DOKK / manpages / debian 13 / wireshark-common / falcodump.1.en
FALCODUMP(1)   FALCODUMP(1)

falcodump - Dump log data to a file using a Falco source plugin.

Common options
falcodump [ --help ] [ --version ] [ --plugin-api-version ] [ --extcap-interfaces ] [ --extcap-dlts ] [ --extcap-interface=<interface> ] [ --extcap-config ] [ --extcap-capture-filter=<capture filter> ] [ --capture ] [ --fifo=<path to file or pipe> ] [ --plugin-source=<source path or URL> ] [ --log-level=<log level> ] [ --log-file=<path to file> ]

System call options
[ --include-capture-processes=<TRUE or FALSE> ] [ --include-switch-calls=<TRUE or FALSE> ]

CloudTrail plugin options
[ --cloudtrail-s3downloadconcurrency=<number of concurrent downloads> ] [ --cloudtrail-s3interval=<timeframe> ] [ --cloudtrail-s3accountlist=<comma separated account IDs> ] [ --cloudtrail-sqsdelete=<true or false> ] [ --cloudtrail-useasync=<true or false> ] [ --cloudtrail-uses3sns=<true or false> ] [ --cloudtrail-aws-region=<AWS region> ] [ --cloudtrail-aws-profile=<AWS profile> ] [ --cloudtrail-aws-config=<path> ] [ --cloudtrail-aws-credentials=<path to file> ]

falcodump is an extcap tool that allows one to capture log messages from cloud providers.

Each plugin is listed as a separate interface. For example, the AWS CloudTrail plugin is listed as “cloudtrail”.

--help

Print program arguments. This will also list the configuration arguments for each plugin.

--version

Print the program version.

--plugin-api-version

Print the Falco plugin API version.

--extcap-interfaces

List the available interfaces.

--extcap-interface=<interface>

Use the specified interface.

--extcap-dlts

List the DLTs of the specified interface.

--extcap-config

List the configuration options of specified interface.

--extcap-capture-filter=<capture filter>

The capture filter. Must be a valid Sysdig / Falco filter.

--capture

Start capturing from the source specified by --plugin-source via the specified interface and write raw packet data to the location specified by --fifo.

--fifo=<path to file or pipe>

Save captured packet to file or send it through pipe.

--plugin-source=<source path or URL>

Capture from the specified location.

--log-level

Set the log level

--log-file

Set a log file to log messages in addition to the console

--include-capture-processes

Include system calls for capture processes (falcodump, dumpcap, and Logray) if TRUE. Defaults to FALSE.

--include-switch-calls

Include "switch" calls if TRUE. Defaults to FALSE.

--cloudtrail-s3downloadconcurrency

Controls the number of background goroutines used to download S3 files (Default: 32)

--cloudtrail-s3interval

Download log files over the specified interval (Default: no interval)

--cloudtrail-s3accountlist

If source is an organization CloudTrail S3 bucket download log files for all specified account IDs (Default: no account IDs)

--cloudtrail-sqsdelete

If true then the plugin will delete SQS messages from the queue immediately after receiving them (Default: true)

--cloudtrail-useasync

If true then async extraction optimization is enabled (Default: true)

--cloudtrail-uses3sns

If true then the plugin will expect SNS messages to originate from S3 instead of directly from Cloudtrail (Default: false)

--cloudtrail-aws-profile

If non-empty overrides the AWS shared configuration profile (e.g. 'default') and environment variables such as AWS_PROFILE (Default: empty)

--cloudtrail-aws-region

If non-empty overrides the AWS region specified in the profile (e.g. 'us-east-1') and environment variables such as AWS_REGION (Default: empty)

--cloudtrail-aws-config

If non-empty overrides the AWS shared configuration filepath (e.g. ~/.aws/config) and env variables such as AWS_CONFIG_FILE (Default: empty)

--cloudtrail-aws-credentials

If non-empty overrides the AWS shared credentials filepath (e.g. ~/.aws/credentials) and env variables such as AWS_SHARED_CREDENTIALS_FILE (Default: empty)

CloudTrail sources can be S3 buckets or SQS queue URLs. S3 bucket URLs have the form

's3://bucket_name/prefix/AWSLogs/account-id/CloudTrail/region/year/month/day'

For organization CloudTrail the S3 bucket URL can be

's3://bucket_name/prefix/AWSLogs/org-id/account-id/CloudTrail/region/year/month/day'

The region, year, month, and day components can be omitted in order to fetch more or less data. For example, the source 's3://mybucket/AWSLogs/012345678/CloudTrail/us-west-2/2023' will fetch all CloudWatch logs for the year 2023.

If the URL ends with 'account-id/' or 'account-id/CloudTrail/' (for example 's3://mybucket/AWSLOGS/012345678912/') the option '--cloudtrail-s3interval' can be used to define the time frame. A s3interval of '1d' for example would get all events of the last 24 hours from all available regions. A s3interval of '2w-1w' would get all events from all regions from two weeks ago up to one week ago. The s3invterval can also be defined as a RFC 3339-style timestamp like '2024-02-29T18:07:17Z' or '2024-02-29T00:00:00Z-2024-03-01T23:59:59Z'.

If the URL ends with 'AWSLogs/org-id' option '--cloudtrail-s3accountlist' can be used to specify account IDs. This can be combined with '--cloudtrail-s3interval'. A source like 's3://my-org-bucket/AWSLogs/o-123abc/' with '--cloudstrail-s3accountlist' set to '123456789012,987654321098' and '--cloudtrail-s3interval' set to '30m' would get all events of the last 30min from all regions for accounts 123456789012 and 987654321098.

If source URL is the organization CloudTrail bucket (like 's3://my-org-bucket/AWSLogs/o-123abc') and '--s3accountlist' is not set the plugin iterates over all accounts (limited by '--s3interval' if set). Attention: Depending on the size of the organization and the time interval, this can take a long time.

The cloudtrail plugin uses the AWS SDK for Go, which can obtain profile, region, and credential settings from a set of standard environment variables and configuration files <https://aws.github.io/aws-sdk-go-v2/docs/configuring-sdk/>. Falcodump will show a list of locally configured profiles and the current regions, and will let you supply a custom value as well.

More information is available in the README <https://github.com/falcosecurity/plugins/blob/master/plugins/cloudtrail/README.md> of the CloudTrail plugin.

To see program arguments:

falcodump --help

To see program version:

falcodump --version

To see interfaces:

falcodump --extcap-interfaces

Only one interface (falcodump) is supported.

Example output

interface {value=cloudtrail}{display=Falco plugin}

To see interface DLTs:

falcodump --extcap-interface=cloudtrail --extcap-dlts

Example output

dlt {number=147}{name=cloudtrail}{display=USER0}

To see interface configuration options:

falcodump --extcap-interface=cloudtrail --extcap-config

Example output

arg {number=0}{call=--plugin-source}{display=Plugin source}{type=string}{tooltip=The plugin data source. This us usually a URL.}{placeholder=Enter a source URL…}{required=true}{group=Capture}
arg {number=1}{call=cloudtrail-s3downloadconcurrency}{display=s3DownloadConcurrency}{type=integer}{default=1}{tooltip=Controls the number of background goroutines used to download S3 files (Default: 1)}{group=Capture}
arg {number=2}{call=cloudtrail-sqsdelete}{display=sqsDelete}{type=boolean}{default=true}{tooltip=If true then the plugin will delete sqs messages from the queue immediately after receiving them (Default: true)}{group=Capture}
arg {number=3}{call=cloudtrail-useasync}{display=useAsync}{type=boolean}{default=true}{tooltip=If true then async extraction optimization is enabled (Default: true)}{group=Capture}

To capture AWS CloudTrail events from an S3 bucket:

falcodump --extcap-interface=cloudtrail --fifo=/tmp/cloudtrail.pcap --plugin-source=s3://aws-cloudtrail-logs.../CloudTrail/us-east-2/... --capture

or:

falcodump --capture --extcap-interface cloudtrail --fifo ~/cloudtrail.pcap --plugin-source s3://my-cloudtrail-bucket/AWSLogs/o-abc12345/123456789012/ --cloudtrail-s3downloadconcurrency 32 --cloudtrail-s3interval 5d-2d --cloudtrail-aws-region eu-west-1


Note

CTRL + C should be used to stop the capture in order to ensure clean termination.

wireshark(1), tshark(1), dumpcap(1), extcap(4)

falcodump is part of the Logray distribution. The latest version of Logray can be found at <https://www.wireshark.org>.

HTML versions of the Wireshark project man pages are available at <https://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages>.

Original Author
Gerald Combs <gerald[AT]wireshark.org>

2025-06-10