suricata(1) Suricata suricata(1)
NAME
suricata - Suricata
SYNOPSIS
suricata [OPTIONS] [BPF FILTER]
DESCRIPTION
suricata is a high performance Network IDS, IPS and Network Security
Monitoring engine. Open Source and owned by a community run non-profit
foundation, the Open Information Security Foundation (OISF).
suricata can be used to analyze live traffic and pcap files. It can
generate alerts based on rules. suricata will generate traffic logs.
When used with live traffic suricata can be passive or active. Active
modes are: inline in a L2 bridge setup, inline with L3 integration with
host firewall (NFQ, IPFW, WinDivert), or out of band using active
responses.
OPTIONS
-h Display a brief usage overview.
-V Displays the version of Suricata.
-c <path>
Path to configuration file.
--include <path>
Additional configuration files to include. Multiple additional
configuration files can be provided and will be included in the
order specified on the command line. These additional
configuration files are loaded as if they existed at the end of
the main configuration file.
Example including one additional file:
--include /etc/suricata/other.yaml
Example including more than one additional file:
--include /etc/suricata/other.yaml --include /etc/suricata/extra.yaml
-T Test configuration.
-v Increase the verbosity of the Suricata application logging by
increasing the log level from the default. This option can be
passed multiple times to further increase the verbosity.
o -v: INFO
o -vv: PERF
o -vvv: CONFIG
o -vvvv: DEBUG
This option will not decrease the log level set in the
configuration file if it is already more verbose than the level
requested with this option.
-r <path>
Run in pcap offline mode (replay mode) reading files from pcap
file. If <path> specifies a directory, all files in that
directory will be processed in order of modified time
maintaining flow state between files.
--pcap-file-continuous
Used with the -r option to indicate that the mode should stay
alive until interrupted. This is useful with directories to add
new files and not reset flow state between files.
--pcap-file-recursive
Used with the -r option when the path provided is a directory.
This option enables recursive traversal into subdirectories to a
maximum depth of 255. This option cannot be combined with
--pcap-file-continuous. Symlinks are ignored.
--pcap-file-delete
Used with the -r option to indicate that the mode should delete
pcap files after they have been processed. This is useful with
pcap-file-continuous to continuously feed files to a directory
and have them cleaned up when done. If this option is not set,
pcap files will not be deleted after processing.
--pcap-file-buffer-size <value>
Set read buffer size using setvbuf to speed up pcap reading.
Valid values are 4 KiB to 64 MiB. Default value is 128 KiB.
Supported on Linux only.
-i <interface>
After the -i option you can enter the interface card you would
like to use to sniff packets from. This option will try to use
the best capture method available. Can be used several times to
sniff packets from several interfaces.
--pcap[=<device>]
Run in PCAP mode. If no device is provided the interfaces
provided in the pcap section of the configuration file will be
used.
--af-packet[=<device>]
Enable capture of packet using AF_PACKET on Linux. If no device
is supplied, the list of devices from the af-packet section in
the yaml is used.
--af-xdp[=<device>]
Enable capture of packet using AF_XDP on Linux. If no device is
supplied, the list of devices from the af-xdp section in the
yaml is used.
-q <queue id>
Run inline of the NFQUEUE queue ID provided. May be provided
multiple times.
-s <filename.rules>
With the -s option you can set a file with signatures, which
will be loaded together with the rules set in the yaml.
It is possible to use globbing when specifying rules files. For
example, -s '/path/to/rules/*.rules'
-S <filename.rules>
With the -S option you can set a file with signatures, which
will be loaded exclusively, regardless of the rules set in the
yaml.
It is possible to use globbing when specifying rules files. For
example, -S '/path/to/rules/*.rules'
-l <directory>
With the -l option you can set the default log directory. If you
already have the default-log-dir set in yaml, it will not be
used by Suricata if you use the -l option. It will use the log
dir that is set with the -l option. If you do not set a
directory with the -l option, Suricata will use the directory
that is set in yaml.
-D Normally if you run Suricata on your console, it keeps your
console occupied. You can not use it for other purposes, and
when you close the window, Suricata stops running. If you run
Suricata as daemon (using the -D option), it runs at the
background and you will be able to use the console for other
tasks without disturbing the engine running.
--runmode <runmode>
With the --runmode option you can set the runmode that you would
like to use. This command line option can override the yaml
runmode option.
Runmodes are: workers, autofp and single.
For more information about runmodes see Runmodes in the user
guide.
-F <bpf filter file>
Use BPF filter from file.
-k [all|none]
Force (all) the checksum check or disable (none) all checksum
checks.
--user=<user>
Set the process user after initialization. Overrides the user
provided in the run-as section of the configuration file.
--group=<group>
Set the process group to group after initialization. Overrides
the group provided in the run-as section of the configuration
file.
--pidfile <file>
Write the process ID to file. Overrides the pid-file option in
the configuration file and forces the file to be written when
not running as a daemon.
--init-errors-fatal
Exit with a failure when errors are encountered loading
signatures.
--strict-rule-keywords[=all|<keyword>|<keywords(csv)]
Applies to: classtype, reference and app-layer-event.
By default missing reference or classtype values are warnings
and not errors. Additionally, loading outdated app-layer-event
events are also not treated as errors, but as warnings instead.
If this option is enabled these warnings are considered errors.
If no value, or the value 'all', is specified, the option
applies to all of the keywords above. Alternatively, a comma
separated list can be supplied with the keyword names it should
apply to.
--disable-detection
Disable the detection engine.
--disable-hashing
Disable support for hash algorithms such as md5, sha1 and
sha256.
By default hashing is enabled. Disabling hashing will also
disable some Suricata features such as the filestore, ja3, and
rule keywords that use hash algorithms.
--dump-config
Dump the configuration loaded from the configuration file to the
terminal and exit.
--dump-features
Dump the features provided by Suricata modules and exit.
Features list (a subset of) the configuration values and are
intended to assist with comparing provided features with those
required by one or more rules.
--build-info
Display the build information the Suricata was built with.
--list-app-layer-protos
List all supported application layer protocols.
--list-keywords=[all|csv|<kword>]
List all supported rule keywords.
--list-runmodes
List all supported run modes.
--set <key>=<value>
Set a configuration value. Useful for overriding basic
configuration parameters. For example, to change the default log
directory:
--set default-log-dir=/var/tmp
This option cannot be used to add new entries to a list in the
configuration file, such as a new output. It can only be used to
modify a value in a list that already exists.
For example, to disable the eve-log in the default configuration
file:
--set outputs.1.eve-log.enabled=no
Also note that the index values may change as the suricata.yaml
is updated.
See the output of --dump-config for existing values that could
be modified with their index.
--engine-analysis
Print reports on analysis of different sections in the engine
and exit. Please have a look at the conf parameter
engine-analysis on what reports can be printed
--unix-socket=<file>
Use file as the Suricata unix control socket. Overrides the
filename provided in the unix-command section of the
configuration file.
--reject-dev=<device>
Use device to send out RST / ICMP error packets with the reject
keyword.
--pcap-buffer-size=<size>
Set the size of the PCAP buffer (0 - 2147483647).
--netmap[=<device>]
Enable capture of packet using NETMAP on FreeBSD or Linux. If no
device is supplied, the list of devices from the netmap section
in the yaml is used.
--pfring[=<device>]
Enable PF_RING packet capture. If no device provided, the
devices in the Suricata configuration will be used.
--pfring-cluster-id <id>
Set the PF_RING cluster ID.
--pfring-cluster-type <type>
Set the PF_RING cluster type (cluster_round_robin,
cluster_flow).
-d <divert-port>
Run inline using IPFW divert mode.
--dag <device>
Enable packet capture off a DAG card. If capturing off a
specific stream the stream can be select using a device name
like "dag0:4". This option may be provided multiple times read
off multiple devices and/or streams.
--napatech
Enable packet capture using the Napatech Streams API.
--erf-in=<file>
Run in offline mode reading the specific ERF file (Endace
extensible record format).
--simulate-ips
Simulate IPS mode when running in a non-IPS mode.
OPTIONS FOR DEVELOPERS
-u Run the unit tests and exit. Requires that Suricata be
configured with --enable-unittests.
-U, --unittest-filter=REGEX
With the -U option you can select which of the unit tests you
want to run. This option uses REGEX. Example of use: suricata -u
-U http
--list-unittests
Lists available unit tests.
--fatal-unittests
Enables fatal failure on a unit test error. Suricata will exit
instead of continuing more tests.
--unittests-coverage
Display unit test coverage report.
SIGNALS
Suricata will respond to the following signals:
SIGUSR2
Causes Suricata to perform a live rule reload.
SIGHUP
Causes Suricata to close and re-open all log files. This can be used
to re-open log files after they may have been moved away by log
rotation utilities.
FILES AND DIRECTORIES
/usr/local/etc/suricata/suricata.yaml
Default location of the Suricata configuration file.
/usr/local/var/log/suricata
Default Suricata log directory.
EXAMPLES
To capture live traffic from interface eno1:
suricata -i eno1
To analyze a pcap file and output logs to the CWD:
suricata -r /path/to/capture.pcap
To capture using AF_PACKET and override the flow memcap setting from
the suricata.yaml:
suricata --af-packet --set flow.memcap=1gb
To analyze a pcap file with a custom rule file:
suricata -r /pcap/to/capture.pcap -S /path/to/custom.rules
BUGS
Please visit Suricata's support page for information about submitting
bugs or feature requests.
NOTES
o Suricata Home Page
https://suricata.io/
o Suricata Support Page
https://suricata.io/support/
COPYRIGHT
2016-2025, OISF
8.0.0 2025-07-08 suricata(1)
suricata 8.0.0 - Generated Thu Aug 7 13:39:14 CDT 2025