Webserver

Kismet Webserver

Kismet now integrates a webserver which serves the web-based UI and data to external clients.

THE FIRST TIME YOU RUN KISMET, you must go to the Kismet web UI and create a login and password. This password is stored in ~/.kismet/kismet_httpd.conf which is in the home directory of the user which started Kismet.

You will need this password to log into Kismet in the future, and to give scripts and tools which need administrative access to Kismet the login.

The webserver is configured via the kismet_httpd.conf file. These options may be included in the base kismet.conf file, but are broken out for clarity. These options may be overridden in kismet_site.conf for pre-configured installs.

By default, Kismet does not run in SSL mode. If you provide a certificate and key file in PEM format, Kismet supports standard SSL / HTTPS. For more information on creating a SSL certificate, look at README.SSL.

HTTP configuration options:

  • httpd_username=username Set a global, fixed username. This overrides any per-user login information in ~/.kismet/kismet_httpd.conf. This can be used to set a fixed password during deployment, for instance via kismet_site.conf overriding. If httpd_username= is specified, httpd_password= must also be provided.

  • httpd_password=password Set a global, fixed password. This overrides any per-user login information in ~/.kismet/kismet_httpd.conf. This can be used to set a fixed password during deployment, for instance via kismet_site.conf overriding. It is generally preferred to keep the username and password in the per-user configuration file, however they may also be set in the global config.

  • httpd_port=port Sets the port for the webserver to listen to. By default, this is port 2501, the port traditionally used by the Kismet client/server protocol. Kismet typically should not be started as root, so will not be able to bind to ports below 1024. If you want to run Kismet on, for instance, port 80, this can be done with a proxy or a redirector, or via DNAT rewriting on the host.

  • httpd_ssl=true|false Turn on SSL. If this is turned on, you must provide a SSL certificate and key in PEM format with the httpd_ssl_cert= and httpd_ssl_key= configuration options.

    See README.SSL for more information about SSL certificates.

  • httpd_ssl_cert=/path/to/cert.pem Path to a PEM-format SSL certificate.

    This option is ignored if Kismet is not running in SSL mode.

    Logformat escapes can be used in this. Specifically, “%S” will automatically expand to the system install data directory, and “%h” will expand to the home directory of the user running Kismet:

     httpd_ssl_cert=%h/.kismet/kismet.pem

  • httpd_ssl_key=/path/to/key.pem Path to a PEM-format SSL key file. This file should not have a password set as currently Kismet does not have a password prompt system.

    This option is ignored if Kismet is not running in SSL mode.

    Logformat escapes can be used in this. Specifically, “%S” will automatically expand to the system install data directory, and “%h” will expand to the home directory of the user running Kismet:

     httpd_ssl_key=%h/.kismet/kismet.key

  • httpd_home=/path/to/httpd/data Path to static content web data to be served by Kismet. This is typically set automatically to the directory installed by Kismet in the installation prefix. Typically the only reason to change this directory is to replace the Kismet web UI with alternate code.

  • httpd_user_home=/path/to/user/httpd/data Path to static content stored in the home directory of the user running Kismet. This is typically set to the httpd directory inside the users .kismet directory.

    This allows plugins installed to the user directory to install web UI components.

    Typically there is no reason to change this directory.

    If you wish to disable serving content from the user directory entirely, comment this configuration option out.

  • httpd_session_db=/path/to/session/db Path to save HTTP sessions to. This allows Kismet to remember valid browser login sessions over restarts of kismet_server.

    If you want to refresh the logins (and require browsers to log in again after each restart), comment this option.

    Typically there is no reason to change this option.

  • httpd_mime=extension:mimetype Kismet supports MIME types for most standard file formats, however if you are serving custom content with a MIME type not correctly set, additional MIME types can be defined here. Multiple httpd_mime lines may be used to add multiple mime types:

     httpd_mime=html:text/html
 httpd_mime=svg:image/svg+xml

    Typically, MIME types do not need to be added.

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