Traffic Capture Settings

The tap section in your Qtap configuration controls what traffic is captured and how it's processed. This section provides fine-grained control over which network connections to monitor, what traffic to include or exclude, and how to apply different processing stacks to specific domains.

Basic Configuration

Here's the structure of a basic tap configuration:

tap:
  direction: egress
  ignore_loopback: false
  audit_include_dns: true
  http:
    stack: default_stack

Traffic Direction Settings

The direction parameter controls which traffic flows Qtap captures:

Option	Description
egress	Captures all outgoing traffic (both internal and external)
egress-external	Only captures traffic to external networks
egress-internal	Only captures traffic within internal networks

tap:
  direction: egress-external  # Only capture traffic going to external networks

Network Interface Settings

Loopback Traffic

The ignore_loopback parameter controls whether traffic on the loopback interface (localhost) is captured:

tap:
  ignore_loopback: true  # Don't capture localhost traffic

• When set to true, traffic to addresses like 127.0.0.1 or localhost is ignored

• When set to false, local traffic is included in capture

DNS Traffic

The audit_include_dns parameter controls whether DNS queries are captured:

tap:
  audit_include_dns: true  # Include DNS traffic in audit logs

This is useful for:

• Troubleshooting DNS resolution issues

• Tracking which domains your applications are trying to reach

• Identifying potential DNS-based data exfiltration

Process Filtering

The filters section allows you to control which processes Qtap monitors:

tap:
  filters:
    groups:
      - kubernetes
      - qpoint
    custom:
      - exe: /usr/bin/curl
        strategy: exact
      - exe: /usr/bin/python3
        strategy: prefix
      - exe: .*ruby.*
        strategy: regex

Predefined Process Groups

The groups parameter allows you to ignore specific types of processes:

Group	Description
kubernetes	Standard Kubernetes processes
container	Container runtime processes
gke	Google Kubernetes Engine processes
eks	Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service processes
qpoint	Qpoint's own processes (prevents self-monitoring)

When a group is included in the list, traffic from those processes is ignored.

Custom Process Filters

The custom parameter allows you to define specific processes to ignore:

custom:
  - exe: /usr/bin/curl
    strategy: exact

Each entry requires:

• exe: The executable path

• strategy: Matching strategy, which can be:

  • exact: Exact path match

  • prefix: Path prefix match

  • regex: Regular expression match

Domain-Specific Rules

The endpoints section allows you to apply different processing stacks to specific domains or patterns:

tap:
  http:
    stack: default_stack  # Default stack for most traffic
  endpoints:
    - domain: '*.payment-processor.com'
      http:
        stack: payment_stack  # Special stack for payment processor traffic
    - domain: 'internal-api.example.com'
      http:
        stack: debug_stack  # Debug stack for internal API traffic

Each endpoint entry consists of:

• domain: The domain pattern to match (supports wildcards)

• http.stack: The stack to apply for matching HTTP traffic

This allows you to:

• Apply detailed logging to specific APIs

• Handle sensitive traffic differently

• Focus debugging efforts on problematic domains

Complete Example

Here's a comprehensive example that demonstrates all the main features:

tap:
  direction: egress
  ignore_loopback: true
  audit_include_dns: true
  http:
    stack: default_stack
  filters:
    groups:
      - qpoint
      - kubernetes
    custom:
      - exe: /usr/bin/wget
        strategy: exact
      - exe: /usr/bin/curl
        strategy: exact
  endpoints:
    - domain: '*.github.com'
      http:
        stack: debug_stack
    - domain: '*.google.com'
      http:
        stack: debug_stack

This configuration:

1. Captures all outgoing traffic (direction: egress)

2. Ignores localhost traffic (ignore_loopback: true)

3. Includes DNS queries in audit logs (audit_include_dns: true)

4. Applies the default_stack to most HTTP traffic

5. Ignores traffic from Kubernetes and Qpoint processes

6. Ignores traffic from specific executables (wget, curl)

7. Applies the debug_stack to all traffic to GitHub and Google domains