ossec cookbook

This cookbook provides custom resources for installing and configuring OSSEC HIDS from the Atomicorp package archives used by the legacy cookbook.

The package path is constrained by upstream and vendor archive support. Read AGENTS.md before expanding platform coverage.

Maintainers

This cookbook is maintained by the Sous Chefs. See sous-chefs.org.

Requirements

Chef

• Chef Infra Client 15.3+

Supported platforms

• Amazon Linux 2023
• Debian 12 / 13
• Rocky Linux 9
• Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04

The actual package archive is broader than this list, but the cookbook only declares currently-supported platforms that align with the documented vendor support and the maintained Kitchen matrix.

Resources

• ossec_repository
• ossec_install
• ossec_config
• ossec_local
• ossec_client
• ossec_server
• ossec_authd
• ossec_agent_auth

Data bag

Server and client key distribution uses a data bag item that defaults to ossec/ssh.

{
  "id": "ssh",
  "pubkey": "ssh-ed25519 AAAA...",
  "privkey": "-----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----\n..."
}

If you use encrypted data bags, set encrypted_data_bag true on the resource.

Usage

Local manager

ossec_local 'default'

Agent

ossec_client 'default' do
  agent_server_ip '192.0.2.10'
end

Server

ossec_server 'default'

authd

ossec_authd 'default' do
  certificate '/var/ossec/etc/sslmanager.cert'
  key '/var/ossec/etc/sslmanager.key'
end

agent-auth registration

ossec_agent_auth 'default' do
  agent_server_ip '192.0.2.10'
end

Configuration

ossec_config, ossec_local, ossec_client, ossec_server, ossec_authd, and ossec_agent_auth all accept an ossec_conf hash that is rendered to /var/ossec/etc/ossec.conf via Gyoku.

For server workflows, agent_conf is written to /var/ossec/etc/shared/agent.conf.

Example:

ossec_server 'default' do
  ossec_conf(
    'global' => {
      'email_notification' => true,
      'email_to' => 'ossec@example.com',
      'smtp_server' => 'smtp.example.com'
    }
  )
  agent_conf(
    [
      {
        'syscheck' => { 'frequency' => 4321 },
        'rootcheck' => { 'disabled' => true }
      }
    ]
  )
end

Testing

chef install Policyfile.rb
cookstyle
chef exec rspec --format documentation
KITCHEN_LOCAL_YAML=kitchen.dokken.yml kitchen test default-ubuntu-2404 --destroy=always