Snort logging mode – How to define subnets

Instead of logging all traffic, I would suggest the following: Monitor the number of packets sent to your server. If it exceeds a certain threshold, log a couple of 1000 packets, then wait for a longer time.

That packet trace should contain plenty of information which can be used for analysis. Also, it will not impose too much additional load on your server while everything is fine. You could use the following hacked together bash code as a starting point (could be started in screen, for example):

interface=eth0
dumpdir=/tmp/

while /bin/true; do
  pkt_old=`grep $interface: /proc/net/dev | cut -d :  -f2 | awk '{ print $2 }'`
  sleep 1
  pkt_new=`grep $interface: /proc/net/dev | cut -d :  -f2 | awk '{ print $2 }'`

  pkt=$(( $pkt_new - $pkt_old ))
  echo -ne "\r$pkt packets/s\033[0K"

  if [ $pkt -gt 5000 ]; then
    echo -e "\n`date` Under attack, dumping packets."
    tcpdump -n -s0 -c 2000 -w $dumpdir/dump.`date +"%Y%m%d-%H%M%S"`.cap
    echo "`date` Packets dumped, sleeping now."
    sleep 300
  fi
done

Feel free to adapt it to your needs.

As long as the Snort daemon is running the problem that generally causes this behavior is usually one of three things:

1. Missing rule set, does not appear to apply here.
2. Interface not configured correctly (listening on inside interface, not external monitor port)
3. External interface not connected via a tap (if you are monitoring other hosts).

My best guess at this point is that probably need to specify the interface to the daemon differently. Unless you are actually using a bonded interface (not mentioned in your question) that would be the first place I would look.