IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

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Cisco module

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Cisco module

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This functionality is in beta and is subject to change. The design and code is less mature than official GA features and is being provided as-is with no warranties. Beta features are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.

This is a module for Cisco network device’s logs. It includes the following filesets for receiving logs over syslog or read from a file:

asa fileset: supports Cisco ASA firewall logs.
ftd fileset: supports Cisco Firepower Threat Defense logs.
ios fileset: supports Cisco IOS router and switch logs.

Cisco ASA devices also support exporting flow records using NetFlow, which is supported by the netflow module in Filebeat.

When you run the module, it performs a few tasks under the hood:

Sets the default paths to the log files (but don’t worry, you can override the defaults)
Makes sure each multiline log event gets sent as a single event
Uses ingest node to parse and process the log lines, shaping the data into a structure suitable for visualizing in Kibana
Deploys dashboards for visualizing the log data

Set up and run the module

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Before doing these steps, verify that Elasticsearch and Kibana are running and that Elasticsearch is ready to receive data from Filebeat.

If you’re running our hosted Elasticsearch Service on Elastic Cloud, or you’ve enabled security in Elasticsearch and Kibana, you need to specify additional connection information before setting up and running the module. See Quick start: modules for common log formats for the complete setup.

To set up and run the module:

Enable the module:

deb and rpm:

filebeat modules enable cisco

mac:

./filebeat modules enable cisco

brew:

filebeat modules enable cisco

linux:

./filebeat modules enable cisco

win:

PS > .\filebeat.exe modules enable cisco

This command enables the module config defined in the modules.d directory. See Specify which modules to run for other ways to enable modules.

To see a list of enabled and disabled modules, run:

deb and rpm:

filebeat modules list

mac:

./filebeat modules list

brew:

filebeat modules list

linux:

./filebeat modules list

win:

PS > .\filebeat.exe modules list

Set up the initial environment:

deb and rpm:
```
filebeat setup -e
```
mac:
```
./filebeat setup -e
```
linux:
```
./filebeat setup -e
```
brew:
```
filebeat setup -e
```
win:
```
PS > .\filebeat.exe setup -e
```
The setup command loads the recommended index template for writing to Elasticsearch and deploys the sample dashboards (if available) for visualizing the data in Kibana. This is a one-time setup step.

The -e flag is optional and sends output to standard error instead of syslog.

The ingest pipelines used to parse log lines are set up automatically the first time you run the module, assuming the Elasticsearch output is enabled. If you’re sending events to Logstash, or plan to use Beats central management, also see Load ingest pipelines manually.
Run Filebeat.

If your logs aren’t in the default location, see Configure the module, then run Filebeat after you’ve set the paths variable.

deb and rpm:
```
service filebeat start
```
mac:
```
./filebeat -e
```
brew:
```
filebeat -e
```
linux:
```
./filebeat -e
```
win:
```
PS > Start-Service filebeat
```
If the module is configured correctly, you’ll see INFO Harvester started messages for each file specified in the config.

Depending on how you’ve installed Filebeat, you might see errors related to file ownership or permissions when you try to run Filebeat modules. See Config File Ownership and Permissions in the Beats Platform Reference for more information.
Explore your data in Kibana:
1. Open your browser and navigate to the Dashboard overview in Kibana: http://localhost:5601/app/kibana#/dashboards. Replace localhost with the name of the Kibana host. If you’re using an Elastic Cloud instance, log in to your cloud account, then navigate to the Kibana endpoint in your deployment.
2. If necessary, log in with your Kibana username and password.
3. Enter the module name in the search box, then open a dashboard and explore the visualizations for your parsed logs.
  
  If you don’t see data in Kibana, try changing the date range to a larger range. By default, Kibana shows the last 15 minutes.

Example dashboard

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This module comes with a sample dashboard for ASA:

Configure the module

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You can further refine the behavior of the cisco module by specifying variable settings in the modules.d/cisco.yml file, or overriding settings at the command line.

The module is by default configured to run via syslog on port 9001 for ASA and port 9002 for IOS. However it can also be configured to read from a file path. See the following example.

- module: cisco
  asa:
    enabled: true
    var.paths: ["/var/log/cisco-asa.log"]
    var.input: "file"

Variable settings

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Each fileset has separate variable settings for configuring the behavior of the module. If you don’t specify variable settings, the cisco module uses the defaults.

For more information, see Specify variable settings. Also see Override input settings.

When you specify a setting at the command line, remember to prefix the setting with the module name, for example, cisco.asa.var.paths instead of asa.var.paths.

`asa` fileset settings

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Example config:

- module: cisco
  asa:
    var.syslog_host: 0.0.0.0
    var.syslog_port: 9001
    var.log_level: 5

var.paths: An array of glob-based paths that specify where to look for the log files. All patterns supported by Go Glob are also supported here. For example, you can use wildcards to fetch all files from a predefined level of subdirectories: /path/to/log/*/*.log. This fetches all .log files from the subfolders of /path/to/log. It does not fetch log files from the /path/to/log folder itself. If this setting is left empty, Filebeat will choose log paths based on your operating system.
var.log_level: An integer between 1 and 7 that allows to filter messages based on the severity level. The different severity levels supported by the Cisco ASA are:

log_level	severity
1	Alert
2	Critical
3	Error
4	Warning
5	Notification
6	Informational
7	Debugging

A value of 7 (default) will not filter any messages. A lower value will drop any messages with a severity level higher than the specified value. For example, var.log_level: 3 will allow messages of level 1 (Alert), 2 (Critical) and 3 (Error). All other messages will be dropped.

var.syslog_host: The interface to listen to UDP based syslog traffic. Defaults to localhost. Set to 0.0.0.0 to bind to all available interfaces.
var.syslog_port: The UDP port to listen for syslog traffic. Defaults to 9001.

`ftd` fileset settings

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The Cisco FTD fileset primarily supports parsing IPv4 and IPv6 access list log messages similar to that of ASA devices as well as Security Event Syslog Messages for Intrusion, Connection, File and Malware events.

Field mappings

The ftd fileset maps Security Event Syslog Messages to the Elastic Common Schema (ECS) format. The following table illustrates the mapping from Security Event fields to ECS. The cisco.ftd prefix is used when there is no corresponding ECS field available.

Mappings for Intrusion events fields:

FTD Field	Mapped fields
ApplicationProtocol	network.protocol
DstIP	destination.address
DstPort	destination.port
EgressInterface	cisco.ftd.destination_interface
GID	service.id
HTTPResponse	http.response.status_code
IngressInterface	cisco.ftd.source_interface
InlineResult	event.outcome
IntrusionPolicy	cisco.ftd.rule_name
Message	message
Protocol	network.transport
SrcIP	source.address
SrcPort	source.port
User	user.id, user.name
WebApplication	network.application

Mappings for Connection and Security Intelligence events fields:

FTD Field	Mapped fields
ACPolicy	cisco.ftd.rule_name
AccessControlRuleAction	event.outcome
AccessControlRuleName	cisco.ftd.rule_name
ApplicationProtocol	network.protocol
ConnectionDuration	event.duration
DNSQuery	dns.question.name
DNSRecordType	dns.question.type
DNSResponseType	dns.response_code
DstIP	destination.address
DstPort	destination.port
EgressInterface	cisco.ftd.destination_interface
HTTPReferer	http.request.referrer
HTTPResponse	http.response.status_code
IngressInterface	cisco.ftd.source_interface
InitiatorBytes	source.bytes
InitiatorPackets	source.packets
NetBIOSDomain	host.hostname
Protocol	network.transport
ReferencedHost	url.domain
ResponderBytes	destination.bytes
ResponderPackets	destination.packets
SSLActualAction	event.outcome
SSLServerName	server.domain
SrcIP	source.address
SrcPort	source.port
URL	url.original
User	user.name
UserAgent	user_agent.original
WebApplication	network.application
originalClientSrcIP	client.address

Mappings for File and Malware events fields:

FTD Field	Mapped fields
ApplicationProtocol	network.protocol
ArchiveFileName	file.name
ArchiveSHA256	file.hash.sha256
Client	network.application
DstIP	destination.address
DstPort	destination.port
FileName	file.name
FilePolicy	cisco.ftd.rule_name
FileSHA256	file.hash.sha256
FileSize	file.size
FirstPacketSecond	event.start
Protocol	network.transport
SrcIP	source.address
SrcPort	source.port
URI	url.original
User	user.name
WebApplication	network.application

Example configuration:

- module: cisco
  ftd:
    var.syslog_host: 0.0.0.0
    var.syslog_port: 9003
    var.log_level: 5

var.paths: An array of glob-based paths that specify where to look for the log files. All patterns supported by Go Glob are also supported here. For example, you can use wildcards to fetch all files from a predefined level of subdirectories: /path/to/log/*/*.log. This fetches all .log files from the subfolders of /path/to/log. It does not fetch log files from the /path/to/log folder itself. If this setting is left empty, Filebeat will choose log paths based on your operating system.
var.log_level: An integer between 1 and 7 that allows to filter messages based on the severity level. The different severity levels supported by the Cisco ASA are:

log_level	severity
1	Alert
2	Critical
3	Error
4	Warning
5	Notification
6	Informational
7	Debugging

var.syslog_host: The interface to listen to UDP based syslog traffic. Defaults to localhost. Set to 0.0.0.0 to bind to all available interfaces.
var.syslog_port: The UDP port to listen for syslog traffic. Defaults to 9003.

`ios` fileset settings

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The Cisco IOS fileset primarily supports parsing IPv4 and IPv6 access list log messages.

Example config:

- module: cisco
  ios:
    var.syslog_host: 0.0.0.0
    var.syslog_port: 9002

var.paths: An array of glob-based paths that specify where to look for the log files. All patterns supported by Go Glob are also supported here. For example, you can use wildcards to fetch all files from a predefined level of subdirectories: /path/to/log/*/*.log. This fetches all .log files from the subfolders of /path/to/log. It does not fetch log files from the /path/to/log folder itself. If this setting is left empty, Filebeat will choose log paths based on your operating system.
var.syslog_host: The interface to listen to UDP based syslog traffic. Defaults to localhost. Set to 0.0.0.0 to bind to all available interfaces.
var.syslog_port: The UDP port to listen for syslog traffic. Defaults to 9002.

Timezone support

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This module parses logs that don’t contain timezone information. For these logs, Filebeat reads the local timezone and uses it when parsing to convert the timestamp to UTC. The timezone to be used for parsing is included in the event in the event.timezone field.

To disable this conversion, the event.timezone field can be removed with the drop_fields processor.

If logs are originated from systems or applications with a different timezone to the local one, the event.timezone field can be overwritten with the original timezone using the add_fields processor.

See Filter and enhance the exported data for information about specifying processors in your config.

Fields

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For a description of each field in the module, see the exported fields section.

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Cisco module

Cisco module

Set up and run the module

Example dashboard

Configure the module

Variable settings

asa fileset settings

ftd fileset settings

ios fileset settings

Timezone support

Fields

`asa` fileset settings

`ftd` fileset settings

`ios` fileset settings