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Brakeman scanner reference

You can scan your container images using Brakeman, a free tool for scanning Ruby on Rails applications.

Brakeman step configuration

The recommended workflow is to add an Brakeman step to a Security Tests or CI Build stage and then configure it as described below. You can also configure Brakeman scans programmatically by copying, pasting, and editing the YAML definition.

note
  • UI configuration support is currently limited to a subset of scanners. Extending UI support to additional scanners is on the Harness engineering roadmap.
  • Each step palette shows only the options that apply to a specific scan. If you're setting up a repository scan, for example, the UI won't show Container Image settings.
  • Docker-in-Docker is not required for these steps unless you're scanning a container image. If you're scanning a repository using Bandit, for example, you don't need to set up a Background step running DinD.
  • Support is currently limited to Kubernetes and Harness Cloud AMD64 build infrastructures only.
Step Palette

Scan settings

Scan Mode

The orchestration mode to use for the scan. The following list includes the UI and YAML values for the supported options.

  • Orchestrated A fully-orchestrated scan. A Security step in the Harness pipeline orchestrates a scan and then normalizes and compresses the results.
  • Ingestion Ingestion scans are not orchestrated. The Security step ingest results from a previous scan (for a scan run in an previous step) and then normallizes and compresses the results.

Scan Configuration

The predefined configuration to use for the scan. All scan steps have at least one configuration.

Target settings

Type

  • Repository Scan a codebase repo.

Name

The Identifier that you want to assign to the target you’re scanning in the pipeline. Use a unique, descriptive name such as codebaseAlpha or jsmith/myalphaservice.

Variant

An identifier for a specific variant to scan, such as the branch name or image tag. This identifier is used to differentiate or group results for a target. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.

Workspace (repository)

The workspace path on the pod running the Security step. The workspace path is /harness by default.

You can override this if you want to scan only a subset of the workspace. For example, suppose the pipeline publishes artifacts to a subfolder /tmp/artifacts and you want to scan these artifacts only. In this case, you can specify the workspace path as /harness/tmp/artifacts.

Ingestion File

The results data file to use when running an Ingestion scan. Generally an Ingestion scan consists of a scan step (to generate the data file) and an ingestion step (to ingest the data file).

Log Level, CLI flags, and Fail on Severity

Log Level

The minimum severity of the messages you want to include in your scan logs. You can specify one of the following:

  • DEBUG
  • INFO
  • WARNING
  • ERROR

Additional CLI flags

You can use this field to customize the scan with specific command-line arguments supported by that scanner.

Fail on Severity

Every Security step has a Fail on Severity setting. If the scan finds any vulnerability with the specified severity level or higher, the pipeline fails automatically. You can specify one of the following:

  • CRITICAL
  • HIGH
  • MEDIUM
  • LOW
  • INFO
  • NONE — Do not fail on severity

The YAML definition looks like this: fail_on_severity : critical # | high | medium | low | info | none

Settings

You can add a tool_args setting to run the Brakeman scanner binary with specific command-line arguments. For example, you can skip certain tests using -skip followed by a list of test IDs: tool_args = -skip testID_1, testID_3, testID_5

Additional Configuration

In the Additional Configuration settings, you can use the following options:

Advanced settings

In the Advanced settings, you can use the following options:

Security step settings (deprecated)

You can set up any supported scanner using a Security step: create a CI Build or Security Tests stage, add a Security step, and then add the setting:value pairs as specified below.

Security step dialog box

Here's an example of how to set up a scan in a Security step. scan_type and policy_type are scanner-specific; the other settings are common to scans of container images.

A screenshot of the Harness Platform that highlights the Create Project button in the Feature Flag module.
  • product_name = brakeman
  • scan_type = repository
  • policy_type = orchestratedScan or ingestionOnly
  • product_config_name = default
  • fail_on_severity - See Fail on Severity.
  • tool_args — You can use this field to run the brakeman scanner with specific command-line arguments. For example, you can generate warnings with only the highest confidence using -w3: tool_args = -w3
Repository scan settings

The following settings apply to all scanners where the scan_type is repository.

  • repository_project (required)
  • repository_branch (required)
Target NameTarget Type
azurerepository
bitbucketrepository
githubrepository
gitlabrepository
Ingestion scan settings

The following settings are required for Security steps where the policy_type is ingestionOnly.

  • target name The Identifier that you want to assign to the target you’re scanning in the pipeline. Use a unique, descriptive name such as codebaseAlpha or jsmith/myalphaservice.

  • variant An identifier for a specific target to scan, such as the branch name or image tag. This identifier is used to differentiate or group results for a target. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.

  • ingestion_file The results data file to use when running an Ingestion scan. You should specify the full path to the data file in your workspace, such as /shared/customer_artifacts/my_scan_results.json.

The following steps outline the general workflow for ingesting scan data into your pipeline:

  1. Specify a shared folder for your scan results, such as /shared/customer_artifacts. You can do this in the Overview tab of the Security stage where you're ingesting your data.

  2. Create a Run step that copies your scan results to the shared folder. You can run your scan externally, before you run the build, or set up the Run step to run the scan and then copy the results.

  3. Add a Security step after the Run step and add the target name, variant, and ingestion_file settings as described above.

For a complete workflow description and example, go to Ingest Scan Results into an STO Pipeline.

Fail on Severity

Every Security step has a Fail on Severity setting. If the scan finds any vulnerability with the specified severity level or higher, the pipeline fails automatically. You can specify one of the following:

  • CRITICAL
  • HIGH
  • MEDIUM
  • LOW
  • INFO
  • NONE — Do not fail on severity

The YAML definition looks like this: fail_on_severity : critical # | high | medium | low | info | none