How to setup and configure snort for a Linux (Ubuntu spec.) System

Introduction

Note: This guide is not very stable, use at your own risk, do not go into this without some understanding of *nix, and the ability to solve problems and google and stuff. Also snort was not designed for wireless, this configuration will not work with wireless at all. There are hacky patches you could maybe apply to get snort to work with kismet or something (I didn't look too far into it) but honestly at that point it would much easier to choose a more light weight IDS

This is a post Jordan and myself had been talking about writing since the last meeting. Snort is a wonderful open source Intrusion Detection System (IDS) which is very effective as a first response system when your machine is being attacked, or as a line of defense in computer security related games like Capture the Flag (CTF)

I decided to set it up on my local machine for fun (since it's not very necessary on a machine not running services, but fun to have) as well as give me the ability to step through the process. I'm setting up the Snort IDS utilizing the postgres SQL database (because I already have it setup for metasploit interaction).