What you'll learn
- Introduction
- Understanding the Ansible Playbook
- Explanation of the Playbook
- Execution
- Conclusion
- Related Articles
Introduction
In the rapidly evolving landscape of cybersecurity, regular vulnerability assessments are essential to identify and mitigate potential security risks. The Terrapin Vulnerability Scanner, developed by the RUB-NDS research group, offers a powerful tool for scanning and evaluating the security posture of systems. In this article, we explore how Ansible, a popular automation tool, can be leveraged to streamline the process of deploying and executing the Terrapin Scanner.
Understanding the Ansible Playbook
The provided Ansible playbook is a set of instructions written in YAML format, defining a sequence of tasks to be executed on remote hosts. Let’s break down the key components of the playbook:
```yaml
---
- name: Terrapin Vulnerability Scanner
hosts: all
gather_facts: false
vars:
scanner: "Terrapin_Scanner_MacOS_arm64_darwin"
target: "rhel.example.com"
version: "1.1.0"
myurl: "https://github.com/RUB-NDS/Terrapin-Scanner/releases/download/v{{ version }}/{{ scanner }}"
mydest: "./"
cli_params: "-json -connect {{ target }}"
tasks:
- name: Download the scanner
ansible.builtin.get_url:
url: "{{ myurl }}"
dest: "{{ mydest }}"
mode: '0644'
- name: Set scanner execution permission
ansible.builtin.file:
dest: "{{ mydest }}/{{ scanner }}"
mode: 'a+x'
- name: Execute the scanner
ansible.builtin.command: "{{ mydest }}/{{ scanner }} {{ cli_params }}"
register: command_output
- name: Print message on the screen
ansible.builtin.debug:
var: command_output
```
Explanation of the Playbook
- `hosts: all`: Specifies that the tasks will be executed on all hosts.
- `gather_facts: false`: Disables the gathering of facts about the target hosts. Facts include information about the system, such as IP address, OS version, etc.
- `vars`: Defines variables used throughout the playbook, such as the scanner name, target host, version, download URL, destination directory, and command-line parameters.
- `tasks`: Describes a series of tasks to be executed in order.
- Download the scanner: Uses the `get_url` Ansible module to download the Terrapin Scanner from the specified URL and save it to the destination directory.
- Set scanner execution permission: Uses the `file` Ansible module to set the execution permission for the downloaded scanner.
- Execute the scanner: Runs the Terrapin Scanner with the specified command-line parameters.
- Print message on the screen: Displays the output of the scanner execution for further analysis.
Execution
- localhost inventory
```bash
localhost ansible_connection=local
```
- Playbook Execution
```bash
ansible-playbook -i inventory terrapin.yml
```
- Output for a vulnerable OpenSSH connection
```bash
PLAY [Terrapin Vulnerability Scanner] ***************************************************
TASK [Download the scanner] *************************************************************
changed: [localh