cowrie/docs/sql

How to Send Cowrie Output to a MySQL Database
################################################


Prerequisites
=============

* Working Cowrie installation
* MySQL Server installation


Installation
============

Run::

    $ sudo apt-get install mysql-server libmysqlclient-dev python-mysqldb
    $ su - cowrie
    $ source cowrie/cowrie-env/bin/activate
    $ pip install mysqlclient

Previously MySQL-python was used. Only if you run into isses with mysqlclient, try this instead::

    $ pip install MySQL-python

MySQL Configuration
===================

First create an empty database named 'cowrie'::

    $ mysql -u root -p
    CREATE DATABASE cowrie;

Create a cowrie user account for the database and grant all access privileges::

    GRANT ALL ON cowrie.* TO 'cowrie'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'PASSWORD HERE';

**Restricted Privileges:**

Alternatively you can grant the cowrie account with less privileges. The following command grants the account with the
bare minimum required for the output logging to function::

    GRANT INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE ON cowrie.* TO 'cowrie'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'PASSWORD HERE';

Apply the privilege settings and exit mysql::

    FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
    exit

Next, log into the MySQL database using the cowrie account to verify proper access privileges and load the database schema provided in the docs/sql/ directory::

    $ cd ~/cowrie/docs/sql/
    $ mysql -u cowrie -p
    USE cowrie;
    source mysql.sql;
    exit

Cowrie Configuration
====================

Uncomment and update the following entries to ~/cowrie/cowrie.cfg under the Output Plugins section::

    [output_mysql]
    host = localhost
    database = cowrie
    username = cowrie
    password = PASSWORD HERE
    port = 3306
    debug = false

Restart Cowrie::

    $ cd ~/cowrie/bin/
    $ ./cowrie restart

Verify That the MySQL Output Engine Has Been Loaded

Check the end of the ~/cowrie/log/cowrie.log to make sure that the MySQL output engine has loaded successfully::

    $ cd ~/cowrie/log/
    $ tail cowrie.log

Example expected output::

    2017-11-27T22:19:44-0600 [-] Loaded output engine: jsonlog
    2017-11-27T22:19:44-0600 [-] Loaded output engine: mysql
    ...
    2017-11-27T22:19:58-0600 [-] Ready to accept SSH connections

## Confirm That Events are Logged to the MySQL Database
Wait for a new login attempt to occur.  Use tail like before to quickly check if any activity has 
been recorded in the cowrie.log file.

Once a login event has occurred, log back into the MySQL database and verify that the event was recorded::

    $ mysql -u cowrie -p
    USE cowrie;
    SELECT * FROM auth;
    ``

Example output::

    +----+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------------------+
    | id | session      | success | username | password    | timestamp           |
    +----+--------------+---------+----------+-------------+---------------------+
    |  1 | a551c0a74e06 |       0 | root     | 12345       | 2017-11-27 23:15:56 |
    |  2 | a551c0a74e06 |       0 | root     | seiko2005   | 2017-11-27 23:15:58 |
    |  3 | a551c0a74e06 |       0 | root     | anko        | 2017-11-27 23:15:59 |
    |  4 | a551c0a74e06 |       0 | root     | 123456      | 2017-11-27 23:16:00 |
    |  5 | a551c0a74e06 |       0 | root     | dreambox    | 2017-11-27 23:16:01 |
    ...