PCRE linux kernel module & PCRE/REGEX text search engine

Keywords: Netfilter iptables PCRE REGEX Linux Kernel Module

PCRE library kernel module (libpcre2-X.ko)

The PCRE library is a set of functions that implement regular expression pattern matching using the same syntax and semantics as Perl 5. PCRE has its own native API, as well as a set of wrapper functions that correspond to the POSIX regular expression API.

This is a PCRE2 library ported to linux kernel. It is a full-fledged PCRE kernel module which supports JIT(Just-in-time) compilation.

Original sources: ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre

PCRE text search engine (ts_pcre.ko)

This is a new text search engine based on the PCRE kernel module.

Getting the source code

To get the source code from the git repository

git clone https://github.com/xnsystems/kpcre.git

Installing

To install the modules follow these steps, always from the modules package root (i.e. where this file is located)

To compile the modules first type:

make modules

Then, as root type:

make modules_install

That would install the pcre & ts_pcre modules for the given Linux kernel.

For more detailed instructions on how to build and install the kernel modules, refer to the installation guide.

Usage

Once you have installed both modules ("libpcre2-X.ko" and "ts_pcre.ko") you should type (as root):

modprobe ts_pcre

If the module has been successfully loaded you shouldn't see any message. After loading the kernel module you can use iptables to add a rule.

An example rule would be (as root):

iptables -A INPUT -m string --string "/\x7C\x7C.+[a-z]/i" --algo pcre -j DROP

This wouldn't allow any incoming traffic that has the content matching the given PCRE in the payload.

In case you want to stop using the ts_pcre kernel module, first remove every iptables rule for ts_pcre and then type (as root):

modprobe -r ts_pcre

There is also a REGEX text search engine. (ts_regex.ko)