2015 Ohio LinuxFest Assimilation Talk

Overview of the Assimilation Project for the 2015 Ohio LinuxFest.

Transcript

1. How to Painlessly Discover What You
   How to Painlessly Discover What You
   Don't Know - Before It Bites You
   Don't Know - Before It Bites You
   #AssimProj @OSSAlanR
   http://assimproj.org/
   Alan Robertson
   Assimilation Systems Limited
   http://assimilationsystems.com
   

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   Biography
   Biography
   ●
   35+ years in IT/development – 10 years in
   system management (SysAdmin)
   ●
   Founded Linux-HA project - led 1998-2007 –
   aka “Heartbeat” - now called Pacemaker
   ●
   Founded Assimilation Project in 2010
   ●
   Founded Assimilation Systems Limited in 2013
   ●
   Alumnus of Bell Labs, SuSE, IBM
   

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   Disturbing Trends...
   Disturbing Trends...
   ●
   30% of all break-ins come through “lost” systems (Verizon)
   ●
   90% have had failures of unmonitored services (Turnbull)
   ●
   80% are unable to keep systems in compliance (Verizon)
   ●
   30% start monitoring only after a problem (Turnbull)
   ●
   30% of all systems are doing nothing useful (Koomey)
   ●
   Many sites have trouble scaling monitoring (Turnbull)
   ●
   Larger site admins often don’t know dependencies
   ●
   Documentation is incomplete, out of date, expensive
   

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   Assimilation Project Evolution
   Assimilation Project Evolution
   ●
   Inspired by 2 million core computer
   (cyclops64)
   ●
   Concerns for extreme scale
   ●
   Topology aware monitoring
   ●
   Topology discovery w/out security issues
   =►Discovery of everything!
   

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   A 6-dimensional overview
   A 6-dimensional overview
   1.System Management Suite Overview
   2.Basic Technology
   3.Best Practice Analyses
   4.Demo
   5.Current Status
   6.What You Need To Do!
   

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   Why
   Why the Assimilation System
   the Assimilation System
   Management Suite?
   Management Suite?
   ●
   Provides insight and details through a graph-model CMDB
   ●
   Helps you understand and automate your environment
   – Reduce Errors
   – Speed up problem resolution
   ●
   Reduces Manual Documentation
   ●
   CMDB-driven configuration => near-zero configuration
   ●
   Automates Monitoring
   ●
   Enhances Security
   ●
   Designed for Extreme Scale
   

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   What's in the Suite?
   What's in the Suite?
   ●
   Graph CMDB
   ●
   Exception Monitoring
   ●
   Security Discovery
   ●
   Network Connections
   

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8. Complexity
   Complexity
   “Complexity is the enemy of reliability”
   ●
   Complexity likely your single biggest
   problem
   – Near-zero configuration reduces complexity
   – Tight service integration reduces complexity
   – Accurate detailed view improves complexity
   management
   

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   Highly Scalable Discovery-Driven
   Highly Scalable Discovery-Driven
   Automation
   Automation
   Continuous Discovery drives everything
   ●
   Continuous extensible discovery (CMDB)
   – systems, switches, services, dependencies – zero
   network footprint discovery process
   ●
   Extensible exception monitoring
   – more than 100K systems
   ●
   Discovery Drives Best Practice Analyses
   – Initially concentrating on security
   ●
   All data goes into central graph CMDB
   

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    This all sounds unreasonable...
    This all sounds unreasonable...
    ●
    Huge scalability without complexity?
    ●
    Discovery without pings or port scans?
    Really?
    

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    S
    Simple Scalability
    imple Scalability
    I can explain how we scale so your
    grandmother would understand...
    istockphoto
    ©bowdenimages
    

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    Massive Scalability –
    Massive Scalability – or
    or
    “I see dead servers in
    “I see dead servers in O
    O(1) time”
    (1) time”
    ●
    Adding systems does not increase the monitoring work on any system
    ●
    Each server monitors 2 (or 4) neighbors
    ●
    Each server monitors and discovers its own services
    ●
    Ring repair and alerting is O(n) – but a very small amount of work
    Current Implementation
    

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    Minimizing Network Footprint
    Minimizing Network Footprint
    (in our roadmap)
    (in our roadmap)
    ●
    Support diagnosing switch issues
    ●
    Minimize network traffic
    ●
    Ideal for multi-site arrangements
    

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    Service Monitoring based on HA
    Service Monitoring based on HA
    Technologies
    Technologies
    ●
    Well-proven architecture:
    – reliable “no news is good news”
    ●
    Implements Open Cluster Framework
    standard (LSB and others – Nagios coming!)
    ●
    Each system monitors own services
    ●
    Can also start, stop, migrate services
    

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    How does discovery work?
    How does discovery work?
    Nanoprobe scripts perform discovery
    ●
    Each discovers one kind of information
    ●
    Can take arguments from environment
    ●
    Output JSON
    CMA stores Discovery Information
    ●
    JSON stored in Neo4j database
    ●
    CMA discovery plugins => graph nodes and relationships
    

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    OS discovery JSON Snippet
    OS discovery JSON Snippet
    { "nodename": "alanr-1225B",
    "operating-system": "GNU/Linux",
    "machine": "x86_64",
    "processor": "x86_64",
    "hardware-platform": "x86_64",
    "kernel-name": "Linux",
    "kernel-release": "3.8.0-31-generic",
    "kernel-version": "#46-Ubuntu SMP ...",
    "Distributor ID": "Ubuntu",
    "Description": "Ubuntu 13.04",
    "Release": "13.04",
    "Codename": "raring" }
    

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    "sshd": {
    "exe": "/usr/sbin/sshd",
    "cmdline": [ "/usr/sbin/sshd", "-D" ],
    "uid": "root",
    "gid": "root",
    "cwd": "/",
    "listenaddrs": {
    "0.0.0.0:22": {
    "proto": "tcp",
    "addr": "0.0.0.0",
    "port": 22 },
    sshd
    sshd Service
    Service JSON Snippet
    JSON Snippet
    (from netstat and /proc)
    (from netstat and /proc)
    

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    "ssh": {
    "exe": "/usr/sbin/ssh",
    "cmdline": [ "ssh", "servidor" ],
    "uid": "alanr",
    "gid": "alanr",
    "cwd": "/home/alanr/monitor/src",
    "clientaddrs": {
    "10.10.10.5:22": {
    "proto": "tcp",
    "addr": "10.10.10.5",
    "port": 22 },
    ssh
    ssh Client
    Client JSON Snippet
    JSON Snippet
    (from netstat and /proc)
    (from netstat and /proc)
    

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    Service Dependency Graph
    Service Dependency Graph
    

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    Switch Discovery Graph
    Switch Discovery Graph
    from LLDP (or CDP)
    from LLDP (or CDP)
    

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    Why a graph database? (Neo4j)
    Why a graph database? (Neo4j)
    ●
    Humans describe systems as graphs
    ●
    Dependency & Discovery information: graph
    ●
    Speed of graph traversals depends on size of
    subgraph, not total graph size
    ●
    Root cause queries  graph traversals –
    notoriously slow in relational databases
    ●
    Visualization is Natural
    ●
    Schema-less design: good for constantly changing
    heterogeneous environment
    ●
    Graph Model === Object Model
    

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    A Few Canned Queries
    A Few Canned Queries
    allipports get all port/ip/service/hosts
    allswitchports get switch connections
    crashed get crashed servers
    shutdown get gracefully shutdown servers
    downservices get nonworking services
    findip get system owning IP
    findmac get system owning MAC
    unknownips get unknown IP addresses
    unmonitored get unmonitored services
    

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    B
    Best Practice Analyses
    est Practice Analyses
    Under active development
    ●
    Triggered by Discovery Updates
    – Analysis occurs within seconds of change
    – No change => No analysis
    ●
    We can analyze anything discovered
    ●
    Expect to create alerts and reports
    ●
    SIEM integration
    

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    Sample Security Best Practices
    Sample Security Best Practices
    ●
    Inappropriate services (telnet, etc)
    ●
    Settings in /proc/sys/
    ●
    Security Patch Coverage
    – OS vendor (RedHat, SuSE, Canonical, etc)
    – Application (Oracle, IBM, WordPress, etc)
    ●
    Other OS settings
    ●
    Common Application Settings
    ●
    Looking at best practices
    FYI: Collaborating with Lynis project and Linux Foundation
    

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    Other Sample Security Features
    Other Sample Security Features
    ●
    Discovery of “forgotten” IP addresses
    ●
    Monitoring of Open Ports and Services
    ●
    Collection of network-facing app checksums
    ●
    Nmon profiling of new MAC addresses
    ●
    Checksum outliers analysis
    ●
    Security Best Practice Analyses
    

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    IT Best Practices Project
    IT Best Practices Project
    ITBestPractices.info
    ●
    IT-Bestpractices GitHub project
    ●
    Working on Linux Foundation Sponsorship
    ●
    Apache 2 License (or similar)
    ●
    Initial Sources
    – DISA STIGs
    – Lynis project
    – Individual contributions
    

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    IT Best Practices Goals
    IT Best Practices Goals
    ●
    Make Best Practice rules available in JSON
    – Curate mechanically-verifiable practices
    – Human-readable descriptions of issues and
    remedies
    – Multiple language support
    – Not limited to security best practices
    – Web server under development
    

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    Sample short description
    Sample short description
    The system must limit the ability of processes to
    have simultaneous write and execute access to
    memory.
    

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    Sample long description
    Sample long description
    ExecShield uses the segmentation feature on all
    x86 systems to prevent execution in memory
    higher than a certain address. It writes an address
    as a limit in the code segment descriptor, to control
    where code can be executed, on a per-process
    basis. When the kernel places a process's memory
    regions such as the stack and heap higher than
    this address, the hardware prevents execution in
    that address range.
    

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    Sample Security Rule check
    Sample Security Rule check
    The status of the "kernel.exec-shield" kernel parameter can
    be queried by running the following command:
    $ sysctl kernel.exec-shield
    $ grep kernel.exec-shield /etc/sysctl.conf
    The output of the command should indicate a value of "1". If
    this value is not the default value, investigate how it could
    have been adjusted at runtime, and verify it is not set
    improperly in "/etc/sysctl.conf".
    If the correct value is not returned, this is a finding.
    

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    Assimilation /proc/sys Rule
    Assimilation /proc/sys Rule
    Disallow executing code on writable pages
    “nist_V-38597”:
    {“rule”: “EQ($kernel.exec-shield, 1)”,
    “category”: “security”
    }
    

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    Assimilation Networking Rule
    Assimilation Networking Rule
    Buffer bloat prevention
    “itbp-0001”:
    {“rule”: “IN($kernel.core.default_qdisc,
    fq_codel, codel)”,
    “category”: “networking”
    }
    

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    D
    Discovery / Monitoring / Best
    iscovery / Monitoring / Best
    Practices Demo
    Practices Demo
    ●
    Demonstrate basic capabilities
    – Discovery-driven monitoring configuration
    – Discovery-driven 'tripwire-like' checksums
    – Monitoring – failures / successes
    – Host down notification
    – Best Practices
    ●
    No configuration was supplied
    – everything comes from discovery
    http://assimilationsystems.com/90_second_demo/
    

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    Current Status
    Current Status
    ●
    1.0 (Independence Day) release out 4 July 2015
    ●
    Security is our next major emphasis
    ●
    Great unit and system tests
    ●
    Strongly encrypted communication
    ●
    Quite a few discovery methods written
    ●
    Extensible Automated Discovery Triggers
    ●
    Discovery => Automatic Monitoring + Network-Facing Checksums
    ●
    Compatible with Nagios remote monitoring agent API
    ●
    REST + Command Line Queries
    

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    Get Involved!
    Get Involved!
    ●
    Trials! Early Adopters!
    ●
    Contributors
    – Testers, Continuous Integration
    – Best practice experts
    – Designers
    – Developers (C, Python, Shell, PowerShell, JavaScript)
    – Porters (esp Windows)
    – Promoters, Publicists, Packagers, etc.
    

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    Resistance Is Futile!
    Resistance Is Futile!
    These slides: bit.ly/DOSUG0915
    Mailing List: bit.ly/AssimML
    @OSSAlanR
    #assimilation on irc.freenode.net
    Project Web Site: assimproj.org
    Company Web Site: assimilationsystems.com
    Download: assimilationsystems.com/download
    

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    Risk Management/Mitigation
    Risk Management/Mitigation
    ●
    Intrusions
    ●
    Vulnerable Software
    ●
    Licensed Software
    ●
    Audit Risk
    ●
    Outages
    ●
    System management
    

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    Monitoring Pros and Cons
    Monitoring Pros and Cons
    Pros
    Simple & Scalable
    Uniform work distribution
    No single point of failure
    Distinguishes switch vs
    host failure
    Easy on LAN, WAN
    Multi-tenant approach
    Cons
    Active agents
    Potential slowness
    at power-on
    

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    Sixth Dimension:
    Sixth Dimension:
    Graph Schema
    Graph Schema
    Two Schema subgraphs
    ●
    Client / server
    dependency
    ●
    Switch interconnect
    

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40. First Dimension
    First Dimension:
    :
    Problems Addressed
    Problems Addressed
    ●
    Discovering and maintaining documentation
    (CMDB) using continuous discovery
    – Services, Systems, Dependencies, Switches, Interconnects,
    Configuration
    ●
    Monitoring and alerting: services, systems and
    compliance
    ●
    Managing compliance
    ●
    Mitigating risk
    

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    Why Discovery? (DevOps)
    Why Discovery? (DevOps)
    ●
    Documentation: incomplete, incorrect
    ●
    Dependencies: unknown
    ●
    Planning: Needs accurate data
    ●
    Best Practices: Verification needs data
    ●
    ITIL CMDB (Configuration Management
    Data Base)
    Our Discovery: continuous, low-profile
    

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    Second Dimension:
    Second Dimension:
    Unique Powerful Features
    Unique Powerful Features
    1. Continuous Discovery
    2. Discovery: Zero network footprint
    3. Centralized graph database
    4. We know everything that changes
    5. Discover and update dependency information
    6. Discovery and monitoring tightly integrated –
    discovery drives automation
    

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    (even more) Features...
    (even more) Features...
    7. Discovery and monitoring easily extensible
    8. Naturally scalable to > 100K systems
    9. Minimal network load
    10.Server failures distinguishable from switch failures
    11.Best practice and vulnerability alerts
    12.Multi-tenant support
    

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    Third Dimension:
    Third Dimension:
    Fully distributed work
    Fully distributed work
    Two philosophical underpinnings
    1. Monitoring and Discovery are fully distributed
    2. Reliable “no news is good news”
    Only responses to changes are centralized
    

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    Sample /proc/sys Rules
    Sample /proc/sys Rules
    “BPC-00002-1”:
    {“rule”: “OR(EQ($kernel.core_uses_pid, 1),
    NE($kernel.core_pattern, ""))”
    “url”: “https://trello.com/c/6LOXeyDD” },
    “BPC-00003-1”: {“rule”: “EQ($kernel.ctrl-alt-del, 0)”,
    “url”: “https://trello.com/c/aUmn4WFg”},
    “BPC-00006-1”: {“rule”: “EQ($kernel.sysrq, 0)”,
    “url”: “https://trello.com/c/QSovxhup” },
    

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