Submit an Analysis

Submission Utility

The easiest way to submit an analysis is to use the provided submit.py command-line utility. It currently has the following options available:

usage: submit.py [-h] [--remote REMOTE] [--url] [--package PACKAGE]
                 [--custom CUSTOM] [--timeout TIMEOUT] [--options OPTIONS]
                 [--priority PRIORITY] [--machine MACHINE]
                 [--platform PLATFORM] [--memory] [--enforce-timeout]
                 [--clock CLOCK] [--tags TAGS] [--max MAX] [--pattern PATTERN]
                 [--shuffle] [--unique] [--quiet]
                 target

positional arguments:
  target               URL, path to the file or folder to analyze

optional arguments:
  -h, --help           show this help message and exit
  --remote REMOTE      Specify IP:port to a Cuckoo API server to submit
                       remotely
  --url                Specify whether the target is an URL
  --package PACKAGE    Specify an analysis package
  --custom CUSTOM      Specify any custom value
  --timeout TIMEOUT    Specify an analysis timeout
  --options OPTIONS    Specify options for the analysis package (e.g.
                       "name=value,name2=value2")
  --priority PRIORITY  Specify a priority for the analysis represented by an
                       integer
  --machine MACHINE    Specify the identifier of a machine you want to use
  --platform PLATFORM  Specify the operating system platform you want to use
                       (windows/darwin/linux)
  --memory             Enable to take a memory dump of the analysis machine
  --enforce-timeout    Enable to force the analysis to run for the full
                       timeout period
  --clock CLOCK        Set virtual machine clock
  --tags TAGS          Specify tags identifier of a machine you want to use
  --max MAX            Maximum samples to add in a row
  --pattern PATTERN    Pattern of files to submit
  --shuffle            Shuffle samples before submitting them
  --unique             Only submit new samples, ignore duplicates
  --quiet              Only print text on failure

If you specify a directory as path, all the files contained in it will be submitted for analysis.

The concept of analysis packages will be dealt later in this documentation (at Analysis Packages). Following are some usage examples:

Example: submit a local binary:

$ ./utils/submit.py /path/to/binary

Example: submit an URL:

$ ./utils/submit.py --url http://www.example.com

Example: submit a local binary and specify an higher priority:

$ ./utils/submit.py --priority 5 /path/to/binary

Example: submit a local binary and specify a custom analysis timeout of 60 seconds:

$ ./utils/submit.py --timeout 60 /path/to/binary

Example: submit a local binary and specify a custom analysis package:

$ ./utils/submit.py --package <name of package> /path/to/binary

Example: submit a local binary and specify a custom analysis package and some options (in this case a command line argument for the malware):

$ ./utils/submit.py --package exe --options arguments=--dosomething /path/to/binary.exe

Example: submit a local binary to be run on virtual machine cuckoo1:

$ ./utils/submit.py --machine cuckoo1 /path/to/binary

Example: submit a local binary to be run on a Windows machine:

$ ./utils/submit.py --platform windows /path/to/binary

Example: submit a local binary and take a full memory dump of the analysis machine:

$ ./utils/submit.py --memory /path/to/binary

Example: submit a local binary and force the analysis to be executed for the full timeout (disregarding the internal mechanism that Cuckoo uses to decide when to terminate the analysis):

$ ./utils/submit.py --enforce-timeout /path/to/binary

Example: submit a local binary and set virtual machine clock. Format is %m-%d-%Y %H:%M:%S. If not specified, the current time is used. For example if we want run a sample the 24 january 2001 at 14:41:20:

$ ./utils/submit.py --clock "01-24-2001 14:41:20" /path/to/binary

Example: submit a sample for Volatility analysis (to reduce side effects of the cuckoo hooking, switch it off with options free=True):

$ ./utils/submit.py --memory --options free=True /path/to/binary

web.py

Cuckoo provides a very small utility under utils/web.py, which will bind a simple webserver on localhost port 8080, through which you will be able to browse through existing reports as well as submit new files.

Beware that this is not a full-fledged web interface, which is instead provided under the folder web/ as a Django-powered application. You can find more details about that under Web interface.

API

Detailed usage of the REST API interface is described in REST API.

Distributed Cuckoo

Detailed usage of the Distributed Cuckoo API interface is described in Distributed Cuckoo.

Python Functions

In order to keep track of submissions, samples and overall execution, Cuckoo uses a popular Python ORM called SQLAlchemy that allows you to make the sandbox use SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL and several other SQL database systems.

Cuckoo is designed to be easily integrated in larger solutions and to be fully automated. In order to automate analysis submission we suggest to use the REST API interface described in REST API, but in case you want to write your own Python submission script, you can also use the add_path() and add_url() functions.

add_path(file_path[, timeout=0[, package=None[, options=None[, priority=1[, custom=None[, machine=None[, platform=None[, memory=False[, enforce_timeout=False], clock=None[]]]]]]]]])

Add a local file to the list of pending analysis tasks. Returns the ID of the newly generated task.

Parameters:
  • file_path (string) – path to the file to submit
  • timeout (integer) – maximum amount of seconds to run the analysis for
  • package (string or None) – analysis package you want to use for the specified file
  • options (string or None) – list of options to be passed to the analysis package (in the format key=value,key=value)
  • priority (integer) – numeric representation of the priority to assign to the specified file (1 being low, 2 medium, 3 high)
  • custom (string or None) – custom value to be passed over and possibly reused at processing or reporting
  • machine (string or None) – Cuckoo identifier of the virtual machine you want to use, if none is specified one will be selected automatically
  • platform (string or None) – operating system platform you want to run the analysis one (currently only Windows)
  • memory (True or False) – set to True to generate a full memory dump of the analysis machine
  • enforce_timeout (True or False) – set to True to force the execution for the full timeout
  • clock (string or None) – provide a custom clock time to set in the analysis machine
Return type:

integer

Example usage:

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>>> from lib.cuckoo.core.database import Database
>>> db = Database()
>>> db.add_path("/tmp/malware.exe")
1
>>>
add_url(url[, timeout=0[, package=None[, options=None[, priority=1[, custom=None[, machine=None[, platform=None[, memory=False[, enforce_timeout=False], clock=None[]]]]]]]]])

Add a local file to the list of pending analysis tasks. Returns the ID of the newly generated task.

Parameters:
  • url (string) – URL to analyze
  • timeout (integer) – maximum amount of seconds to run the analysis for
  • package (string or None) – analysis package you want to use for the specified URL
  • options (string or None) – list of options to be passed to the analysis package (in the format key=value,key=value)
  • priority (integer) – numeric representation of the priority to assign to the specified URL (1 being low, 2 medium, 3 high)
  • custom (string or None) – custom value to be passed over and possibly reused at processing or reporting
  • machine (string or None) – Cuckoo identifier of the virtual machine you want to use, if none is specified one will be selected automatically
  • platform (string or None) – operating system platform you want to run the analysis one (currently only Windows)
  • memory (True or False) – set to True to generate a full memory dump of the analysis machine
  • enforce_timeout (True or False) – set to True to force the execution for the full timeout
  • clock (string or None) – provide a custom clock time to set in the analysis machine
Return type:

integer

Example Usage:

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>>> from lib.cuckoo.core.database import Database
>>> db = Database()
>>> db.add_url("http://www.cuckoosandbox.org")
2
>>>