Snort 2.6 Beta Available for Testing

Snort 2.6 Beta is available for testing (no you didn't blink and miss 2.5 - it was an internal release only). This is a beta release and as such, we do not recommend deploying this beta in a production environment.

FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Added Performance Profiling Measurements for rules & preprocessors. Enabled via --enable-perfprofiling at configuration time.
• Added support for dynamically loadable preprocessors, detection engine and rules. Enabled via --enable-dynamicplugin at configuration time.
• Addition of dynamically loadable SMTP preprocessor. Deprecates xlink2state minipreprocessor.
• Addition of dynamically loadable FTP/Telnet preprocessor. Deprecates telnet_decode preprocessor.
• Preprocessor configuration validation. Verifies a preprocessor configuration, when one preprocessor depends on another preprocessor
• being enabled (HttpInspect depends on Stream for example). Also handles 2 part configurations (Frag3 requires at least one policy/engine configuration).
• Longname option support.
• Stream API to simplify transition to next generation Stream module. Flowbits now stored as part of stream, updates to output plugins for logging of reassembled packets. Updates to other preprocessors to provide per stream state data.
• Logging of Generator ID to MySQL database. Updated database schema to add this field. Requires update to BASE.

INSTALLATION:

To get a copy of the Snort 2.6 Beta for testing, follow these instructions:

# cvs -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot login
# cvs -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot co SNORT_2_6 snort_2_6
# cd snort_2_6
# sh autojunk.sh
# ./configure
# make
# make install

You should now have Snort 2.6 Beta installed and ready for use.

FEEDBACK
Feedback concerning issues with Snort 2.6 Beta should be directed to [email protected]. In addition, there is a forum for discussion available here.