is a thorough openness. The company is designed to stay small and
therefore works with several independent partners. Furthermore, its
employees work in geographically different parts of the country.
Therefore, it is no new experience for the developers to work in a
distributed environment and argue rather than to command. Already today
the employees are enforced to document all face-to-face communication in
the internal wiki. Sketches are photographed and stored in the project's
digital folder.
== Reliance on Salaried Developers ==
Until today all the development of ALOIS has been made in a paid
emplyoment. Therefore we know that this brings a significant danger.
Since it is our stated aim to encourage participation and recruit
commiters, we hope to eliminate this risk as soon as possible.
Furthermore, the employees of IMSEC are all open source enthusiasts and
are in one way or another active in the community. Although we have no
certainty, there is good indication that the current commiters would
continue their work on ALOIS, even if they wouldn't be paid for it.
== Relationships with Other Apache Products ==
The Apache Logging Service would be a perfect home for ALOIS as a
centralized logging collection and analyzing tool. Furthermore, we think
that we could share part of the code with the Chainsaw subproject, since
both need similar functionality in the web frontend. Since it is our
statet aim to replace our own code with proofen open source libraries,
we are open for any collaboration with other projects. For example, the
replacement of the MySQL with a NoSQL database might be useful for
performance reasons; therefore HBase is a good candidate.
== An Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand ==
The Apache brand is in fact for its own a very good reason to join the
Incubator. But much more our desire to become part of the Apache
Incubator is our strong believe in open source software in general and
in the „Apache way“ in particular. We would love to learn from the
experience and knowledge of the foundation's members and participants,
which is an important part of the brand as well. The foundation has
shown many times, that it has the processes and people to succeed in
launching a project. We would be very proud to be part of this success
story.
= Documentation =
The documentation is rather weak and scattered. It has mainly been
maintained on a wiki and is open to improvement. Since we are totally
aware that this is a killer for a successfull open source project, we
have already started an internal project with its own budget to improve
this shortcomming. Once the project has been launched, writing a blog or
open a forum are other possibilities we already thought of.
Furthermore, as the employees are used to work in a geographycally
distributed environment, a lot of the internal communication happens in
a chat. Thus, opening a new chat channel for the community is scheduled.
(To document the discussions for all those who were off-line, we would
send the logs daily to the mailing list.)
= Initial Source =
Although the initial source comes from a project for a customer. it has
an open source licence since the beginning. Therefore it doesn't have
any propriatary code in it. A thorough revision before releasing it to a
public repository is recommend and is also in planning.
The initial source will be a snapshot of the version control system,
accompanied by a related debian package.
= Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan =
ALOIS is currently under a GPL licence. Since there are only two
contributors so far, both from the same company, there is no problem to
re-licence the code and contribute it to Apache. The commitment of the
company's owner has been granted.
= External Dependencies =
So far, no external dependencies are known. As mentioned before, a
thorough revision of the codebase is in planning. There it can be
controlled, that no other licence is affected by the code.
= Cryptography =
ALOIS does not involve cryptographic code.
= Required Resources =
== Mailing lists ==
The following mailing lists will be required:
* alois-private
* alois-dev
* alois-commits
* alois-users
== Subversion Directory ==
https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/alois
== Issue Tracking ==
JIRA ALOIS (ALOIS)
== Other Resources ==
We would like to open a chat channel. If this isn't possible within the
infrastructure of Apache, we would love to do this in our own already
existing infrastructure.
= Initial Commiters =
* NAME EMAIL AFFILIATION CLA
* Flavio Pellanda flavio.pellanda at logintas dot ch IMSEC no
* Urs Lerch mail at ulerch dot net IMSEC yes
* Daniel Lutz daniel.lutz at logintas dot ch IMSEC no
* Marcus Holthaus marcus.holthaus at imsec dot ch IMSEC no
= Sponsors =
== Champion ==
* Scott Deboy <sdeboy at apache dot org>
== Nominated Mentors ==
* Scott Deboy <sdeboy at apache dot org>
* Christian Grobmeier <grobmeier at apache dot org>
== Sponsoring Entity ==
The Incubator PMC (requested)
signature.asc
Description: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil
