Snort: Unable to open rules file

This is my first with snort. And I can't get it to run. I followed this tutorial exactly. And I have fedora 21.

Here's the output from snort -c /etc/snort/snort.conf -v -i enp0s3:

Running in IDS mode

--== Initializing Snort ==--
Initializing Output Plugins!
Initializing Preprocessors!
Initializing Plug-ins!
Parsing Rules file "/etc/snort/snort.conf"
PortVar 'HTTP_PORTS' defined :  [ 80:81 311 383 591 593 901 1220 1414 1741 1830 2301 2381 2809 3037 3128 3702 4343 4848 5250 6988 7000:7001 7144:7145 7510 7777 7779 8000 8008 8014 8028 8080 8085 8088 8090 8118 8123 8180:8181 8243 8280 8300 8800 8888 8899 9000 9060 9080 9090:9091 9443 9999 11371 34443:34444 41080 50002 55555 ]
PortVar 'SHELLCODE_PORTS' defined :  [ 0:79 81:65535 ]
PortVar 'ORACLE_PORTS' defined :  [ 1024:65535 ]
PortVar 'SSH_PORTS' defined :  [ 22 ]
PortVar 'FTP_PORTS' defined :  [ 21 2100 3535 ]
PortVar 'SIP_PORTS' defined :  [ 5060:5061 5600 ]
PortVar 'FILE_DATA_PORTS' defined :  [ 80:81 110 143 311 383 591 593 901 1220 1414 1741 1830 2301 2381 2809 3037 3128 3702 4343 4848 5250 6988 7000:7001 7144:7145 7510 7777 7779 8000 8008 8014 8028 8080 8085 8088 8090 8118 8123 8180:8181 8243 8280 8300 8800 8888 8899 9000 9060 9080 9090:9091 9443 9999 11371 34443:34444 41080 50002 55555 ]
PortVar 'GTP_PORTS' defined :  [ 2123 2152 3386 ]
Detection:
   Search-Method = AC-Full-Q
    Split Any/Any group = enabled
    Search-Method-Optimizations = enabled
    Maximum pattern length = 20
ERROR: /etc/snort//etc/snort/rules/app-detect.rules(0) Unable to open rules file "/etc/snort//etc/snort/rules/app-detect.rules": No such file or directory.

Fatal Error, Quitting..

The problem is at the end of the log. It doesn't seem like serious, but I can't figure it out. Here's the section I edited in snort.conf:

var RULE_PATH /etc/snort/rules
var SO_RULE_PATH /etc/snort/so_rules
var PREPROC_RULE_PATH /etc/snort/preproc_rules

# If you are using reputation preprocessor set these
# Currently there is a bug with relative paths, they are relative to where snort is
# not relative to snort.conf like the above variables
# This is completely inconsistent with how other vars work, BUG 89986
# Set the absolute path appropriately
var WHITE_LIST_PATH /etc/snort/rules
var BLACK_LIST_PATH /etc/snort/rules

The rule I think is causing the problem:

include $RULE_PATH/app-detect.rules

I edited the path variables to make them relative:

var RULE_PATH rules
var SO_RULE_PATH so_rules
var PREPROC_RULE_PATH preproc_rules

and downloaded the rules, extracted them to /etc/snort/rules/, and now it works.


Seems

/etc/snort//etc/snort/

That is a double path config, thats prob what's wrong with the Snort firewall.

  • Try checking if there a double $RULE_PATH or try deleting /etc/snort/ if that's not a global variable.