peach-forensics

A lean, local-first forensic log viewer for DFIR work. Parses log sources into a normalized, taggable timeline stored in DuckDB, with a Splunk-inspired search syntax and a SQLite session layer for analyst tags. Rust + egui, no server, no cloud.

Runs standalone, or can be started and handed evidence paths by crush, then continues completely independently (no IPC).

Status

Currently implemented: AUL (.logarchive), EVTX, journald, and TOML-configurable text log parsing, import-time and re-tag tagging, session persistence, portable case export/import for handing a case to another analyst, and CLI source handoff. See docs/supported-sources.md for the authoritative, up-to-date list of what actually works today.

Download

Prebuilt binaries for Linux, Windows, and macOS (universal — Apple Silicon and Intel in one binary) are attached to every GitHub release — no Rust toolchain or build step needed. A nightly build tracks main and is rebuilt automatically whenever new commits land.

Package managers

macOS (Homebrew)

brew tap kalink0/forensics
brew trust kalink0/forensics
brew install peach-forensics

Windows (winget)

winget install kalink0.Peach

Windows (Scoop)

scoop bucket add forensics https://github.com/kalink0/scoop-forensics
scoop install forensics/peach-forensics

No native package for Linux yet — grab the binary from Releases.

Building and running

Building from source is only needed to modify peach yourself — see Download above for ready-to-run binaries.

Requires a Rust toolchain (stable) and a C/C++ compiler + CMake (DuckDB is compiled from source on first build).

cargo build          # first build compiles bundled DuckDB — several minutes
cargo run             # build + launch the GUI

Local checks (mirrors CI):

just check            # cargo fmt --check + clippy -D warnings + test
just fmt               # auto-format

CLI

peach --add-source <path> [--add-source <path> ...] [--cleanup-dir <path> ...] [--ephemeral-session]

--add-source pre-fills a source to load in the GUI (sourcetype is still confirmed manually — peach never auto-detects a format). --cleanup-dir marks a directory (e.g. a temp extraction dir crush created) to be deleted when peach closes; it's only ever deleted if it resolves to somewhere under the OS temp directory. --ephemeral-session disables session persistence for the run: the session's .duckdb/.sqlite are written to a one-off temp directory instead of the persistent sessions directory and removed on exit regardless of whether they hold data — for evidence handed off from a temp extraction or a decrypted source, where no durable unencrypted session copy should be left behind.

Documentation

• docs/user-guide.md — how to use peach: loading sources, tagging rules, search syntax, sessions
• docs/supported-sources.md — supported/planned source types
• docs/rules-reference.md — every built-in tagging rule (AUL/EVTX/journald), generated from the actual shipped rule files; also available fully offline in-app via Help → Rules reference...
• CHANGELOG.md — what changed in each release

Acknowledgements

Peach builds on the open-source and DFIR community. AUL (.logarchive) parsing uses macos-unifiedlogs by Mandiant (Apache-2.0); EVTX parsing uses evtx by @omerbenamram (MIT/Apache-2.0). The GUI is built on egui/eframe; the bulk timeline on DuckDB via duckdb-rs; the session layer on SQLite via rusqlite. See the in-app Help → About → Acknowledgements tab for the full dependency list with licenses.

The built-in tagging rule packs (rules/examples/*.toml) are built on published research and primary sources, not re-derived from scratch:

• AUL — most predicates sourced from "Apple Unified Log Predicates in iLEAPP: The Reference" by Alexis Brignoni, with a handful of newer ones (dialed-number recovery, device orientation, Apple Watch Crown/button, CarPlay handshake) from Tim Korver's Thesis Friday series.
• EVTX — cross-checked against Microsoft's official Security Auditing event reference for each event ID, with a handful from JPCERT/CC's "Detecting Lateral Movement through Tracking Event Logs" report and PowerShell's own logging docs.
• journald — message text sourced directly from OpenSSH, sudo, shadow-utils, and systemd's own logging code.

See each rule file's own header comment for its specific citation, and docs/rules-reference.md for the full, generated rule-by-rule breakdown.

Special thanks to @dugeonlady for suggesting the Rainbow theme in crush — Peach's Rainbow theme (View → Theme → Rainbow) carries over the same cycle and colors. Forensics tools don't have to be grey.

Parts of this software were developed with assistance from Claude AI / Claude Code by Anthropic.

Bugs and feature requests

Use GitHub Issues. Please include the Peach version (shown in Help → About), your OS, and steps to reproduce.