Turn on the Software inventory feature by default for new Fleet deployments

[noahtalerman]

Goal

As a user, I want software inventory turned on by default and the ability to turn this feature off (if I see performance issues with my hosts).

How?

• Enable software inventory by default on only new installations of Fleet.

[noahtalerman]

One of our large customers successfully turning on the Software inventory feature will be our milepost for doing this.

[mikermcneil]

@noahtalerman @zwass I found this explanation helpful: “Working by default”

https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/product-principles/

[chiiph]

Check out http://github.com/fleetdm/fleet/blob/main/server/fleet/app.go#L183-L195

[rlynnj11]

@noahtalerman @chiiph I could use an assist defining done/QA steps for this ticket - unless I'm mistaken software inventory is already on by default for preview, so

1. I'm uncertain of the best way for me to help confirm this in a non-preview context.
2. This ticket defines the ability to turn software inventory off as a key deliverable, and I haven't found a UI setting for that - is that out of scope for this ticket, or does that setting need to be applied on the backend?

[noahtalerman]

I'm uncertain of the best way for me to help confirm this in a non-preview context.

@rlynnj11 I think the best way to confirm software inventory being turned on for new Fleet deployments will be to ask an engineer to back up their current database, run a local Fleet with a cleared database and the current code from main, and enroll some simulated hosts to see if they report software on the Host details page.

Thank you for calling this out.

This ticket defines the ability to turn software inventory off as a key deliverable, and I haven't found a UI setting for that

Currently, there's no UI setting for turning on software. The user must use the fleetctl apply -f config.yml command after setting enable_software_inventory: false in their config.yml file.

I think the best way to confirm this ability to turn off will also be to ask an engineer.

I'm linking to the section that shows how to turn on/off software in the vulnerability processing documentation here: https://fleetdm.com/docs/using-fleet/vulnerability-processing#setup

[RachelElysia]

Confirmed! Software is automatically turned on!

Here are my steps if you want to replicate. <3
Steps:
Git Steps:
make db-backup
ls -a (see that the backup file is created)

make db-reset
git checkout main
git pull fleetdm main
make deps-js
make generate-dev
make fleet

./build/fleet prepare db --dev (should've ran with make db-reset but just in case)
./build/fleet serve --dev --dev_license --osquery_detail_update_interval=10s --logging_debug

Go to: localhost:8080 and it will redirect you to setup
Set up a new account
Add hosts via git and the enroll secret:
ENROLL_SECRET=2z91Te4h2+0gsSOBOv2Djz69tnkYen5C docker-compose up --scale centos9-osquery=10
Go to manage hosts and view host details to see software on there.