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Installation

The secureCodeBox is running on Kubernetes. To install it you need Helm, a package manager for Kubernetes. For your first steps Kubernetes from Docker Desktop, Minikube or KIND is sufficient. We also provide a Vagrant based all-in-one installation (see below).

First of all you need to install the secureCodeBox Operator which is responsible for starting all security scans.

# Install the Operator & CRD's into the `securecodebox-system` namespace
helm --namespace securecodebox-system upgrade --install --create-namespace securecodebox-operator oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/operator

If you didn't see any errors you now have the secureCodeBox Operator up and running! 🥳 🚀

You're now ready to install your first scan types and start your first scans.

Version Support​

The secureCodeBox supports the 4 latest Kubernetes releases (v1.30, v1.29, v1.28 & v1.27). Older versions might also work but are not officially supported or tested.

Accessing the included MinIO Instance​

The default secureCodeBox Operator includes a MinIO instance, which acts as a local S3 filestorage API used by the secureCodeBox to store the results files of its scans. You can switch it out with a S3 compatible API provided by most cloud providers.

You can access the MinIO instance included in the default installation like the following:

Port Forward MinIO UI: kubectl port-forward -n securecodebox-system service/securecodebox-operator-minio 9000:9001

  • AccessKey (Username): kubectl get secret securecodebox-operator-minio -n securecodebox-system -o=jsonpath='{.data.root-user}' | base64 --decode; echo
  • SecretKey (Password): kubectl get secret securecodebox-operator-minio -n securecodebox-system -o=jsonpath='{.data.root-password}' | base64 --decode; echo
note

If you are using Windows, do not include the | base64 --decode; echo part in the Command Prompt. Instead, after running the command, manually decode the resulting base64 output using PowerShell.

Then open your browser on http://localhost:9000 and login in with the credentials returned by the command listed above.

If you find yourself running these snippets regularly, you might want to check out this helper script

Operator Configuration Options​

Using a hosted S3 Buckets as storage backend​

To change out the default MinIO instance with a S3 Bucket from a cloud provider you can update the helm values to connect the operator with you S3 bucket.

AWS S3 Buckets​

minio:
  # disable the local minio instance
  enabled: false
s3:
  enabled: true
  # update the region to match the location of your bucket
  endpoint: "s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com"
  bucket: "your-own-securecodebox-bucket-name"
  # Name to a k8s secret with 'accesskey' and 'secretkey' as attributes in the same namespace as this release
  # Example creation via kubectl:
  # kubectl create secret generic securecodebox-s3-credentials --from-literal=accesskey="******" --from-literal=secretkey="******"
  keySecret: securecodebox-s3-credentials
info

Instead of using access keys it is possible to use IAM roles for more fine grained access management. To achieve that set in your helm values

  1. s3.authType to aws-irsa, and
  2. s3.awsStsEndpoint to your desired region (https://sts.REGION.amazonaws.com).

Google Cloud Storage​

minio:
  # disable the local minio instance
  enabled: false
s3:
  enabled: true
  bucket: your-own-securecodebox-bucket-name
  endpoint: storage.googleapis.com
  # Name to a k8s secret with 'accesskey' and 'secretkey' as attributes in the same namespace as this release
  # Example creation via kubectl:
  # kubectl create secret generic gcs-bucket-credentials --from-literal=accesskey="******" --from-literal=secretkey="******"
  keySecret: gcs-bucket-credentials

Prometheus Metrics​

If you want to monitor the scans managed by your secureCodeBox Operator you can use the Prometheus metrics that the operator provides. To use them you need to configure your prometheus instance to scrape these metrics from port 8080 of the operator pod.

If you are using the Prometheus operator you can enable metric collection by enabling the service monitoring included in the operators helm chart. To do that you need to set the metrics.serviceMonitor.enabled flag to true.

helm --namespace securecodebox-system upgrade --install --create-namespace securecodebox-operator oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/operator --set="metrics.serviceMonitor.enabled=true"

Custom metrics from the secureCodeBox Operator are prefixed with: securecodebox_. You can list them, together with an explanation in your Prometheus/Grafana explore view.

Install SCB Scanner​

The following list will give you a short overview of all supported security scanner charts and how to install them. You will find a more detailed documentation for each scanner in our Scanners documentation section.

note

If you are installing the secureCodeBox the first time we recommend to read the first scans documentation first.

You can optionally deploy SCB scanner charts for each security scanner you want to use. They should not be installed into the securecodebox-system namespace like the operator, but into the individual namespaces where you want to run the scans.

# The following chart will be installed in the `default` namespace by you can choose the namespace of your choice by
# adding `--namespace YOURNAMESPACE` to each line
helm upgrade --install amass oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/amass
helm upgrade --install gitleaks oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/gitleaks
helm upgrade --install kube-hunter oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/kube-hunter
helm upgrade --install nikto oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/nikto
helm upgrade --install nmap oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/nmap
helm upgrade --install ssh-scan oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/ssh-scan
helm upgrade --install sslyze oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/sslyze
helm upgrade --install trivy oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/trivy
helm upgrade --install wpscan oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/wpscan
helm upgrade --install zap oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/zap

Install some demo targets​

If you want to test some of the security scanners within your namespace you can use some demo targets.

danger

As these demo targets are intentionally vulnerable you shouldn't expose them to the internet - keep them internal. Otherwise you could be targeted by someone else really fast 😈

helm upgrade --install dummy-ssh oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/dummy-ssh
helm upgrade --install bodgeit oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/bodgeit
helm upgrade --install juice-shop oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/juice-shop
helm upgrade --install old-wordpress oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/old-wordpress
helm upgrade --install swagger-petstore oci://ghcr.io/securecodebox/helm/swagger-petstore
note

These charts will be installed in the default namespace, but you can choose the namespace of your choice by adding --namespace YOURNAMESPACE to each helm command.

Vagrant All-in-one Installation​

We provide a Vagrant setup with everything installed (Kubernetes cluster, operator, scanners, hooks, demo applications, etc.). You only need Vagrant installed and our main repository to play around with secureCodeBox:

git clone https://github.com/secureCodeBox/secureCodeBox.git
cd secureCodeBox
vagrant up

After this setup has finished just ssh into the vagrant box:

vagrant ssh

Now you can start with your first scan.

Troubleshooting​

MinIO Startup Problems​

If your secureCodeBox Operator install is failing, and you see that the operator pod seems to be working okay, but the MinIO pods started alongside it does not start up properly, your cluster probably isn't configured to have a working default Storage Class for Persistent Volumes.

Suggested solutions:

  • Use a Cloud Storage provider instead of MinIO. This has to provide a API compatible to AWS S3. Providers that we have tried and worked great include:
    • AWS S3
    • Google Cloud Storage
    • DigitalOcean Spaces
  • Configure MinIO to use a HostPath Volume. This is more work to set up and manage, but also works for local / on-prem installation.

ClusterRole & CRD Issues​

The secureCodeBox Operator Helm Chart contains Custom Resource Definitions and ClusterRoles which is usually reserved to administrators of production cluster (and rightfully so 😄). If you are just testing out the secureCodeBox consider using a local Kubernetes Cluster with tools like kind, minikube or Docker Desktops (Mac/Windows) Kubernetes cluster.

Running on Windows​

There are multiple ways to install Kubernetes and Helm to run secureCodeBox on Windows. One easy method is to install Docker Desktop then enable Kubernetes in the Settings. While installing a current version of Docker Desktop you will be prompted to install Linux Subsystem for Windows (WSL2). Now you can continue the installation on either Windows or the Linux Subsystem.

  • For Windows: Install Helm for Windows like instructed on the website. Usually installing from Binaries will be easy.
  • For Linux Subsystem: Install the Linux Distribution of your choice from the Microsoft Store (Ubuntu 18.04 works fine). Now install Helm for the chosen Distribution (e.g. using Apt for Ubuntu).