Pig (which can be understood as Packet intruder generator) is a Linux packet crafting tool. You can use Pig to test your IDS/IPS among other stuff.

Pig brings a bunch of well-known attack signatures ready to be used and you can expand this collection with more specific things according to your requirements.

Until now it is possible to create IPv4 signatures with transport layer based on TCP, UDP and ICMP. You can also create signatures based on ARP protocol, besides building up the packet since its Ethernet frame.

If you arrived here by my 2600 article from the SPRING 2016 issue keep reading the following documentation sections because this little Pig has been evolving since then.

It is pretty simple:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~/src# git clone https://github.com/rafael-santiago/pig pig
someones@err..InTheWolf:~/src# cd pig
someones@err..InTheWolf:~/src/pig# git submodule update --init

You need to use the Hefesto to build pig. After following the steps to put Hefesto working on your system. Move to the pig sub-directory named as src and run the following command:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~/src/pig/src# hefesto

After this command you should find the pig binary under the path src/bin. You can use the binary relatively from src/bin or install it.

If for some reason you are having build troubles you should try to read some remarks present in BUILD.md.

For installing you need to be inside the src sub-directory and call:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~/src/pig/src# hefesto --install

For uninstalling, being inside the src sub-directory you should call:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~/src/pig/src# hefesto --uninstall

Pigsty files are plain text files where you can define a set of packet signatures. There is a specific syntax to be followed. Look out an example of a pigsty file:

[ signature   =      "Hello",
  ip.version  =            4,
  ip.ihl      =            5,
  ip.tos      =            0,
  ip.src      = 192.30.70.10,
  ip.dst      =  192.30.70.3,
  ip.protocol =           17,
  udp.dst     =         1008,
  udp.src     =        32000,
  udp.payload =    "Hello!!" ]

Basically, all signature data must goes between square brackets: [ ... ].

Inside this area the piece of information is supplied by the scheme field = data.

If you have some experience with Computer Networks is sure that the majority of fields listed on Table 1 have strong meaning for you. You must use these fields to create your further signatures.

Table 1: The pig signature fields.

When creating a signature you do not need specify all data. If you specify only the most relevant packet parts the remaining parts will be filled up with default values. The checksums are always recalculated.

Tip: take a look in sub-directory pigsty. You will find lots of signature files and you will see that is pretty simple define new ones.

Yes, it is possible. In order to use this feature you just need to specify the values listed on Table 2 in ip adddress typed fields.

Table 2: IPs by geographic area.

You should in any ip address typed field use user-defined-ip as value. Note that you need to use the command line option --targets in this case. See section Using pig for more information.

If you create pigsty files that you judge be relevant beyond your own environment open a pull request in order to include these useful files here. Thank you in advance!

The Pig usage is very straightforward being necessary to supply four basic options which are:

• --signatures
• --gateway
• --net-mask
• --lo-iface

Do you want to know more about each option, huh?... So let's go:

• The option --signatures receives a list of file paths to pigsty files.
• The option --gateway is where you specify your gateway address. Be aware that pig generates or at least try to generate the ethernet frames too. Due to it the gateway address is rather important in order to correctly compose the layer-1 data.
• The option --net-mask for routing issues must receive your network mask.
• The option --lo-iface is the place where you should inform the name of the local network interface you will use to "drain out" the generated packets.
• The option --no-gateway indicates that any packet will send outside the network.

Supposing that we want to generate DDos based traffic:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~# pig --signatures=pigsty/ddos.pigsty\
> --gateway=10.0.2.2\
> --net-mask=255.255.255.0 --lo-iface=eth0

Now we want to messing up with everything:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~# pig --signatures=pigsty/ddos.pigsty,pigsty/attackresponses.pigsty,\
> pigsty/badtraffic.pigsty,pigsty/backdoors.pigsty\
> --gateway=10.0.2.2 --net-mask=255.255.255.0 --lo-iface=eth0

For it use the option --timeout=<millisecs>

Use the --no-echo option.

Use the --targets option. You can specify a list based on exact IPs, IP masks and CIDRs.

Look this:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~# pig --signatures=pigsty/local-mess.pigsty\
> --targets=192.30.70.3,192.30.70.*,192.30.70.0/9\
> --gateway=10.0.2.2\
> --net-mask=255.255.255.0\
> --lo-iface=eth0

This is useful when the loaded signatures will not send data outside the current network. In order to flag it you need to use the option --no-gateway. When the --no-gateway option is used you do not need to specify the gateway's address because the packets will not flow outside the current segment. As a result to inform the network mask becomes irrelevant too.

For instance:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~# pig --signatures=pigsty/local_traffic.pigsty --no-gateway --lo-iface=eth2

In the sample above the ethernet frame will not be a pig's responsibility anymore. For this reason pig will not complain about the lack of --gateway and --net-mask option.

The --no-gateway option is rather handy in cases that you need to generate ARP traffic. Take a look in this another document explaining how to perform ARP spoofing with pig.

Maybe you need to send only one signature and so return to the caller in order to check what happened after. This kind of requirement is common when you use this application as support for system tests or unit tests. So, if you need to do this you should try to use the option --single-test:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~# pig --signature=pigsty/syn-scan.pigsty --targets=127.0.0.1 --single-test\
> --gateway=10.0.2.2 --net-mask=255.255.255.0 --lo-iface=eth0

After running this command pig will select only one signature from the file syn-scan.pigsty and try to send it and then exit. If some error has occurred during the process pig will exit with exit-code equals to 1 otherwise pig will exit with exit-code equals to 0.

The basic pig's operation mode is about an endless loop which spits tons of packets into the network respecting a previous defined timeout.

You can define how pig traverses the loaded packets for sending them using the option --loop=<mode>. Until now the modes are two: random (the default) and sequential.

The sequential mode will re-iterate the signatures when it hits the end of the loaded packet signatures list.

Sub-tasks are useful minor tasks related with packet crafting which are shipped into pig for helping you on your crafting session. These task can be acessed using the option --sub-task=<task-name>.

By the fact of practically being sub-programs, the sub-tasks have their own idiosyncrasies and due to it the details about them follows in their own manual. Take a look at the Table 3 for following up to it.

Table 3: The pig sub-tasks.

Until now you can build up packets based on IPv4 having UDP or TCP in their transport layer. You can also build up ARP packets.

However, you can still build up packets starting from the Ethernet frame. The nice thing about it is the possibility of virtually building up anything above the Ethernet's payload.

For instance, even pig until now, does not offering support for cooked IPv6 building up, you can still build it up using a raw Ethernet based pigsty. Look:

[ eth.hwdst = "5C:AC:4C:AA:F5:B5",
  eth.hwsrc = "08:95:2A:AD:D6:4F",
  eth.type = 0x86DD,
  eth.payload = "\x60\x00\x00\x00\x00\x20\x3a\xff\xfe\x80\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x0a\x95\x2a\xff\xfe\xad\xd6\x4f\xfe\x80\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x55\x51\x00\xc2\x18\x0f\xdb\x46\x88\x00\x32\x01\xe0\x00\x00\x00\xfe\x80\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x0a\x95\x2a\xff\xfe\xad\xd6\x4f\x02\x01\x08\x95\x2a\xad\xd6\x4f",
  signature = "IPv6 from Sparta" ]

Taking in consideration that the inclusion of the destination and source MAC addresses inside an "Ethernet pigsty" is optional we can get the job done even without using any plush field.

It is nice when you have to test new protocols over your environment among other anomalous funny stuff. On this raw way, pig can keep itself useful to you.

Save the following data as "oink.pigsty":

[ signature   =           "oink",
  ip.version  =                4,
  ip.ihl      =                5,
  ip.tos      =                0,
  ip.src      =        127.0.0.1,
  ip.dst      =  user-defined-ip,
  ip.protocol =               17,
  udp.dst     =             1008,
  udp.src     =            32000,
  udp.payload =        "Oink!!\n" ]

On another tty run the netcat in UDP mode listen for connections on port 1008:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~# nc -u -l -p 1008

Now run pig using the "oink.pigsty", informing as target the loopback:

someones@err..InTheWolf:~# pig --signatures=oink.pigsty --targets=127.0.0.1\
> --gateway=10.0.2.2 --net-mask=255.255.255.0 --lo-iface=eth0

The netcat should start receiving several oinks and... yes, congrats!! pig is up and running on your system! ;)

Try to sniff your Network to get more information about these UDP packets that are flowing around your interfaces...

Have fun!