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AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

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Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#141

Post by geocar »

elros wrote: post #140
geocar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/usr is absolutely where user data was. That's what it stands for "users". First when / ran out of space, new programs were put on the other disk /usr in /usr/bin so everyone could assume programs were in /bin except ones that were newly installed so they would be in /usr/bin When /usr ran out of space, a new disk was added as /home and things that were easier to move (user directories) were moved first leaving thing…

/usr stands for Unix System Resources

More marketing I'm afraid. See:

https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/notes.html

See also, from:

https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr...

In the original Unix implementations, /usr was where the home directories of the users were placed (that is to say, /usr/someone was then the directory now known as /home/someone).

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#142

Post by t0astbread »

geocar wrote: post #137
jlgaddis wrote: post #116

The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard [0] has been around for ~25 years but it still took quite a long time before most Linux distros decided to adhere to it (for the most part; some still do "non-standard" things at times). Now that we're to that point, please stop screwing it up and coming up wih your own locations for application binaries, data, etc. To be clear, the "/data" directory -- under which Moloch's pre-built…

If the use of /data is the reason why you're not using this software, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find any use of it if it stored data someplace in /var either. Personally, I think the FHS is stupid marketing wankery that barely made sense in 1995 when the "preciousness" of the root partition was relevant, and has in the annals of time, caused more problems than it ever could have solved. Hey, what's the path to pyt…

FHS may be a mess but I don't understand how that can be translated into a justification for making it even worse.

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#144

Post by jlgaddis »

jzer0cool wrote: post #132

I read the instructions but was not clear. Is this just a pcap viewer or something more? The way I read it, it appears to be a running daemon which listens on all port which saves the pcap file, which then exposes API's for accessing such data. If you had an application http server running, is traffic sent to Moloch first, and forwarded to the http server like a proxy?

When running something like this on a large scale to capture all traffic going across a network, you'd typically use a "network packet broker" (cf. Google) that sends a copy of all traffic to the machine(s) running this software.

Your hypothetical application server would not even be aware that this was taking place.

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#145

Post by sibane »

simlevesque wrote: post #38
sergiotapia wrote: post #32

Seriously "Moloch", was Lucifer or Satan taken already? Edit: And the logo is an owl lmao hard pass - what can they gain from this?

what is your problem with owls ?

I believe it refers to the symbolic use of the owl of Athena/Minerva in Enlightenment-era secret societies and elite clubs like the Bohemian Grove. Alex Jones tends to call the owl Moloch, an old Semitic deity linked to child sacrifice (and actually more commonly depicted as a horned bovine kind of creature), because he believes those societies are at their core satanic. That's pretty heavy symbolism for an open source project.

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#146

Post by mysterydip »

geocar wrote: post #141
elros wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/usr stands for Unix System Resources

More marketing I'm afraid. See: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/notes.html See also, from: https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr... In the original Unix implementations, /usr was where the home directories of the users were placed (that is to say, /usr/someone was then the directory now known as /home/someone).

Why didn't it go away once /home became common?

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#147

Post by pcunite »

simlevesque wrote: post #111
TimTheTinker wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a strong, negative emotional response to the name of a project, I think letting the project author know can be helpful. I’m a rational guy to the best of my ability, but FWIW I would avoid using this project solely because of its name (just the thought of that name evokes a sick feeling to me - that’s how strong the negative association is... I won’t explain why as this isn’t an appropriate venue for that…

Do you think your reaction is professional ?

Why not name the product "ILikeToKill"? Is that professional? Because that's exactly what the name of this software is implying. It is disgusting, and I would avoid using this project over the name as well. Names mean something, this is an easily understood concept.

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#148

Post by gerdesj »

mysterydip wrote: post #146
geocar wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More marketing I'm afraid. See: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/notes.html See also, from: https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr... In the original Unix implementations, /usr was where the home directories of the users were placed (that is to say, /usr/someone was then the directory now known as /home/someone).

Why didn't it go away once /home became common?

It still had /usr/bin and /usr/sbin in it and scripts, muscle memory and general inertia to contend with. Yes of course it should have gone away, perl should have been at v6 and python at v3 years ago.

I'm off to saddle up my piggie squadron for a flypast.

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#149

Post by mensetmanusman »

chews wrote: post #10
ignoramous wrote: post #3

Not the greatest choice of name: Moloch[a] (also Molech, Mollok, Milcom, or Malcam) is the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, through fire or war. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

It's an inside joke to the Deep State that actively needs captures of network data, AOL... is a Verizon company after all. In these discordian times, even Eris would blush.

Funny you mentioned the deep state. I remember being perturbed that the email leak from the 2016 race had references to child-sacrifice moloch. Strange times

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#150

Post by [deleted] »

brigandish wrote: post #134
peterwwillis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the source code of most open source software, the devs typically install by default to arbitrary directories. They either don't know about, or care about, operating system standards. When Linux distributions package that software, they choose to change how that software works to align with standards. Usually their own standards, but those can often align with distro-independent standards too. But as a…

Not everyone is using a package manager for every install, and even then it's not a magic bullet. I'm a Mac user and I've no idea why devs insist on installing to places like /usr/local or putting configuration in a dot file in my home directory when there's a standard place to put those (~/Library/Application Support), among other well thought out directory structuring[1]. Further to this, the moment you want to ins…

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