Practical Cloud Native Security with Falco

Chapter 10. Configuring and Running Falco

In the previous chapter, you learned how to install Falco in production environments. However, you still need to know how its configuration system works. Learning to change its settings is fundamental to managing them over time and accommodating your needs. You can configure Falco during or immediately after installation, when updating to a newer version, or any time your needs change.

This chapter will help you understand and use the available settings. First, we’ll explain the main areas of intervention: command-line options, environment variables, the configuration file, and rules files. Then we will go deeper into each of them. You will also find valuable suggestions for production use cases, along with some tips to fine-tune your Falco configuration. At the end of the chapter you’ll find a dedicated section on configuring plugins, and we’ll show you how to update the configuration of a running Falco instance.

Configuring Falco

You can configure Falco through its settings, which we have grouped into three categories:

Command-line options and environment variables

Command-line options and environment variables are the first settings you need to run Falco. Most of these settings allow Falco to talk with your system, which is particularly important for system instrumentation and data enrichment. Other settings here let you adapt Falco to specific needs or help with troubleshooting.

Configuration file

You can configure almost any ...