Default and Local Rules Files
Falco comes with a default rules file that is loaded if no specific configuration is provided. However, that can be completely customized in several ways, depending on how Falco is installed. There are several ways to specify the location of your custom rules, download them, and keep them up to date.
The configuration file
The default configuration file, /etc/falco/falco.yaml
makes Falco load rules from the /etc/falco/falco_rules.yaml
file followed by any custom rules located in the /etc/falco/rules.d
directory. This configuration is governed by the rules_file
key:
rules_file:
- /etc/falco/falco_rules.yaml
- /etc/falco/falco_rules.local.yaml
- /etc/falco/rules.d
Changing these configuration entries will affect the location and loading order of the rules files.
The command line
If you are running Falco directly from the command line, you can use the -r
switch to add as many rules files as needed. e.g.:
# falco -r /path/to/my/rules1.yaml -r /path/to/my/rules2.yaml
Falcoctl
The falcoctl tool provides functionality to download and update rules files distributed as OCI artifacts. The install
command of the falcoctl tool will download rules files to a configurable directory (by default, that is /etc/falco
). For instance, to install a specific version of the default rules file in /etc/falco
you can run the following commands:
# falcoctl index add falcosecurity https://github.io/falcosecurity/index.yaml
# falcoctl artifact install falco-rules:1.0.0
Falcoctl is available as a standalone tool, included in Falco packages and container images, automatically installed as a systemd unit or deployed as an init container via the Helm chart.
Rules installed via the Helm chart
If you install the Helm chart, at least version 3.0.0 with:
helm install falco
Falco, by default, will load the latest rules file that is compatible with your Falco version and keep it up to date automatically via falcoctl. These are published on GitHub Packages.
Use the rules embedded in the Falco image
The Falco image ships with a snapshot of the latest version of the official Falco rules. If you wish to use that without downloading anything at runtime, you can install Falco with:
helm install falco \
--set falcoctl.artifact.install.enabled=false \
--set falcoctl.artifact.follow.enabled=false
Add custom rules with a configmap
You can always add the customRules
value to add your own custom rules in a configmap. For instance, if we create a file as described in the documentation and then add it to our one of the above command lines with:
-f custom_rules.yaml
It will be loaded and configured in our Falco instance.
Only use rules supplied via configmap
If you only want to use the rules that you add via configmap, discarding all automated updates and default rules shipping in the image you have to remove the falco_rules.yaml
entry from the Falco configuration. Assuming you have your custom rules in custom_rules.yaml
:
helm install falco -f ./custom_rules.yaml \
--set "falco.rules_file={/etc/falco/falco_rules.local.yaml,/etc/falco/rules.d}" \
--set falcoctl.artifact.install.enabled=false \
--set falcoctl.artifact.follow.enabled=false
Was this page helpful?
Let us know! You feedback will help us to improve the content and to stay in touch with our users.
Glad to hear it! Please tell us how we can improve.
Sorry to hear that. Please tell us how we can improve.