Threat hunting II: SSH Honeypot setup

Introduction

This post provides a brief walkthrough of how to deploy a lightweight, containerized SSH honeypot using Cowrie and Podman, with the goal of capturing and analyzing malicious activity as part of my threat hunting strategy.

What is Cowrie?

Cowrie is an interactive SSH and Telnet honeypot designed to emulate a real system, capturing attacker behavior in a controlled environment. It allows defenders and researchers to observe malicious activity without exposing actual infrastructure.

Key capabilities of Cowrie include

• Full session logging: Records all commands entered by the attacker, along with input/output streams and timing data. Sessions can be saved as plaintext or in formats suitable for replay.

• Fake file system and shell environment: Emulates a basic Linux shell with a user-modifiable file system. Attackers can navigate directories, read/write fake files, or attempt to download/upload payloads.

• Command emulation: Supports a large set of common Unix commands (`ls`, `cat`, `wget`, etc.), allowing attackers to interact naturally, as if on a real system. And can be extended with more commands

• Credential logging: Captures usernames and passwords used in brute-force login attempts or interactive logins.

• File download capture: Logs and optionally stores any files attackers attempt to retrieve via `wget`, `curl`, or similar tools.

• JSON-formatted logging and integration’s: Outputs structured logs that are easy to parse and ingest into systems like ELK, Splunk, or custom analysis pipelines.

Cowrie is widely used in research, threat intelligence, and proactive defense efforts to gather Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) and understand attacker tactics,techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

Why Podman over Docker?

Podman offers several advantages over Docker, particularly in terms of security and system integration. It supports rootless containers, allowing users to run containers without elevated privileges, which reduces the attack surface.

Podman is daemon-less, integrating more seamlessly with systemd and existing Linux workflows. Additionally, Podman is fully compatible with the Open Container Initiative (OCI) standards, ensuring interoperability and flexibility across container ecosystems.

Preconditions / System setup

Before I proceed with the cowrie setup, I made sure the following preconditions are met:

Ubuntu Installed on Raspberry Pi 4+

I am using a Raspberry Pi 4+ running Ubuntu

System Fully Updated

After installation, I made sure system is up to date:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Podman installed and working:

# Ubuntu 20.10 and newer
sudo apt-get -y install podman

Run the Hello World Container.In this moment I did not had the cowrie user yet setup so I used my system user to test

podman run hello-world
Trying to pull docker.io/library/hello-world:latest...
...
Hello from Docker!
This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.

tho sometimes the pulling fails like that then I had to put `docker.io` in front of the container name like:

podman run docker.io/hello-world

then it would work for sure.

VLAN Tagging Configured on Network Interface

In my network setup for threathunting the honeypot requires VLAN tagging to configured to reachable from the outside, VLAN210 is my restricted Network. Therefore i needed to configure the vlan using nmcli so it’s persistent across reboots.

Example: Create a VLAN interface (e.g., VLAN ID 210 on main if)

sudo nmcli con add type vlan con-name vlan210 dev mainif id 210 ip4 192.168.210.3/24 gw4 192.168.210.1
sudo nmcli con up vlan210

• con-name vlan210: Name of the new VLAN connection.
• dev mainif: Physical interface to tag.
• id 210: VLAN ID.
• ip4, gw4: Optional IP and gateway assignment.

This will persist the configuration and activate the VLAN interface immediately. Next I moved on to Install the honeypot.

Setup environment, install cowrie as container and adjust configuration

🐧 Create a Dedicated User for Cowrie (No Login Shell)

Running the Podman container under a dedicated system user with no login shell is a recommended security best practice. Reasons include:

• Privilege Separation: Isolates the container from other system processes and users, limiting the potential impact of a compromise.

• Reduced Attack Surface: The user has no login shell (e.g., /usr/sbin/nologin), meaning it can’t be used to log into the system interactively.

• Auditing & Logging: Helps distinguish container activity in system logs and process lists, making monitoring easier.

• Least Privilege Principle: The user has only the permissions necessary to run the container — nothing more.

1. Create the ‘cowrie’ user (no home directory, no login shell)

sudo useradd --system --no-create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin cowrie

2. Create necessary directories and set ownership

sudo mkdir -p /opt/cowrie/etc
sudo mkdir -p /opt/cowrie/var
sudo chown -R cowrie:cowrie /opt/cowrie

🐳 Pull and Configure Cowrie with Podman

3. As the cowrie user, pull the container image

sudo -u cowrie podman pull docker.io/cowrie/cowrie

4. Copy default config file into persistent volume

sudo -u cowrie podman run --rm cowrie/cowrie \
  cat /cowrie/cowrie-git/etc/cowrie.cfg.dist > /opt/cowrie/etc/cowrie.cfg

🛠 cowrie.cfg – Basic Overview

The `cowrie.cfg` file is the main configuration for Cowrie, the SSH/Telnet honeypot we use. It uses INI-style syntax and is divided into sections. Each section begins with a header like [section_name].

• 📁 Key Sections & Settings

  [ssh] / [telnet]

  • Enable or disable SSH/Telnet and set the port to listen on::

    enabled = true
    listen_port = 2222

  [honeypot]

  • Set honeypot host name and logpath properties:

    hostname = cowrie-host
    
    # Directory where to save log files in.
    log_path = var/log/cowrie

  • Define login behavior:

    auth_class = AuthRandom
    auth_class_parameters = 1, 5, 10

    I use AuthRandom here which causes to allow access after “randint(2,5)” attempts. This means the threat actor will fail with some logins and some will be logged in immediately.

  [output_jsonlog]

  • Configure logging and output plugins:

    [output_jsonlog]
    enabled = true
    logfile = ${honeypot:log_path}/cowrie.json
    epoch_timestamp = false

    This sets the default log location in the file-system, this is important so that file beat later can pickup on the juicy honeypot log files.

  This is the whole configuration needed to run the honeypot.

  📌 Notes

  • Restart Cowrie after configuration changes.
  • The configuration can be split across multiple `.cfg` files in `cowrie.cfg.d/` for modular setup.

🚀 Run Cowrie Container as ‘cowrie’ User

Once I had created the dedicated system user (see earlier section), I was able to run the Cowrie container with Podman using sudo -u and a secure UID mapping.

Step-by-Step Command explanation

sudo -u cowrie podman run -d --name cowrie \
  --uidmap 0:$(id -u cowrie):1 \
  -v /opt/cowrie/etc:/cowrie/cowrie-git/etc:Z \
  -v /opt/cowrie/var:/cowrie/cowrie-git/var:Z \
  -p 2222:2222 \
  cowrie/cowrie

Explanation

• sudo -u cowrie: Runs the Podman command as the unprivileged cowrie user.
• --uidmap 0:$(id -u cowrie):1: Maps root (UID 0) inside the container to the cowrie UID on the host.
• -v /opt/cowrie/etc and /opt/cowrie/var: Mounts configuration and data volumes from the host with `:Z` to apply correct SELinux labels (optional on systems without SELinux).
• -p 2222:2222: Forwards port 2222 from host to container (Cowrie’s SSH honeypot port).
• cowrie/cowrie: The container image name (use latest or specific tag as needed).

Benefits:

• Container runs as non-root on the host: Even if a process inside the container thinks it’s root, it’s actually limited to the unprivileged cowrie user outside the container.

• Enhanced security: If the container is compromised, the attacker only gets access as the cowrie user — not real root.

• Avoids root-equivalent risks: Prevents privilege escalation or access to sensitive host files and devices.

🎯 Operating the Honeypot

• View logs I think to know how to debug the container is important so we start first with the logs:

  sudo -u cowrie podman logs -f cowrie
  ...snip...
  [HoneyPotSSHTransport,14,10.0.2.100] Closing TTY Log: var/lib/cowrie/tty/e52d9c508c502347344d8c07ad91cbd6068afc75ff6292f062a09ca381c89e71 after 0.8 seconds
  [cowrie.ssh.connection.CowrieSSHConnection#info] sending close 0
  [cowrie.ssh.session.HoneyPotSSHSession#info] remote close
  [HoneyPotSSHTransport,14,10.0.2.100] Got remote error, code 11 reason: b'disconnected by user'
  [HoneyPotSSHTransport,14,10.0.2.100] avatar root logging out
  [cowrie.ssh.transport.HoneyPotSSHTransport#info] connection lost
  [HoneyPotSSHTransport,14,10.0.2.100] Connection lost after 2.8 seconds
  ...snip...

• Restart container If things go left just restart that thing:

  sudo -u cowrie podman restart cowrie

  In the logs you can see that cowrie is running and accepting SSH connections:

  ...snip...
  [-] CowrieSSHFactory starting on 2222
  [cowrie.ssh.factory.CowrieSSHFactory#info] Starting factory <cowrie.ssh.factory.CowrieSSHFactory object at 0x7fb66f26d0>
  [-] Ready to accept SSH connections
  ...snip...

  When the log says “Ready to accept SSH connections” I tested if I could login:

  ssh 192.168.210.3 -p 2222 -l root
  root@192.168.210.3 password:
  
  The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
  the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
  individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.
  
  Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
  permitted by applicable law.
  root@svr04:~# uname -a
  Linux svr04 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.68-1+deb7u1 x86_64 GNU/Linux
  root@svr04:~#

• Stop container Nothing special here:

  sudo -u cowrie podman stop cowrie

🔄 Automatically Restart Cowrie Podman Container with systemd

To keep your Cowrie container running reliably and restart it if it stops, use a systemd service with restart policies.

Step 1: Generate a systemd Service File

Create `/etc/systemd/system/cowrie-container.service` with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=Cowrie Honeypot Podman Container
After=network.target

[Service]
User=cowrie
Group=cowrie
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10s

ExecStart=/usr/bin/podman run -d --name cowrie \
  --uidmap 0:$(id -u cowrie):1 \
  -v /opt/cowrie/etc:/cowrie/cowrie-git/etc:Z \
  -v /opt/cowrie/var:/cowrie/cowrie-git/var:Z \
  -p 2222:2222 \
  cowrie/cowrie

ExecStop=/usr/bin/podman stop -t 10 cowrie
ExecStopPost=/usr/bin/podman rm cowrie

ExecReload=/usr/bin/podman restart cowrie
TimeoutStartSec=120

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

• The `–restart-policy=on-failure` makes systemd restart the container if it exits with a failure.

Step 2: Enable the Service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now container-cowrie.service

Step 3: (Optional) Add a Health Check Script

To detect if Cowrie stops accepting connections even if the container is still running, create a health check script running as cowrie:

Create `/usr/local/bin/check_cowrie.sh`:

#!/bin/bash
if ! nc -z localhost 2222; then
  echo "Cowrie not responding, restarting container"
  /usr/bin/podman restart cowrie
  /usr/local/bin/pushover.sh "Cowrie was restarted!"
fi

This restarts the service and sends out a notification via pushover.

Make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/check_cowrie.sh
sudo chown cowrie:cowrie /usr/local/bin/check_cowrie.sh

Create systemd service `/etc/systemd/system/check_cowrie.service`:

[Unit]
Description=Check Cowrie honeypot health

[Service]
User=cowrie
Group=cowrie
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/check_cowrie.sh

Create systemd timer `/etc/systemd/system/check_cowrie.timer`:

[Unit]
Description=Run Cowrie health check every minute

[Timer]
OnBootSec=1min
OnUnitActiveSec=1min
Unit=check_cowrie.service

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Enable and start the timer:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now check_cowrie.timer

Summary

• Used Podman’s systemd integration for automatic restart on container failure.
• Added a health check timer to detect if Cowrie stops accepting connections and restart proactively.

🔒 Security Notes

• The `cowrie` user has no login shell (`/usr/sbin/no login`)

• Running Cowrie isolated via Podman increases containment

• All files are owned by `cowrie`, no root access required for normal operation

  ---

Log Forwarding with Filebeat

📦 Install Filebeat on Ubuntu

1. Add Elastic’s GPG key and repository

curl -fsSL https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/elastic.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/elastic.gpg] https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/8.x/apt stable main" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-8.x.list

2. Update APT and install Filebeat

sudo apt update
sudo apt install filebeat

⚙ Configure and test Filebeat

3. Edit Filebeat config

sudo mg /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml

The filebeat config is straight forward. You have to write a filebeat.input block which contains the path where the logfiles are you need to ingest. And at the end the log-destination (logstash) so that filebeat knows where to send the logs to:

filebeat.inputs:
- type: log
  enabled: true
  paths:
    - /opt/cowrie/var/log/cowrie/cowrie.json
  json.keys_under_root: true
  json.add_error_key: true
  fields:
    source: cowrie
  fields_under_root: true

output.logstash:
  hosts: ["192.168.123.5:5044"]

4. (Optional) Test Filebeat config

sudo filebeat test config

🚀 Start and Enable Filebeat

5. Enable and start Filebeat

sudo systemctl enable filebeat
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start filebeat

6. Check Filebeat status and logs

sudo systemctl status filebeat
sudo journalctl -u filebeat -f

🎯 TL;DR – What Did We Just Do?

1. We deployed Cowrie like pros.

• Ran it safely in a Podman container under a non-login user.
• No mess, no root, no regrets.

2. Logs? Sorted.

• Filebeat scooped up Cowrie’s logs and shipped them to Elasticsearch.
• Now we can actually see who’s knocking on the honeypot door.

3. Everything’s persistent.

• Configs and logs live outside the container. Cowrie forgets nothing—even after a reboot.

4. Setup is clean and modular.

• Each part (Cowrie, Filebeat, Elasticsearch) does its job.
• Break one, fix one—no domino disasters.

5. It’s nerdy, useful, and kinda fun.

• Now I built a mini threat intel system.
• Now I can sit back, sip coffee, and watch the kiddies play.

Whats next

Next I had to build the HTTP honeypot, stay tuned for the follow up!

Feedback and Comments