Agents

IVRE agent may be run in an environment not totally controlled (e.g., during a pentest, on a machine you have just owned and want to use to do some network recon without installing IVRE), since it has a reduced number of dependencies.

IVRE agent only requires nmap (of course), screen and rsync (plus /bin/sh and basic shell utils, including grep).

Set-up

On the “master”, install IVRE following the Installation guidelines. Install also screen, tmux or nohup if you want to be able to “detach” from the agent script (which is not a daemon).

On the “worker(s)”, the agent script must be deployed, together with nmap, and rsync.

Run the worker(s)

The computer running IVRE (the “master”) needs to be able to access via rsync the data directory of the agents (to add targets and to retrieve results): this is not an issue if you are running the agent and IVRE itself on the same machine. If you are running IVRE and the agent on two different hosts (and, except for simple or testing configurations, you should do that), you have to run sshd or rsyncd on the agent host, or share the agent files (using NFS, SMB or whatever the IVRE side can mount).

First, mkdir & cd to the directory you want to use as your agent data directory.

Make sure the needed binaries are in the PATH environment variable (including nmap). Generate the agent script, on a computer with IVRE installed, by running ivre runscans --output Agent > agent; chmod +x agent , adapt if needed the variables at the beginning of the script, particularly THREADS.

By default, the default template is used. You can generate agents using other scan templates using --nmap-template [template name].

Then just run the agent script.

When the scan is over, to stop the agent, type C-c or kill the parent agent process.

Run the master

You need to make sure the user running ivre runscansagent or ivre runscansagentdb on the “master” can access (without password) to the agents data directories.

When the agents are all ready, you have two options, using ivre runscansagent or ivre runscansagentdb. In both cases, scan options are the same than with ivre runscans.

The first one (ivre runscansagent) is the “old-school” version: it will not allow to dynamically add or remove agents, and will fetch the results under ./agentsdata/output directory, you have to import the results by yourself.

On the other hand, the second one (ivre runscansagentdb) will use the DB to manage the agents, but is still experimental.

runscansagent, the “old-school” one

You have to specify the agent(s) data directory. For example, run:

$ ivre runscansagent --routable --limit 1000 \
>     agenthost1:/path/to/agent/dir      \
>     agenthost2:/path/to/agent/dir      \

You can now import the results as if you had run the “regular” ivre runscans program to scan locally. The results are stored under agentsdata/output/

runscansagentdb, the “modern” (but probably broken) one

Please note that it is important to run all the ivre runscansagentdb from the same host (the “master”, which does not need to be the same host than the database server), since it relies on local directories.

First, let’s create a master and add the agent(s):

$ ivre runscansagentdb --add-local-master
$ ivre runscansagentdb --source MySource --add-agent \
>     agenthost1:/path/to/agent/dir \
>     agenthost2:/path/to/agent/dir

Let’s check it’s OK:

$ ivre runscansagentdb --list-agents
agent:
  - id: 543bfc8a312f915728f1709b
  - source name: MySource
  - remote host: agenthost1
  - remote path: /path/to/agent/dir/
  - local path: /var/lib/ivre/master/sbOist
  - rsync command: rsync
  - current scan: None
  - currently synced: True
  - max waiting targets: 60
  - waiting targets: 0
  - can receive: 60
agent:
  - id: 543bfc8a312f915728f1709c
  - source name: MySource
  - remote host: agenthost2
  - remote path: /path/to/agent/dir/
  - local path: /var/lib/ivre/master/m2584z
  - rsync command: rsync
  - current scan: None
  - currently synced: True
  - max waiting targets: 60
  - waiting targets: 0
  - can receive: 60

Now we can add a scan, and assign the (available) agents to that scan:

$ ivre runscansagentdb --assign-free-agents --routable --limit 1000

And see if it works:

$ ivre runscansagentdb --list-scans
scan:
  - id: 543bfcbf312f9158d6caeadf
  - categories:
    - ROUTABLE
  - targets added: 0
  - results fetched: 0
  - total targets to add: 1000
  - available targets: 2712693508
  - internal state: (2174385484, 551641673, 387527645, 0)
  - agents:
    - 543bfc8a312f915728f1709b
    - 543bfc8a312f915728f1709c

For now, nothing has been sent to the agents. To really start the process, run:

$ ivre runscansagentdb --daemon

After some time, the first results get imported in the database (READING [...], HOST STORED: [...], SCAN STORED: [...]). You can stop the daemon at any time by (p)kill-ing it (using CTRL+c will do).

When all the targets have been sent to an agent, the agents get disassociated from the scan so that another scan can use them. You can check the scan evolution by issuing ivre runscansagentdb --list-scans.