Using Automata

Scapy enables to create esaily network automata. Scapy does not stick to a specific model like Moore or Mealy automata. It provides a flexible way for you to choose you way to go.

An automaton in Scapy is deterministic. It has different states. A start state and some end and error states. There are transitions from one state to another. Transitions can be transitions on a specific condition, transitions on the reception of a specific packet or transitions on a timeout. When a transition is taken, one or more actions can be run. An action can be bound to many transitions. Parameters can be passed from states to transitions and from transitions to states and actions.

From a programmer's point of view, states, transitions and actions are methods from an Automaton subclass. They are decorated to provide meta-information needed in order for the automaton to work.

First example

Let's begin with a simple example. I take the convention to write states with capitals, but anything valid with python syntax would work as well.

class HelloWorld(Automaton):
    @ATMT.state(initial=1)
    def BEGIN(self):
        print "State=BEGIN"

    @ATMT.condition(BEGIN)
    def wait_for_nothing(self):
        print "Wait for nothing..."
        raise self.END()

    @ATMT.action(wait_for_nothing)
    def on_nothing(self):
        print "Action on 'nothing' condition"

    @ATMT.state(final=1)
    def END(self):
        print "State=END"

In this example, we can see 3 decorators:

• ATMT.state that is used to indicate that a method is a state, and that can have initial, final and error optional arguments set to non-zero for special states.
• ATMT.condition that indicate a method to be run when the automaton state reaches the indicated state. The argument is the name of the method representing that state
• ATMT.action binds a method to a transition and is run when the transition is taken.

Running this example gives the following result:

>>> a=HelloWorld()
>>> a.run()
State=BEGIN
Wait for nothing...
Action on 'nothing' condition
State=END

This simple automaton can be described with the following graph:

and the graph can be automatically drawn from the code with

>>> HelloWorld.graph()

Changing states

The ATMT.state decorator transforms a method into a function that returns an exception. If you raise that exception, the automaton state will be changed. If the change occurs in a transition, actions bound to this transition will be called. The parameters given to the function replacing the method will be kept and finally delivered to the method. The exception has a method action_parameters that can be called before it is raised so that it will store parameters to be delivered to all actions bound to the current transition.

As an example, let's consider the following state:

    @ATMT.state()
    def MY_STATE(self, param1, param2):
        print "state=MY_STATE. param1=%r param2=%r" % (param1, param2)

This state will be reached with the following code

    @ATMT.receive_condition(ANOTHER_STATE)
    def received_ICMP(self, pkt):
        if ICMP in pkt:
            raise self.MY_STATE("got icmp", pkt[ICMP].type)

Let's suppose we want to bind an action to this transition, that will also need some parameters:

    @ATMT.action(received_ICMP)
    def on_ICMP(self, icmp_type, icmp_code):
        self.retaliate(icmp_type, icmp_code)

The condition should become

    @ATMT.receive_condition(ANOTHER_STATE)
    def received_ICMP(self, pkt):
        if ICMP in pkt:
            raise self.MY_STATE("got icmp", pkt[ICMP].type).action_parameters(pkt[ICMP].type, pkt[ICMP].code)

Real example

Here is a real example take from Scapy. It implements a TFTP client that can issue read requests.

class TFTP_read(Automaton):
    def parse_args(self, filename, server, sport = None, port=69, **kargs):
        Automaton.parse_args(self, **kargs)
        self.filename = filename
        self.server = server
        self.port = port
        self.sport = sport

    def master_filter(self, pkt):
        return ( IP in pkt and pkt[IP].src == self.server and UDP in pkt
                 and pkt[UDP].dport == self.my_tid
                 and (self.server_tid is None or pkt[UDP].sport == self.server_tid) )
        
    # BEGIN
    @ATMT.state(initial=1)
    def BEGIN(self):
        self.blocksize=512
        self.my_tid = self.sport or RandShort()._fix()
        bind_bottom_up(UDP, TFTP, dport=self.my_tid)
        self.server_tid = None
        self.res = ""

        self.l3 = IP(dst=self.server)/UDP(sport=self.my_tid, dport=self.port)/TFTP()
        self.last_packet = self.l3/TFTP_RRQ(filename=self.filename, mode="octet")
        self.send(self.last_packet)
        self.awaiting=1
        
        raise self.WAITING()
        
    # WAITING
    @ATMT.state()
    def WAITING(self):
        pass

    @ATMT.receive_condition(WAITING)
    def receive_data(self, pkt):
        if TFTP_DATA in pkt and pkt[TFTP_DATA].block == self.awaiting:
            if self.server_tid is None:
                self.server_tid = pkt[UDP].sport
                self.l3[UDP].dport = self.server_tid
            raise self.RECEIVING(pkt)
    @ATMT.action(receive_data)
    def send_ack(self):
        self.last_packet = self.l3 / TFTP_ACK(block = self.awaiting)
        self.send(self.last_packet)

    @ATMT.receive_condition(WAITING, prio=1)
    def receive_error(self, pkt):
        if TFTP_ERROR in pkt:
            raise self.ERROR(pkt)

    @ATMT.timeout(WAITING, 3)
    def timeout_waiting(self):
        raise self.WAITING()
    @ATMT.action(timeout_waiting)
    def retransmit_last_packet(self):
        self.send(self.last_packet)

    # RECEIVED
    @ATMT.state()
    def RECEIVING(self, pkt):
        recvd = pkt[Raw].load
        self.res += recvd
        self.awaiting += 1
        if len(recvd) == self.blocksize:
            raise self.WAITING()
        raise self.END()

    # ERROR
    @ATMT.state(error=1)
    def ERROR(self,pkt):
        split_bottom_up(UDP, TFTP, dport=self.my_tid)
        return pkt[TFTP_ERROR].summary()
    
    #END
    @ATMT.state(final=1)
    def END(self):
        split_bottom_up(UDP, TFTP, dport=self.my_tid)
        return self.res

It can be run like this, for instance:

>>> TFTP_read("my_file", "192.168.1.128").run()

Detailed documentation

Decorators

Decorator for states

States are methods decorated by the result of the ATMT.state function. It can take 3 optional parameters, initial, final and error, that, when set to True, indicate that the state is an initial, final or error state.

class Example(Automaton):
    @ATMT.state(initial=1)
    def BEGIN(self):
        pass

    @ATMT.state()
    def SOME_STATE(self)
        pass

    @ATMT.state(final=1)
    def END(self):
        return "Result of the automaton: 42"

    @ATMT.state(error=1)
    def ERROR(self):
        return "Partial result, or explanation"
[...]

Decorators for transitions

Transitions are methods decorated by the result of one of ATMT.condition, ATMT.receive_condition, ATMT.timeout. They all take as argument the state method they are related to. ATMT.timeout also have a mandatory timeout parameter to provide the timeout value in seconds. ATMT.condition and ATMT.receive_condition have an optional prio parameter so that the order in which conditions are evaluated can be forced. Default priority is 0. Transitions with the same priority level are called in an undetermined order.

When the automaton switches to a given state, the state's method is executed. Then transitions methods are called at specific moments until one triggers a new state (something like raise self.MY_NEW_STATE()). First, right after the state's method returns, the ATMT.condition decorated methods are run by growing prio. Then each time a packet is received and accepted by the master filter all ATMT.receive_condition decorated methods are called by growing prio. When a timeout is reached since the time we entered into the current space, the corresponding ATMT.timeout decorated method is called.

class Example(Automaton):
    @ATMT.state()
    def WAITING(self):
        pass

    @ATMT.condition(WAITING):
    def it_is_raining(self):
        if not self.have_umbrella:
            raise self.ERROR_WET()

    @ATMT.receive_condition(WAITING, prio=1)
    def it_is_ICMP(self, pkt):
        if ICMP in pkt:
            raise self.RECEIVED_ICMP(pkt)
    @ATMT.receive_condition(WAITING, prio=2)
    def it_is_IP(self, pkt):
        if IP in pkt:
            raise self.RECEIVED_IP(pkt)
    
    @ATMT.timeout(WAITING, 10.0)
    def waiting_timeout(self):
        raise self.ERROR_TIMEOUT()

Decorator for actions

Actions are methods that are decorated by the return of ATMT.action function. This function takes the transition method it is bound to as first parameter and an optionnal priority prio as a second parameter. Default priority is 0. An action method can be decorated many times to be bound to many transitions.

class Example(Automaton):
    @ATMT.state(initial=1)
    def BEGIN(self):
        pass

    @ATMT.state(final=1)
    def END(self):
        pass

    @ATMT.condition(BEGIN, prio=1)
    def maybe_go_to_end(self):
        if random() > 0.5:
            raise self.END()
    @ATMT.condition(BEGIN, prio=2)
    def certainly_go_to_end(self):
        raise self.END()

    @ATMT.action(maybe_go_to_end)
    def maybe_action(self):
        print "We are lucky..."
    @ATMT.action(certainly_go_to_end)
    def certainly_action(self):
        print "We are not lucky..."
    @ATMT.action(maybe_go_to_end, prio=1)
    @ATMT.action(certainly_go_to_end, prio=1)
    def always_action(self):
        print "This wasn't luck!..."

The two possible outputs are

>>> a=Example()
>>> a.run()
We are not lucky...
This wasn't luck!...
>>> a.run()
We are lucky...
This wasn't luck!...

Methods to overload

Two methods are hooks to be overloaded.

The parse_args() method is called with arguments given at __init__() and run(). Use that to parametrize the behaviour of your automaton.

The master_filter() method is called each time a packet is sniffed and decides if it is interesting for the automaton. When working on a specific protocol, this is where you will ensure the packet belongs to the connection you are being part of, so that you do not need to make all the sanity checks in each transition.