SIEM Deployment - Installing HP Arcsight Software Connectors on Linux

In HP ArcSight solution architecture one of the most value adding components is the Smart Connectors. With the several functions they provide, Smart Connectors really help differentiating HP ArcSight’s SIEM solution from other.

So what exactly are ArcSight Smart Connectors? In a 3 layered SIEM Architecture, Arcsight Smart Connectors constitute the second layer between log processing systems ( Arcsight Logger or Arcsight ESM) and source systems generating logs according to defined audit policies.

From technical SIEM perspective, ArcSight Smart Connectors are Java applications which allow receiving or fetching logs from one defined log source, which can be several devices sending their logs in syslog format over the same protocol and port number (e.g. UDP 514) or an application writing its logs to a flat file. ArcSight Smart Connectors come with 256 MB minimum memory size and that memory is adjustable up to 1024 MB by configuration agent.properties file, among other connector properties to be changed according to your specific needs.

One physical server can host up to 8 connector processes, meaning that you can collect logs from 8 different source groups as long as your server support that much capacity.

Below, you can find details about the basic installation of an HP ArcSight Smart Connector on a CentOS Linux server for collecting syslog messages.

REQUIREMENTS / PREREQUISITES

1. A RHEL or CentOS Linux 6.X Server installed.

2. Root or sudo rights for connector user.

3. Connector binaries downloaded. (Download the correct version for your OS, x86 or x64 !!)

4. Connector destinations (Logger and/or ESM) installed and working.

5. Define the protocol and port on which you will listen the incoming logs.

   Choose port numbers over 1024 if you are installing with a non-root user as non-root users are not allowed to listen ports below 1024.

INSTALLATION

1. Create installation directory under /opt path. In this example it is /opt/arcsight/connectors .

2. Create a receiver on the logger to connect the connector.

3. Run the connector binary you previously downloaded. (From /home/arcsight directory in my installation).

# ./ArcSight-7.1.1.7348.0-Connector-Linux64.bin -i console

4. Install the connector to run standalone or as a service.

INSTALLATION_PATH\current\bin\arcsight connectors  à Run Standalone

INSTALLATION_PATH \current\bin\arcsight agentsvc -i -u arcsight -sn syslog_unix à Run with arcsight user as a service with arc_syslog_unix service name

5. Check events on the logger.

6. Set agent.properties parameters (Optional)

7. Set agent.wrapper.conf parameters (Optional)