Substation is a toolkit for routing, normalizing, and enriching security event and audit logs.
Want to see a demo before diving into the documentation? Run this command:
export PATH=$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin && \
go install github.com/brexhq/substation/v2/cmd/substation@latest && \
substation demo
Substation is inspired by data pipeline systems like Logstash and Fluentd, but is built for modern security teams:
All of these data pipeline and microservice systems, and many more, can be built with Substation:
Substation excels at formatting, normalizing, and enriching event logs. For example, Zeek connection logs can be transformed to comply with the Elastic Common Schema:
Original Event |
Transformed Event |
---|---|
```json { "ts": 1591367999.430166, "uid": "C5bLoe2Mvxqhawzqqd", "id.orig_h": "192.168.4.76", "id.orig_p": 46378, "id.resp_h": "31.3.245.133", "id.resp_p": 80, "proto": "tcp", "service": "http", "duration": 0.25411510467529297, "orig_bytes": 77, "resp_bytes": 295, "conn_state": "SF", "missed_bytes": 0, "history": "ShADadFf", "orig_pkts": 6, "orig_ip_bytes": 397, "resp_pkts": 4, "resp_ip_bytes": 511 } ``` | ```json { "event": { "original": { "ts": 1591367999.430166, "uid": "C5bLoe2Mvxqhawzqqd", "id.orig_h": "192.168.4.76", "id.orig_p": 46378, "id.resp_h": "31.3.245.133", "id.resp_p": 80, "proto": "tcp", "service": "http", "duration": 0.25411510467529297, "orig_bytes": 77, "resp_bytes": 295, "conn_state": "SF", "missed_bytes": 0, "history": "ShADadFf", "orig_pkts": 6, "orig_ip_bytes": 397, "resp_pkts": 4, "resp_ip_bytes": 511 }, "hash": "af70ea0b38e1fb529e230d3eca6badd54cd6a080d7fcb909cac4ee0191bb788f", "created": "2022-12-30T17:20:41.027505Z", "id": "C5bLoe2Mvxqhawzqqd", "kind": "event", "category": [ "network" ], "action": "network-connection", "outcome": "success", "duration": 254115104.675293 }, "@timestamp": "2020-06-05T14:39:59.430166Z", "client": { "address": "192.168.4.76", "ip": "192.168.4.76", "port": 46378, "packets": 6, "bytes": 77 }, "server": { "address": "31.3.245.133", "ip": "31.3.245.133", "port": 80, "packets": 4, "bytes": 295, "domain": "h31-3-245-133.host.redstation.co.uk", "top_level_domain": "co.uk", "subdomain": "h31-3-245-133.host", "registered_domain": "redstation.co.uk", "as": { "number": 20860, "organization": { "name": "Iomart Cloud Services Limited" } }, "geo": { "continent_name": "Europe", "country_name": "United Kingdom", "city_name": "Manchester", "location": { "latitude": 53.5039, "longitude": -2.1959 }, "accuracy": 1000 } }, "network": { "protocol": "tcp", "bytes": 372, "packets": 10, "direction": "outbound" } } ``` |
Substation can route data to several destinations from a single process and, unlike most other data pipeline systems, data transformation and routing are functionally equivalent -- this means that data can be transformed or routed in any order.
In this configuration, data is:
// The input is a JSON array of objects, such as:
// [
// { "field1": "a", "field2": 1, "field3": true },
// { "field1": "b", "field2": 2, "field3": false },
// ...
// ]
local sub = import 'substation.libsonnet';
// This filters events based on the value of field3.
local is_false = sub.cnd.str.eq({ object: { source_key: 'field3' }, value: 'false' });
{
transforms: [
// Pre-transformed data is written to an object in AWS S3 for long-term storage.
sub.tf.send.aws.s3({ aws: { arn: 'arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket-name' } }),
// The JSON array is split into individual events that go through
// the remaining transforms. Each event is printed to stdout.
sub.tf.agg.from.array(),
sub.tf.send.stdout(),
// Events where field3 is false are removed from the pipeline.
sub.pattern.tf.conditional(condition=is_false, transform=sub.tf.util.drop()),
// The remaining events are sent to an HTTPS endpoint.
sub.tf.send.http.post({ url: 'https://example-http-endpoint.com' }),
],
}
Alternatively, the data can be conditionally routed to different destinations:
local sub = import 'substation.libsonnet';
{
transforms: [
// If field3 is false, then the event is sent to an HTTPS endpoint; otherwise,
// the event is written to an object in AWS S3.
sub.tf.meta.switch({ cases: [
{
condition: sub.cnd.str.eq({ object: { source_key: 'field3' }, value: 'false' }),
transforms: [
sub.tf.send.http.post({ url: 'https://example-http-endpoint.com' }),
],
},
{
transforms: [
sub.tf.send.aws.s3({ aws: { arn: 'arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket-name' } }),
],
},
] }),
// The event is always available to any remaining transforms.
sub.tf.send.stdout(),
],
}
Substation applications run almost anywhere (laptops, servers, containers, serverless functions) and all transform functions behave identically regardless of where they are run. This makes it easy to develop configuration changes locally, validate them in a build (CI/CD) pipeline, and run integration tests in a staging environment before deploying to production.
Configurations are written in Jsonnet and can be expressed as functional code, simplifying version control and making it easy to build custom data processing libraries. For power users, configurations also have abbreviations that make them easier to write. Compare the configuration below to similar configurations for Logstash and Fluentd:
Substation |
Logstash |
Fluentd |
---|---|---|
```jsonnet local sub = import 'substation.libsonnet'; { transforms: [ sub.tf.obj.cp({ object: { source_key: 'src_field_1', target_key: 'dest_field_1' } }), sub.tf.obj.cp({ obj: { src: 'src_field_2', trg: 'dest_field_2' } }), sub.tf.send.stdout(), sub.tf.send.http.post({ url: 'https://example-http-endpoint.com' }), ], } ``` | ```ruby input { file { path => "/path/to/your/file.log" start_position => "beginning" sincedb_path => "/dev/null" codec => "json" } } filter { json { source => "message" } mutate { copy => { "src_field_1" => "dest_field_1" } copy => { "src_field_2" => "dest_field_2" } } } output { stdout { codec => rubydebug } http { url => "https://example-http-endpoint.com" http_method => "post" format => "json" } } ``` |
```xml
|
Substation includes Terraform modules for securely deploying data pipelines and microservices in AWS. These modules are designed for ease of use, but are also flexible enough to support managing complex systems. This configuration deploys a data pipeline that is capable of receiving data from API Gateway and storing it in an S3 bucket:
resources.tf |
node.tf |
---|---|
```tcl # These resources are deployed once and are used by all Substation infrastructure. # Substation resources can be encrypted using a customer-managed KMS key. module "kms" { source = "build/terraform/aws/kms" config = { name = "alias/substation" } } # Substation typically uses AppConfig to manage configuration files, but # configurations can also be loaded from an S3 URI or an HTTP endpoint. module "appconfig" { source = "build/terraform/aws/appconfig" config = { name = "substation" environments = [{ name = "example" }] } } module "ecr" { source = "build/terraform/aws/ecr" kms = module.kms config = { name = "substation" force_delete = true } } resource "random_uuid" "s3" {} module "s3" { source = "build/terraform/aws/s3" kms = module.kms config = { # Bucket name is randomized to avoid collisions. name = "${random_uuid.s3.result}-substation" } # Access is granted by providing the role name of a # resource. This access applies least privilege and # grants access to dependent resources, such as KMS. access = [ # Lambda functions create unique roles that are # used to access resources. module.node.role.name, ] } ``` | ```tcl # Deploys an unauthenticated API Gateway that forwards data to the node. module "node_gateway" { source = "build/terraform/aws/api_gateway/lambda" lambda = module.node config = { name = "node_gateway" } depends_on = [ module.node ] } module "node" { source = "build/terraform/aws/lambda" kms = module.kms # Optional appconfig = module.appconfig # Optional config = { name = "node" description = "Substation node that writes data to S3." image_uri = "${module.ecr.url}:latest" image_arm = true env = { "SUBSTATION_CONFIG" : "https://localhost:2772/applications/substation/environments/example/configurations/node" "SUBSTATION_DEBUG" : true # This Substation node will ingest data from API Gateway. More nodes can be # deployed to ingest data from other sources, such as Kinesis or SQS. "SUBSTATION_LAMBDA_HANDLER" : "AWS_API_GATEWAY" } } depends_on = [ module.appconfig.name, module.ecr.url, ] } ``` |
You can run Substation on:
Use the Substation CLI tool to run through examples and unit test configurations:
substation test -h
Examples can be tested by running this command from the root of the project. For example:
% substation test -R examples/transform/time/str_conversion
{"time":"2024-01-01T01:02:03.123Z"}
{"time":"2024-01-01T01:02:03"}
ok examples/transform/time/str_conversion/config.jsonnet 133µs
VS Code is the recommended development environment for Substation. The project includes a development container that should be used to develop and test the system. Refer to the development guide for more information.
If you don't use VS Code, then you should run the development container from the command line:
git clone https://github.com/brexhq/substation.git && cd substation && \
docker build -t substation-dev .devcontainer/ && \
docker run -v $(pwd):/workspaces/substation/ -w /workspaces/substation -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -it substation-dev
The Terraform documentation includes guidance for deploying Substation to AWS.
Substation and its associated code is released under the terms of the MIT License.