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TAXII 1.x Overview

TAXII 1.x is an XML-based protocol for exchanging cyber threat intelligence. It uses a service-oriented architecture with four main service types.

Protocol Characteristics

AspectDescription
TransportHTTP POST with XML payloads
ContentSTIX 1.x (XML format)
Collection IDname (string identifier)
Collection Tabledata_collections
ConfigurationYAML file + taxii-cli sync

Note

TAXII 1.x collections are separate from TAXII 2.x collections. They use different storage and cannot be shared.

Service Architecture

TAXII 1.x organizes threat intelligence exchange through four service types:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     TAXII 1.x Services                      │
├────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┬──────────┤
│   Discovery    │     Inbox      │      Poll      │ CollMgmt │
│                │                │                │          │
│ List services  │ Push content   │ Pull content   │ List     │
│ available      │ TO server      │ FROM server    │ colls    │
└────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┴──────────┘
         │                │                │              │
         └────────────────┴────────────────┴──────────────┘
                                  │
                          ┌───────┴───────┐
                          │  Collections  │
                          │  (by name)    │
                          └───────────────┘

Discovery Service

Provides information about available services. Clients query this endpoint first to learn what services are available.

Inbox Service

Receives threat intelligence content (push model). Clients send STIX content to this service to store it in collections.

Poll Service

Provides threat intelligence content (pull model). Clients request content from collections, optionally filtering by time range.

Collection Management Service

Lists available collections and their properties.

Collections

TAXII 1.x collections store threat intelligence content. Each collection:

  • Has a unique name (the identifier)
  • Can be linked to multiple services
  • Supports content type filtering
  • Has availability status

Collection Types

TypeDescription
DATA_FEEDOne-way data flow (server → client)
DATA_SETBidirectional (clients can push and pull)

Content Bindings

Content bindings specify what types of content a collection accepts:

supported_content:
  - binding: urn:stix.mitre.org:xml:1.1.1
  - binding: urn:stix.mitre.org:xml:1.2

If accept_all_content: true, all content types are accepted.

Configuration Method

TAXII 1.x services and collections are configured via YAML:

  1. Copy template: cp examples/data-config/full.yaml data-config.yaml
  2. Apply with taxii-cli sync data-config.yaml

See TAXII 1.x Setup for detailed configuration.

Permissions

TAXII 1.x permissions use the collection name as the key:

accounts:
  - username: analyst
    password: secret
    permissions:
      my-collection: read       # Read-only
      other-collection: modify  # Read + write

See Permissions for details.

Next Steps