3. Installation¶

Before Suricata can be used it has to be installed. Suricata can be installed on various distributions using binary packages: Binary packages.

For people familiar with compiling their own software, the Source method is recommended.

Advanced users can check the advanced guides, see Advanced Installation.

3.1. Source¶

Installing from the source distribution files gives the most control over the Suricata installation.

Basic steps:

tar xzvf suricata-5.0.0.tar.gz
cd suricata-5.0.0
./configure
make
make install

This will install Suricata into /usr/local/bin/, use the default configuration in /usr/local/etc/suricata/ and will output to /usr/local/var/log/suricata

3.1.1. Common configure options¶

--disable-gccmarch-native¶: Do not optimize the binary for the hardware it is built on. Add this flag if the binary is meant to be portable or if Suricata is to be used in a VM.

--prefix=/usr/¶: Installs the Suricata binary into /usr/bin/. Default /usr/local/

--sysconfdir=/etc¶: Installs the Suricata configuration files into /etc/suricata/. Default /usr/local/etc/

--localstatedir=/var¶: Setups Suricata for logging into /var/log/suricata/. Default /usr/local/var/log/suricata

--enable-lua¶: Enables Lua support for detection and output.

--enable-geoip¶: Enables GeoIP support for detection.

3.1.2. Dependencies¶

For Suricata’s compilation you’ll need the following libraries and their development headers installed:

libpcap, libpcre, libmagic, zlib, libyaml

The following tools are required:

make gcc (or clang) pkg-config

For full features, also add:

libjansson, libnss, libgeoip, liblua5.1, libhiredis, libevent

Rust support:

rustc, cargo

Not every distro provides Rust packages yet. Rust can also be installed directly from the Rust project itself: https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/install.html

3.1.2.1. Ubuntu/Debian¶

Minimal:

apt-get install libpcre3 libpcre3-dbg libpcre3-dev build-essential libpcap-dev   \
                libyaml-0-2 libyaml-dev pkg-config zlib1g zlib1g-dev \
                make libmagic-dev

Recommended:

apt-get install libpcre3 libpcre3-dbg libpcre3-dev build-essential libpcap-dev   \
                libnet1-dev libyaml-0-2 libyaml-dev pkg-config zlib1g zlib1g-dev \
                libcap-ng-dev libcap-ng0 make libmagic-dev libjansson-dev        \
                libnss3-dev libgeoip-dev liblua5.1-dev libhiredis-dev libevent-dev \
                python-yaml rustc cargo

Extra for iptables/nftables IPS integration:

apt-get install libnetfilter-queue-dev libnetfilter-queue1  \
                libnetfilter-log-dev libnetfilter-log1      \
                libnfnetlink-dev libnfnetlink0

For Rust support:

apt-get install rustc cargo

3.2. Binary packages¶

3.2.1. Ubuntu¶

For Ubuntu, the OISF maintains a PPA suricata-stable that always contains the latest stable release.

To use it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oisf/suricata-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install suricata

3.2.2. Debian¶

In Debian 9 (Stretch) do:

apt-get install suricata

In Debian Jessie Suricata is out of date, but an updated version is in Debian Backports.

As root do:

echo "deb http://http.debian.net/debian jessie-backports main" > \
    /etc/apt/sources.list.d/backports.list
apt-get update
apt-get install suricata -t jessie-backports

3.2.3. Fedora¶

dnf install suricata

3.2.4. RHEL/CentOS¶

For RedHat Enterprise Linux 7 and CentOS 7 the EPEL repository can be used.

yum install epel-release
yum install suricata

3.3. Advanced Installation¶

Various installation guides for installing from GIT and for other operating systems are maintained at: https://redmine.openinfosecfoundation.org/projects/suricata/wiki/Suricata_Installation