Event Forwarder

Carbon Black EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) is the new name for the product formerly called CB Response.

Carbon Black Event Forwarder is a standalone service which listens on the EDR enterprise bus and exports events (both watchlist/feed hits as well as raw endpoint events, if configured) in a normalized JSON or LEEF format. The events can be saved to a file, delivered to a network service or archived automatically to an Amazon AWS S3 bucket. These events can be consumed by any external system that accepts JSON or LEEF, including Splunk and IBM QRadar.

The list of events to collect is configurable. By default, Event Forwarder exports all feed and watchlist hits, alerts, binary notifications, and raw sensor events as JSON. You can find the configuration file for the connector at /etc/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder.conf.

Starting with version 7.1.0 of EDR, you can use the EDR web console to configure and control Event Forwarder, as long as you follow the installation and configuration steps detailed below.

Raw Sensor Events

We have seen a performance impact when exporting all raw sensor events onto the enterprise bus by setting “DatastoreBroadcastEventTypes=True” in the EDR configuration (more on this below). The newer recommended variable “EnableRawSensorDataBroadcast=True” is multi-threaded and replaces the deprecated “DatastoreBroadcastEventTypes”.

Quickstart Guide

The cb-event-forwarder can be installed on any 64-bit Linux machine running CentOS 6.x - 8.x. It can be installed on the same machine as the EDR server, or another machine. If you are forwarding a large volume of events to QRadar (for example, all file modifications and/or registry modifications), or are forwarding events from an EDR cluster, we recommend installing it on a separate machine. Otherwise, it is acceptable to install the cb-event-forwarder on the EDR server itself.

Installation

To install and configure the cb-event-forwarder, perform these steps as “root” on your target Linux system.

Note: If you plan to use the EDR console to configure and control cb-event-forwarder, then you MUST install it on the same system on which EDR is installed (in the case of a cluster installer, this means the primary node).

Install the CbOpenSource repository if it isn’t already present:

cd /etc/yum.repos.d
curl -O https://opensource.carbonblack.com/release/x86_64/CbOpenSource.repo

Install the RPM via YUM:
```
yum install cb-event-forwarder
```
If you are using EDR 7.1.0 or greater and wish to use the EDR console to configure and operate the Event Forwarder, run the following script to set the appropriate permissions needed by EDR:
```
/usr/share/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-edr-fix-permissions.sh
```

Configure the cb-event-forwarder

If installing on a machine other than the Carbon Black server, copy the RabbitMQ username and password into the rabbit_mq_username and rabbit_mq_password variables in the file /etc/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder.conf file. Also fill out the cb_server_hostname with the hostname or IP address where the Carbon Black server can be reached. If the cb-event-forwarder is forwarding events from an EDR cluster, the cb_server_hostname should be set to the hostname or IP address of the EDR primary node.
Ensure that the configuration is valid by running the cb-event-forwarder in Check mode: /usr/share/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder -check as root. If everything is OK, you will see a message starting with “Initialized output”. If there are any errors, those errors will be printed to your screen.

Configure EDR

Console Support

If you are using EDR 7.1.0 or greater and wish to use the EDR console to configure and operate the Event Forwarder, you will need to add the following setting to /etc/cb/cb.conf (on the primary node, if this is a cluster):

EventForwarderEnabled=True

Then restart services (or the cluster).

Event Publishing

By default, EDR publishes the feed.* and watchlist.* events over the bus (see the Events documentation for more information). To capture raw sensor events or the binaryinfo.* notifications, you must enable those features in /etc/cb/cb.conf:

To capture raw sensor events, edit the EnableRawSensorDataBroadcast option in /etc/cb/cb.conf to enable broadcast of the raw sensor events to export.
To capture binary observed events, edit the EnableSolrBinaryInfoNotifications option in /etc/cb/cb.conf and set it to True.

If you change any variables in /etc/cb/cb.conf, you must restart Carbon Black EDR by executing

/usr/share/cb/cbservice cb-enterprise restart.

If you are configuring the cb-event-forwarder on a Carbon Black EDR cluster, the EnableRawSensorDataBroadcast and/or EnableSolrBinaryInfoNotifications settings must be distributed to the /etc/cb/cb.conf configuration file on all minion nodes. The cluster must be stopped and restarted by using the /usr/share/cb/cbcluster stop && /usr/share/cb/cbcluster start command.

Starting and Stopping the Service

CentOS 6.x

To start the service, service cb-event-forwarder start
To stop the service, service cb-event-forwarder stop

CentOS 7.x / 8.x

To start the service, systemctl start cb-event-forwarder
To stop the service, systemctl stop cb-event-forwarder

After you install service, it is configured to start automatically on system boot.

Integrations

Splunk

Version 3.0.1 of the EDR Splunk App was released in July 2021 and is available from SplunkBase. A user guide is also available for it.

QRadar

The Carbon Black EDR Event Forwarder can forward Carbon Black EDR events in the LEEF format to QRadar.

Modify /etc/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder.conf to include udpout=<qradaripaddress>:<port> (NOTE: Port is usually 514)
Change the output format to LEEF in the configuration file: output_format=leef.
Change the output type to UDP in the configuration file: output_type=udp.

For more information on the LEEF format, see the Events documentation.

Logging & Diagnostics

The connector logs to the directory /var/log/cb/integrations/cb-event-forwarder. The following is an example of a successful startup log:

2015/12/07 12:57:26 cb-event-forwarder version 3.0.0 starting
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Interface address 172.22.10.7
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Interface address fe80::20c:29ff:fe85:bcd0
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Configured to capture events: [watchlist.hit.# watchlist.storage.hit.# feed.ingress.hit.#
feed.storage.hit.# feed.query.hit.# alert.watchlist.hit.# ingress.event.process ingress.event.procstart
ingress.event.netconn ingress.event.procend ingress.event.childproc ingress.event.moduleload
ingress.event.module ingress.event.filemod ingress.event.regmod binaryinfo.# binarystore.file.added]
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Initialized output: File /var/cb/data/event_bridge_output.json
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Diagnostics available via HTTP at http://cbtest:33706/debug/vars
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Starting AMQP loop
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Connecting to message bus...
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to watchlist.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to watchlist.storage.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to feed.ingress.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to feed.storage.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to feed.query.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to alert.watchlist.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.process
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.procstart
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.netconn
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.procend
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.childproc
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.moduleload
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.module
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.filemod
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.regmod
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to binaryinfo.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to binarystore.file.added
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Starting 4 message processors

In addition to the log file, the service starts an HTTP service for monitoring and debugging. The URL is available in the log file (see the “Diagnostics available” line above). The port is configurable through the http_server_port option in the configuration file.

The diagnostics are presented as a JSON formatted string. The diagnostics include operational information on the service itself, how long the service has been running, errors, and basic configuration information. An example output from the JSON status is shown here:

{
  "version": "3.0.0",
  "uptime": 145.617786697,
  "cmdline": [
    "/usr/share/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder",
    "/etc/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder.conf"
  ],
  "connection_status": {
    "uptime": 145.471995845,
    "last_error_time": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "last_error_text": "",
    "last_connect_time": "2015-12-08T00:22:56.566600876-05:00",
    "connected": true
    },
    "error_count": 0,
    "input_event_count": 29,
    "memstats": {...},
    "output_event_count": 29,
    "output_status": {
      "type": "file",
      "format": "json",
      "file:/var/cb/data/event_bridge_output.json": {
      "file_name": "/var/cb/data/event_bridge_output.json",
      "last_open_time": "2015-12-08T00:22:56.430385291-05:00"
    }
  },
  "subscribed_events": [
    "watchlist.hit.#",
    "watchlist.storage.hit.#",
    "feed.ingress.hit.#",
    "feed.storage.hit.#",
    "feed.query.hit.#",
    "alert.watchlist.hit.#",
    "ingress.event.process",
    "ingress.event.procstart",
    "ingress.event.netconn",
    "ingress.event.procend",
    "ingress.event.childproc",
    "ingress.event.moduleload",
    "ingress.event.module",
    "ingress.event.filemod",
    "ingress.event.regmod",
    "binaryinfo.#",
    "binarystore.file.added"
  ]
}

Building from source

We recommend that you use the latest golang that is available on your target system (at the time of this publication, this is 1.13.x).

Set up your GOPATH, GOBIN, and PATH environment variables, and make sure that you have cloned the project into a directory structure in keeping with go’s workspace guide.

Set GO111MODULE=on to activate optional module support. The project can be built using the provided makefile.

The project requires librdkafka.so to be available and on the PKG_CONFIG_PATH for your build-system. Follow the guide in go-confluent-kafka to make sure that librdkafka.so is installed correctly, either from source or one of the confluent provided repositories.

make build

To build an RPM package, run the make rpm command. By default, the result is located at ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64.

Dev install

Use Git to retrieve the project

git clone https://github.com/carbonblack/cb-event-forwarder

Support

View all API and integration offerings on the Developer Network along with reference documentation, video tutorials, and how-to guides.
Use the Developer Community Forum to discuss issues and get answers from other API developers in the VMware Carbon Black Community.
Report bugs and change requests to Carbon Black Support

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Last modified on June 7, 2023

Carbon Black EDR

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