#Open Source Tripwire^®

Open Source Tripwire^® software is a security and data integrity tool useful for monitoring and alerting on specific file change(s) on a range of systems. The project is based on code originally contributed by Tripwire, Inc. in 2000.

Open Source Tripwire is suitable for monitoring a small number of Linux servers, where centralized control and reporting is not needed and professional support or system automation is not a requirement.

#General Instruction

The tripwire package comes with a basic configuration file /etc/tripwire/twcfg.txt, which sets the mandatory variables to the defaults as described in the twconfig(4) manual page. This configuration is merely enough to set tripwire to work.

The following five steps can serve you as a quick cookbook for setting tripwire to work.

1. Choose a convenient HOSTNAME and generate site and local keys using

   twadmin --generate-keys -L /etc/tripwire/${HOSTNAME}-local.key twadmin --generate-keys -S /etc/tripwire/site.key

   This creates the files named above as arguments.

2. Compile the configuration file with

   twadmin --create-cfgfile -S /etc/tripwire/site.key /etc/tripwire/twcfg.txt

   This creates file /etc/tripwire/tw.cfg.

3. Create a policy file. A complex example can be found in /usr/share/doc/packages/tripwire/twpol-Linux.txt. For test purposes, a single rule

   /bin -> $(ReadOnly); # the ending semicolon is mandatory

   or alike will do. Compile this with

   twadmin --create-polfile -S /etc/tripwire/site.key /etc/tripwire/twpol.txt

   provided /etc/tripwire/twpol.txt is the name of your policy file. This creates file /etc/tripwire/tw.pol.

4. Generates a baseline database (snapshot of the objects residing on the system, according to the installed policy file) using

   tripwire --init

   This creates file /var/lib/tripwire/${HOSTNAME}.twd.

5. You can check the system with

   tripwire --check

   This prints a report on the standard output and generates file /var/lib/tripwire/report/${HOSTNAME}-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.twr. The report can be redisplayed using

   twprint --print-report -r /var/lib/tripwire/report/${HOSTNAME}-YYYYMMDD-HMMSS.twr