acaua/README.md

<p align="center"><img src="logo.png" width="300" alt="Acauã"></p>
<h1 align="center">Acauã</h1>
<p align="center">Deterministic network threat hunting.<br>Zeek-first NDR research · local-first · authorized use.</p>

<p align="center"><a href="docs/cli.md">Terminal</a> · <a href="docs/interface.md">Interface</a> · <a href="docs/architecture.md">Architecture</a> · <a href="docs/docker.md">Docker</a> · <a href="docs/support.md">Support</a> · <a href="ROADMAP.md">Roadmap</a> · <a href="CHANGELOG.md">Changelog</a></p>

<p align="center"><b>English</b> · <a href="README.pt-BR.md">Português</a></p>

---

**Status: pre-alpha skeleton.** The project structure, documentation, CI and
compiling stubs exist. The four mathematical detection pillars, the real Zeek
parser, DuckDB storage and the alert engine are **under development** and are
not shipped yet. Nothing on this page should be read as a claim that detection
already works.

Acauã is a network threat hunting engine built around deterministic evidence,
not an opaque model. The goal is to answer not only "this looks suspicious" but
"these exact inputs, with these intermediate values, produced this score".

- **Deterministic by design:** fixed-order reductions, documented sentinels and
  a JSON evidence record for every future alert.
- **Local-first:** the analytical store is embedded in the process; no external
  database and no telemetry by default.
- **Zeek-first:** `dns.log`, `ssl.log`, `conn.log` and the protocol logs needed
  for identity and lateral-movement analysis. NetFlow/IPFIX is a documented
  degraded mode, never presented as equivalent. Suricata EVE JSON is an optional
  secondary input.
- **Server daemon and web dashboard:** `acaua serve` runs continuous ingestion,
  scheduling, the API and the embedded web UI, distributed 100% via Docker.
- **Research stays outside the product:** `research/` is an isolated Python
  workspace for scientific validation and fixtures. It is never compiled,
  packaged or released.

## What exists today

| Area | State |
|---|---|
| Rust workspace and CLI stubs | ✅ compiles |
| Axum API with health, status, alerts and analyze routes | ✅ stub |
| Embedded web dashboard | ✅ UI shell, served by daemon |
| Documentation and CI/release workflows | ✅ |
| Docker multi-arch image and compose deployment | ✅ |
| DuckDB analytical store | ✅ official prebuilt library linked |
| Four detection pillars | 🚧 under development |
| Zeek log parser | 🚧 stub |
| Alert evidence and scoring | 🚧 stub |
| Published releases | ❌ none yet |

## The four pillars

All four are **under development**. The roadmap keeps them as future work, not
as implemented features.

1. **Beaconing:** periodicity on event timestamps with a Rayleigh/Schuster
   periodogram, and generalized Lomb–Scargle only where a real `y` exists.
2. **Persistent sessions:** long connections that never produce a short `Δt`
   and would otherwise stay invisible to a beaconing detector.
3. **Protocol anomalies:** deterministic features over Zeek protocol logs,
   including identity and lateral-movement signals.
4. **Evidence fusion:** bounded, symmetric combination of pillar scores with a
   reproducible evidence record per alert.

The design decisions behind these pillars, including the six corrections to the
original blueprint, are in **[docs/architecture.md](docs/architecture.md)**.

## Authorized use

Acauã is defensive software for networks you own or are explicitly authorized
to monitor. Capturing or analyzing third-party traffic without permission may
be illegal. The operator is responsible for scope, privacy and retention.

The daemon binds to `127.0.0.1` by default. The Docker Compose deployment
isolates the daemon in an unprivileged, read-only container with dropped capabilities.

## Install

Run via Docker Compose (recommended for operators):

```bash
cp .env.example .env
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d
```

Or build and run locally with Docker:

```bash
docker compose up -d --build
```

To compile from source natively (Rust 1.88+ required):

```bash
scripts/fetch-libduckdb.sh ~/.cache/acaua/duckdb
export DUCKDB_LIB_DIR=~/.cache/acaua/duckdb LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/.cache/acaua/duckdb
cargo build --release -p acaua-cli
./target/release/acaua --help
```

Supported platform matrix for published container images: `linux/amd64` and `linux/arm64`.

## Getting started

```bash
acaua doctor
acaua serve --bind 127.0.0.1:8787 --data-dir .acaua
acaua analyze /var/log/zeek/current --json
acaua update
```

`analyze` currently validates the directory and returns a skeleton report; it
does not parse Zeek logs yet. `serve` exposes the stub API and the embedded web UI.
`update` checks for new versions and guides container image updates.

## Development

```bash
scripts/fetch-libduckdb.sh ~/.cache/acaua/duckdb
export DUCKDB_LIB_DIR=~/.cache/acaua/duckdb LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/.cache/acaua/duckdb
cargo test --workspace
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets
node scripts/check-ui-i18n.mjs
scripts/check.sh --full
```

See **[CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md)** and **[docs/architecture.md](docs/architecture.md)**.

## Known limits

- The detection engine, Zeek parser and storage layer are stubs.
- There is no published release image yet.
- NetFlow/IPFIX is a degraded input mode by design; it cannot replace the Zeek
  protocol logs for every pillar.
- The project targets Linux container environments (`linux/amd64`, `linux/arm64`).

## Where it's going

Summary of the [ROADMAP](ROADMAP.md):

| | |
|---|---|
| **Done** | Workspace, CLI/API stubs, web dashboard, Docker containerization, CI/release workflows |
| **Next** | Pillar 1 and 2 implementations with deterministic fixtures; real Zeek parser |
| **Later** | Full Parquet partitioning, TTL pruning, pillar 3 and 4, evidence fusion |
| **Not planned** | Opaque AI scoring, a required cloud service, Python in the shipped runtime |

## License

[MIT](LICENSE-MIT) or [Apache-2.0](LICENSE-APACHE), your choice.