FortiSIEM Discussions
ManuelRodriguez
New Contributor

Reverse DNS Queries for CMDB

Hi again,

I have a setup where several devices just report via syslog only (no manual discovery happened).

So the systems hostname in the CMDB is HOST-<IP>, because I suspect it tries to pull the info via SNMP/WMI by default.
Is there any chance of using reverse DNS by default to resolve that name?

I understand that I can chose DNS first instead of SNMP/WMI while discovering the devices, however the discovery seems to require SNMP, which is not used.

If this is not possible, is there any other way like a script that queries DNS Server for the IP and changes the Hostname in the CMDB?

Regards
Manuel
3 REPLIES 3
DanielHanman
Staff
Staff

Hi Manuel,

HOST-<IP> typically happens if logs are received without any discovery. If performing a discovery with SNMP or WMI then the discovery process will check DNS or SNMP/WMI results and add that to the CMDB.

You can enable DNS lookups on logs by enabling lookup:

vi /opt/phoenix/config/phoenix_config.txt

changing this to yes

use_dns_lookup=no

saving the file and restarting the parser process

killall -9 phParser

However, this is disabled by default because if DNS is slow it can cause performance issues for parser process and potentially accepting/processings whilst it waits on DNS response. Suggest you test this in a lab first!

Additionally, the Parser needs a section added to perform a reverse DNS lookup and set the results to the hostname. If you have a sample event from the device you are trying to add, I can take a look when you have time.

------------------------------
Daniel
FortiSIEM Product Manager
------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: Mar 19, 2021 05:50 AM
From: Manuel Rodriguez
Subject: Reverse DNS Queries for CMDB

Hi again,

I have a setup where several devices just report via syslog only (no manual discovery happened).

So the systems hostname in the CMDB is HOST-<IP>, because I suspect it tries to pull the info via SNMP/WMI by default.
Is there any chance of using reverse DNS by default to resolve that name?

I understand that I can chose DNS first instead of SNMP/WMI while discovering the devices, however the discovery seems to require SNMP, which is not used.

If this is not possible, is there any other way like a script that queries DNS Server for the IP and changes the Hostname in the CMDB?

Regards
Manuel
ManuelRodriguez

Hi Daniel,

thanks for the reply. I was able to test the setting and as you predicted the parsers need to be adjusted accordingly.

One simple sample event is from the CiscoIOSParser (User logged in command activity)
<189>391: Apr 19 12:28:44.172: %PARSER-5-CFGLOG_LOGGEDCMD: User:srv_user logged command:!exec: enable

Would be great if you tell me how do the DNS Lookup inside the parser, then I am able to customize all the others.

Regards
Manuel-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: Mar 22, 2021 05:45 AM
From: Daniel Hanman
Subject: Reverse DNS Queries for CMDB

Hi Manuel,

HOST-<IP> typically happens if logs are received without any discovery. If performing a discovery with SNMP or WMI then the discovery process will check DNS or SNMP/WMI results and add that to the CMDB.

You can enable DNS lookups on logs by enabling lookup:

vi /opt/phoenix/config/phoenix_config.txt

changing this to yes

use_dns_lookup=no

saving the file and restarting the parser process

killall -9 phParser

However, this is disabled by default because if DNS is slow it can cause performance issues for parser process and potentially accepting/processings whilst it waits on DNS response. Suggest you test this in a lab first!

Additionally, the Parser needs a section added to perform a reverse DNS lookup and set the results to the hostname. If you have a sample event from the device you are trying to add, I can take a look when you have time.

------------------------------
Daniel
FortiSIEM Product Manager
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Mar 19, 2021 05:50 AM
From: Manuel Rodriguez
Subject: Reverse DNS Queries for CMDB

Hi again,

I have a setup where several devices just report via syslog only (no manual discovery happened).

So the systems hostname in the CMDB is HOST-<IP>, because I suspect it tries to pull the info via SNMP/WMI by default.
Is there any chance of using reverse DNS by default to resolve that name?

I understand that I can chose DNS first instead of SNMP/WMI while discovering the devices, however the discovery seems to require SNMP, which is not used.

If this is not possible, is there any other way like a script that queries DNS Server for the IP and changes the Hostname in the CMDB?

Regards
Manuel
ManuelRodriguez

Hi @Daniel

​I tried to use convertHostNameToIp, However this really seems to work only for host to IP and not for the other direction.

Regards
Manuel-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: Apr 19, 2021 05:29 AM
From: Manuel Rodriguez
Subject: Reverse DNS Queries for CMDB

Hi Daniel,

thanks for the reply. I was able to test the setting and as you predicted the parsers need to be adjusted accordingly.

One simple sample event is from the CiscoIOSParser (User logged in command activity)
<189>391: Apr 19 12:28:44.172: %PARSER-5-CFGLOG_LOGGEDCMD: User:srv_user logged command:!exec: enable

Would be great if you tell me how do the DNS Lookup inside the parser, then I am able to customize all the others.

Regards
Manuel
Original Message:
Sent: Mar 22, 2021 05:45 AM
From: Daniel Hanman
Subject: Reverse DNS Queries for CMDB

Hi Manuel,

HOST-<IP> typically happens if logs are received without any discovery. If performing a discovery with SNMP or WMI then the discovery process will check DNS or SNMP/WMI results and add that to the CMDB.

You can enable DNS lookups on logs by enabling lookup:

vi /opt/phoenix/config/phoenix_config.txt

changing this to yes

use_dns_lookup=no

saving the file and restarting the parser process

killall -9 phParser

However, this is disabled by default because if DNS is slow it can cause performance issues for parser process and potentially accepting/processings whilst it waits on DNS response. Suggest you test this in a lab first!

Additionally, the Parser needs a section added to perform a reverse DNS lookup and set the results to the hostname. If you have a sample event from the device you are trying to add, I can take a look when you have time.

------------------------------
Daniel
FortiSIEM Product Manager

Original Message:
Sent: Mar 19, 2021 05:50 AM
From: Manuel Rodriguez
Subject: Reverse DNS Queries for CMDB

Hi again,

I have a setup where several devices just report via syslog only (no manual discovery happened).

So the systems hostname in the CMDB is HOST-<IP>, because I suspect it tries to pull the info via SNMP/WMI by default.
Is there any chance of using reverse DNS by default to resolve that name?

I understand that I can chose DNS first instead of SNMP/WMI while discovering the devices, however the discovery seems to require SNMP, which is not used.

If this is not possible, is there any other way like a script that queries DNS Server for the IP and changes the Hostname in the CMDB?

Regards
Manuel
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