Sguil

Sguil is an open-source framework for network security monitoring and intrusion detection alert triage. It provides a client-server environment that helps security analysts analyze alerts generated by network intrusion detection systems and correlate events with contextual data from network sessions.

Its architecture centers on a server component (sguild) and a client (the Sguil user interface) that access a database, typically MySQL or MariaDB. Sguil integrates with Snort as the primary IDS, and uses Barnyard2 to process Snort’s outputs into the database. The system can also ingest data from other alert sources that populate the same schema, enabling centralized analysis.

Workflow in Sguil generally follows a cycle of alert generation, data ingestion, and analyst triage. Snort detects suspicious activity and emits alerts; Barnyard2 writes alerts and associated session data to the database; the sguil-server distributes alerts to connected clients with live context. Analysts use the Sguil client to triage alerts, reconstruct network sessions, and retrieve related packet captures for forensic investigation. The interface emphasizes contextual correlation by presenting related alerts, sessions, and data in a unified view.

Key capabilities include real-time alert triage, session reconstruction, and access to packet captures, with search and filtering across events to aid investigation. Sguil is commonly deployed in security operations centers and is often included in Linux-based distributions focused on intrusion detection and incident response, such as Security Onion.

See also: Snort, Barnyard2, MySQL, Security Onion, PCAP.