ratched is a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) proxy that specifically intercepts TLS connections. It is intended to be used in conjunction with the Linux iptabes REDIRECT target; all connections that should be intercepted can be redirected to the local ratched port. Through the SO_ORIGINAL_DST sockopt, ratched can determine the intended destination (before iptables packet mangling) and tries to establish a connection to the original target.
The thing that sets it apart from other MitM software is the following:
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ratched does not intercept traffic indiscriminately. In particular, it first waits for the TLS client to send its ClientHello so that ratched can parse it and decide by the Server Name Indication TLS extension (SNI) if the target should be intercepted or not. This is particularly useful when you have virtual hosting, but only want to intercept connections to a specific hostname.
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ratched is not intended to only sniff passwords, but primarily dumps the traffic into a PCAPNG file. The PCAPNG file format was chosen because it allows for annotation of connections with comments (in particular, which hostname was indicated in the SNI extension) and also allows name resolution information to be embedded in the capture file (again, to map the target IP address to the SNI extension's hostname)
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ratched has individual configuration for each intercepted SNI, including supported groups (formerly known as "supported elliptic curves"), cipher suites and specific TLS versions on client and server side, and allows for specifying custom certificates/keys for different intercepted hosts.
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ratched provides extensive support for client certificates and also offers automatic forging for client certificates as well (similar to forged server certificates in the other direction).
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ratched supports OCSP stapling and can automatically forge positive OCSP responses when a client sends a status request TLS extension.
Once ratched is listening on the routing machine (in the example, on port 9999), simply add an iptables entry that specifies what traffic you want to capture. For example, to intercept everything from 192.168.1.7 that tries to reach port 443, use:
# iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -s 192.168.1.7 --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 9999
In order to intercept everything that goes to 443, simply do:
# iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 9999
If you're acting as a router and want to intercept locally incoming traffic, use the DNAT target instead of REDIRECT, such as:
# iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth1 -p tcp --dport 443 -j DNAT --to 192.168.123.1:9999
Here, eth1 is the interface you're intercepting traffing at and 192.168.123.1 is the local interface IP address.
The help page should be pretty self-explanatory:
usage: ratched [-c path] [-f hostname:port] [--single-shot] [--dump-certs]
[--keyspec keyspec] [--initial-read-timeout secs]
[--mark-forged-certificates] [--no-recalculate-keyids]
[--daemonize] [--logfile file] [--flush-logs] [--crl-uri uri]
[--ocsp-uri uri] [--write-memdumps-into-files]
[--use-ipv6-encapsulation] [-l hostname:port]
[-d key=value[,key=value,...]] [-i hostname[,key=value,...]]
[--pcap-comment comment] [-o filename] [-v]
ratched - TLS connection router that performs a man-in-the-middle attack
optional arguments:
-c path, --config-dir path
Configuration directory where the default root CA
certificate, CA keypair and server keypair are stored.
Defaults to ~/.config/ratched
-f hostname:port, --local-fwd hostname:port
When local connection to listening port is made, the
connection is discarded by default. Specifying this
option makes ratched forward to the given
hostname/port combination instead. Useful for testing
the proxy without the iptables REDIRECT.
--single-shot Only handle a single connection and terminate directly
after. Useful for debugging purposes.
--dump-certs Print created certificates for each intercepted
connection in the log file. Note that in many cases
you will also need to increase the log level to at
least DEBUG in order to see certificates.
--keyspec keyspec Specification for the private keys that should be
used. Can be either in the form "rsa:bitlen" or
"ecc:curvename". Valid choices, therefore, would be,
for example, "rsa:1024" or "ecc:secp256r1". Defaults
to rsa:2048
--initial-read-timeout secs
Specifies the amount of time in seconds (as a floating
point number) that ratched waits for the client to
provide its ClientHello before giving up. The default
is 1.0 secs.
--mark-forged-certificates
Include an OU=ratched entry to the subjects of all
created certificates (including dynamically forged
client certificates) for easy debugging.
--no-recalculate-keyids
When forging client certificates, by default the
subject and authority key identifiers are removed and
recreated to fit the actually used key ids. With this
option, they're used as-is (i.e., the key identifier
metadata will not fit the actually used keys). This
option might expose bugs in certain frameworks which
regard these identifiers as trusted information.
--daemonize Do not run in foreground mode, but in the background
as a daemon.
--logfile file Instead of logging to stderr, redirect logs to given
file.
--flush-logs Flush logfile after each call to logmsg(). Decreases
performance, but gives line-buffered logs.
--crl-uri uri Encode the given URI into the CRL Distribution Point
X.509 extension of server certificates.
--ocsp-uri uri Encode the given URI into the Authority Info Access
X.509 extension of server certificates as the OCSP
responder URI.
--write-memdumps-into-files
When dumping a piece of memory in the log, also output
its binary equivalent into a file called
hexdump_####.bin, where #### is an ascending number.
Useful for debugging of internal data structures.
--use-ipv6-encapsulation
For writing the PCAPNG file format, usually IPv4 is
emulated. This has the drawback that when one IPv4
endpoint serves multiple servers via the TLS Server
Name Indication extension, they cannot be
differentiated by their hostname. With this parameter,
ratched wraps the packets in IPv4-in-IPv6 emulation
and assigns different IPv6 addresses for different
server names, thus enabling accurate name resolution.
-l hostname:port, --listen hostname:port
Specify the address and port that ratched is listening
on. Defaults to 127.0.0.1:9999.
-d key=value[,key=value,...], --defaults key=value[,key=value,...]
Specify the server and client connection parameters
for all hosts that are not explicitly listed via a
--intercept option. Arguments are given in a key=value
fashion; valid arguments are shown below.
-i hostname[,key=value,...], --intercept hostname[,key=value,...]
Intercept only a specific host name, as indicated by
the Server Name Indication inside the ClientHello. Can
be specified multiple times to include interception or
more than one host. Additional arguments can be
specified in a key=value fashion to further define
interception parameters for that particular host.
--pcap-comment comment
Store a particular piece of information inside the
PCAPNG header as a comment.
-o filename, --outfile filename
Specifies the PCAPNG file that the intercepted traffic
is written to. Mandatory argument.
-v, --verbose Increase logging verbosity.
The arguments which are valid for the --intercept argument are as follows:
intercept=[opportunistic|mandatory|forward|reject]
Specifies the mode that ratched should act in for
this particular connection. Opportunistic TLS
interception is the default; it means that TLS
interception is tried first. Should it fail, however
(because someone tries to send non-TLS traffic), it
falls back to 'forward' mode (i.e., forwarding all
data unmodified). Mandatory TLS interception means
that if no TLS interception is possible, the
connection is terminated. 'forward', as explained,
simply forwards everything unmodified. 'reject'
closes the connection altogether, regardless of the
type of seen traffic.
s_tlsversions=versions
Colon-separated string that specifies the acceptable
TLS version for the ratched server component. Valid
elements are ssl2, ssl3, tls10, tls11, tls12, tls13.
Defaults to tls10:tls11:tls12.
s_reqclientcert=bool Ask all connecting clients to the server side of the
TLS proxy for a client certificate. If not
replacement certificate (at least certfile and
keyfile) is given, forge all metadata of the incoming
certificate. If a certfile/keyfile is given, this
option is implied.
s_send_rot=bool By default, the ratched TLS server does not include
its own root of trust (RoT) CA certificate in the
server certificates list. With this option, it is
added to the certificates sent to its peer.
s_certfile=filename Specifies an X.509 certificate in PEM format that
should be used by ratched as the server certificate.
By default, this certificate is automatically
generated. Must be used in conjunction with
s_keyfile.
s_keyfile=filename Specifies the private key for the given server
certificate, in PEM format.
s_chainfile=filename Specifies the X.509 certificate chain that is to be
sent to the client, in PEM format.
s_cacert=filename The X.509 CA certificate that issues server
certificates, in PEM format.
s_cakey=filename The X.509 CA certificate key that signs server
certificates, in PEM format.
s_ciphers=ciphers The cipher suite string that the ratched TLS server
uses.
s_groups=groups The key agreement 'supported groups' string (formerly
known as 'elliptic curves') that the ratched TLS
server uses.
s_sigalgs=algs The key agreement 'signature algorithms' string which
the ratched TLS server uses.
s_ocsp=bool Respond to clients requesting an OCSP status request
by sending an OCSP ticket as a response. Enabled by
default.
c_tlsversions=versions
Colon-separated string that specifies the acceptable
TLS version for the ratched client component. Valid
elements are ssl2, ssl3, tls10, tls11, tls12, tls13.
Defaults to tls10:tls11:tls12.
c_certfile=filename Specifies an X.509 certificate in PEM format that
should be used by ratched as a client certificate. It
will only be used when the connecting client also
provided a client certificate. Must be used in
conjunction with c_keyfile.
c_keyfile=filename The private key for the given client certificate, in
PEM format.
c_chainfile=filename The X.509 certificate chain that is to be sent to the
server, in PEM format.
c_ciphers=ciphers The cipher suite string that the ratched TLS client
uses.
c_groups=groups The key agreement 'supported groups' string (formerly
known as 'elliptic curves') that the ratched TLS
client uses.
c_sigalgs=algs The key agreement 'signature algorithms' string which
the ratched TLS client uses.
examples:
$ ratched -o output.pcapng
Open up local port 9999 and listen for incoming connections, intercept
all TLS traffic and write output into given capture file.
$ ratched -f google.com:443 -o output.pcapng
Same as before, but redirect all traffic of which the destination cannot
be determined (e.g., local connections to port 9999) to google.com on
port 443.
$ ratched -vvv --dump-certs -o output.pcapng
Be much more verbose during interception and also print out forged
certificates in the log.
$ ratched --defaults intercept=forward -intercept --intercept www.johannes-bauer.com -o output.pcapng
Do not generally intercept connections (but rather forward all traffic
unmodified) except for connections with Server Name Indication
www.johannes-bauer.com, on which interception is performed.
$ ratched --intercept www.johannes-bauer.com,s_reqclientcert=true -o output.pcapng
Generally do not request client certificates from connecting peers
except for connections with Server Name Indication www.johannes-
bauer.com, where clients are sent a CertificateRequest TLS message. If
clients do not provide a client certificate, just use regular TLS
interception. If they do provide a client certificate, forge all client
certificate metadata and use the forged client certificate in the
connection against the real server.
$ ratched --intercept www.johannes-bauer.com,c_certfile=joe.crt,c_keyfile=joe.key -o output.pcapng
Same as before, but for connections to johannes-bauer.com, do not forge
client certificates, but always use the given client certificate and key
(joe.crt / joe.key) for authentication against the server.
$ ratched --keyspec ecc:secp256r1 --ocsp-uri http://www.ocsp-server.com -o output.pcapng
Choose secp256r1 instead of RSA-2048 for all used certificates and
encode an OCSP Responder URI into those forged certificates as well.
$ ratched --initial-read-timeout 5.0 --default intercept=mandatory -o output.pcapng
Wait five seconds for connecting clients to send a valid ClientHello
message. If after five seconds nothing is received or if unknown (non-
TLS) traffic is received, terminate the connection instead of performing
unmodified forwarding.
The name "ratched" alludes to nurse Ratched of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". If you use the tool to spy on people, you're a complete douchebag and abusing your power. You should watch the movie. Please use ratched responsibly to increase security of our infrastructure, not undermine it. TLS interception for spying purposes is despicable and dangerous.
ratched requires at least OpenSSL v1.1.
ratched is licensed under the GNU GPL-3.