Errors in gap detection

[elof2 at sentor.se]

Hi Carter!

Sorry, but I can't give you a pcap or argus-logfile since they contain 
sensitive data.


I'm also sorry to say that this will probably be hard to debug.

'cause when I replayed the pcap on another sensor, ra showed "0   0"
gaps for this flow instead of "11274535 1767532*". This is correct, since 
I found no gaps in the flow in the pcap.

(the other flow I analysed show the correct "0     1367" since one 
packet is really missing in this flow in the pcap)

So a freshly started argus daemon seem to log correct values.


I found another sensor with lots of crazy numbers.
See attached logfile.

In there you can see that 1.2.3.4 is running a continous web-spider 
towards a wiki on 2.2.2.2:80.
All the GET requests always generates flows with approximately 11 packes 
in each direction.
There are zero gaps for days, and then suddenly there is a burst of crazy 
numbers during a period of 40 seconds. Then everything is good for two 
hours and then another 40 second burst.


netstat -B show zero drops for the argus daemon.
My graphs for the cpu usage, swapping, memory usage, packets per second, 
etc show nothing out of the ordinary. The machine is not heavily loaded. 
Doesn't swap. It only receives 35 Mbps of mirrored traffic.
No spike or unusual activity during the 40 seconds of crazy numbers.


I can't find any pattern or reason for the sudden burst of crazy numbers.

Other traffic flows show "0   0" gaps during the crazy periods, so not all 
flows are affected (not even all flows between 1.2.3.4 and 2.2.2.2, but 
many of them).

/Elof




On Wed, 22 Oct 2014, Carter Bullard wrote:

> Can you send the pcap file ??  Does argus generale the crazy
> numbers with this file ???
> Carter
>
>> On Oct 22, 2014, at 9:39 AM, elof2 at sentor.se wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi Carter!
>>
>> FYI, the gap detection counters still show some wonky numbers in 3.0.8.
>>
>> ra -Zb -s flgs spkts dpkts state:13 sgap dgap -nr gaps.argus - tcp | grep g
>>
>> Normal and OK gaps show up like this:
>>     Flgs  SrcPkts  DstPkts         State   SrcGap   DstGap
>> e g            15       24         PA_PA        0      458
>> e g             3        3         PA_PA        0      284
>> e g             5        6         PA_PA        0      732
>> e g           129      284         PA_PA        0     1367
>> e g            66       94         PA_PA        0     1367
>> e g             2        2         PA_PA        0      801
>>
>> ...but here and there I get lines like this:
>> e g             7        6     FSPA_FSPA 3051561* 8894044*
>> e g             7        6     FSPA_FSPA 1142343* 8891853*
>> e g             7        6     FSPA_FSPA 98000397 7385371*
>> e g             6        4     FSPA_FSPA 59208794 6255514*
>> e g            20       20     FSPA_FSPA 3468512*    65538
>> e g            20       20     FSPA_FSPA 3468512*    65538
>> e g             5        6       SPA_SPA 2562525* 9087142*
>> e g             7        6     FSPA_FSPA 68629719 5826434*
>> e g             7        6     FSPA_FSPA -214748* 5815425*
>> e g             7        6     FSPA_FSPA -214748* 1919818*
>> e g            17       24     FSPA_FSPA 3167486* 2765698*
>>
>> This doesn't look as nice.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I tcpdump:ed traffic to pcap while argus created its logfile.
>> I analysed two flows showing gaps, one normal with "0     1367" gaps and one wonky with "11274535 1767532*" gaps.
>>
>> Wireshark analysis of the "normal flow" show identical numbers as argus; 0 gaps from src and 1367 bytes (one packet) missing (in mid-stream) from dst.
>> Good.
>>
>> Wireshark analysis of a "wonky" flow show no errors! No complaints at all from Wireshark (including its Expert Info). No "previous segment not captured" and no "ACKed unseen segment".
>> Everything looks good in the pcap.
>> I can't find any reason as to why argus create those wonky numbers.
>>
>>
>> Oh, well, I don't use the gaps fields very often, so for me this is not important. I just thought I'd let you know.
>>
>> /Elof
>>
>
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