Build an Ubuntu Scan Worker with Salt

These instructions are for building/configuring an Ubuntu scan worker host (or VM) using Salt. This is how you would build a production scan worker.

This guide was developed against an Ubuntu 12.04 system.

Prepare your Base VM

Create the base VM in any way that you desire.

  • Use the "Basic Server Install" option and install all updates.
  • Use the hostname prod.worker.ubuntu to take advantage of default Salt Master configuration settings.
  • The vm/host must have 2GB of RAM or more. Essentially, you need to increase RAM as you increase the number of engines running on that VM.

Install the Salt Minion client salt-minion onto your VM. Refer to Salt Install documentation for reference.

Edit the /etc/salt/minion/ file and define the master variable as the IP address of the Salt Master VM. Then restart the salt-minion service:

$ sudo service salt-minion restart

At this point, the base VM is ready for the Salt Master to install and configure it as a Scan Worker.

Install Scan Worker States

The Salt states are setup to create a Scan Worker with celery automatically started on boot. You only have to run this one command on the VM and Salt will do the build for you:

$ sudo salt-call state.highstate

The output of this command will be colored Green/Red/Teal. If you see any Red, then you have a problem that you'll have to investigate and resolve. If you only see Green/Teal, your VM should be ready to go.

Install chosen engines

Refer to the following files:

[Project_root_dir]/engines/[engine_name]/INSTALL
  • Currently, every engine is supported on an Ubuntu Worker except Symantec and Panda.