Note: this answer is composed from a dialog in the comments of the original question.
The problem with the rule directory
From the error it's clear that somewhere (probably in
snort.conf
) there is a ..
, pointing to the wrong path. Based on the error, I'd say that var RULE_PATH ../rules
is in the config file. You should change that either to var RULE_PATH ./rules
or use an absolute path: var RULE_PATH /etc/snort/rules
. You should do this for SO_RULE_PATH
and PREPROC_RULE_PATH
too. So your config now has: var RULE_PATH /etc/snort/rules var SO_RULE_PATH /etc/snort/so_rules var PREPROC_RULE_PATH /etc/snort/preproc_rules
The problem with outputting data to a database
Since snort 2.9.3.0, direct database output isn't supported anymore. You should use snort's unified output (like this" output unified2: filename merged.log, limit 128, mpls_event_types, vlan_event_types
). You could use Barnyard2 instead to redirect to postgresql. Explaining how to set this up would go (in my opinion) too far for this answer. A basic start can be found here. A far more elaborate explanation (and specific targeted for OSX) can be found here.