cp-scoring

Scoring a bunch of computers.

Table of Contents

1. Intro
2. Building
3. Deploying and Running

Intro

This is an automated scoring system. The goal is to verify that a set of computers meet standards. The primary use case is to train people on setting up a host computer to a desired configuration, provide them with a computer report + score, and track their progress.

Design

Comparison to other tools

There are commercial tools that generally do the similar work to collect data from agents on hosts and generate reports (e.g. Nessus, Rapid7). One motivation was to find software with no purchase, license, or maintenance costs.

There are open-source software, but none of the ones researched met the requirements. Chef and Puppet support large enterprise environments and seemed too heavyweight for the primary use case. Ansible is built for actively configuring other hosts from a master host, so it did not fit the primary use case. Ansible did not meet operational requirements, such as requiring (many) python dependencies and requiring open network ports (e.g. SSH, WinRM) on the hosts.

Software Components

[The Server] is a binary executable file written in go. [The Server] has a RESTful API that its UI and the [agents] interact with. The UI is a React (JSX) web application.

[agents] are binary executable files written in go. [agents] are built for a particular supported 64-bit operating system:

• Windows
• Linux

Building

Language Dependencies

• golang stable (1.10.4+)
• Node.js LTS (10.16.2+)

Procedure

To build [The Server] and [agents]:

1. cd cp-scoring
2. npm install
3. sh build.sh

To create a bundle for deployment:

1. sh bundle.sh

Tests

The golang code has unit tests (*_test.go files) and integration tests with postgres. Unit tests are run in the build.sh script.

The cp-scoring\server\db_test.go has integration tests for the persistent backing store. To run the integration tests:

1. Start up a local postgres instance
2. Create a file at cp-scoring\server\cp-scoring.test.conf
   • Refer to the cp-scoring.test.conf.example file to set up connecting to the postgres instance.
3. Open Terminal
4. go test github.com/netwayfind/cp-scoring/server --tags=integration

The UI code does not currently have automated tests.

Deploying and Running

[The Server]

Copy the generated cp-scoring-<version>.tar.gz (from cp-scoring/target) to the intended location. The archive should have the following:

• public
  • cp-scoring-agent-linux
  • cp-scoring-agent-windows
• ui
• cp-scoring-server-linux

Currently, only Linux is the supported OS to running [The Server].

To extract files:

tar xzvf cp-scoring.tar.gz

Prerequisites:

• postgres
  • may be local service or Docker instance

To run server:

./cp-scoring-server-linux

Config file at cp-scoring.conf. Settings:

• cert: path to X.509 certificate (default: public/server.crt)
• key: path to RSA private key (default: private/server.key)
• port: TCP port to listen on (default: 8443)
• sql_url: SQL URL for postgres (default: postgres://localhost)

When [The Server] starts up for the first time, it will set up the persistent backing store, and generate a private key and public key for encrypting data.

[The Server] requires a HTTPS certificate and key to run. By default, it expects the certificate at public/server.crt and the key at private/server.key. Either create an RSA private key and X.509 certificate at these paths or specify file paths to these files with the -cert and -key arguments.

When the server is ready, [The Server] should be available over https://<server>:<port> . By default, the port is 8443. The port number can be changed with the -port argument.

[agents]

Download from https://<server>:<port>/public . Choose the correct [agent] for the [host].

Windows instructions:

1. Download cp-scoring-agent-windows.exe
2. Open Administrator Command Prompt
3. cd C:\Users\<user>\Downloads
4. cp-scoring-agent-windows.exe -install
   • This will install files to C:\cp-scoring
5. cd C:\cp-scoring
6. cp-scoring-agent-windows.exe -server https://<server>:<port>
   • This will download files to allow sending data to [The Server]
7. icacls report.html /setowner LOCALSERVICE
   • This is necessary to finish setting up [agent]
8. Create shortcut for C:\cp-scoring\scoreboard.html to Desktop
9. Create shortcut for C:\cp-scoring\report.html to Desktop
10. Delete cp-scoring-agent-windows.exe in the Downloads folder
11. Restart computer. [agent] will automatically start.

Linux instructions:

1. Download cp-scoring-agent-linux
2. Open Terminal
3. cd ~/Downloads
4. chmod +x cp-scoring-agent-linux
5. sudo ./cp-scoring-agent-linux -install
   • This will install files to /opt/cp-scoring
6. cd /opt/cp-scoring
7. sudo cp-scoring-agent-linux -server https://<server>:<port>
   • This will download files to allow sending data to [The Server]
8. ln -s /opt/cp-scoring/scoreboard.html ~/Desktop
9. ln -s /opt/cp-scoring/report.html ~/Desktop
10. Delete cp-scoring-agent-linux in the Downloads folder
11. Restart computer. [agent] will automatically start.