This document shows how to get started with Minion by getting your own Minion installation for the first time.
Finally, we need these dependencies fulfill:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git build-essential python-virtualenv python-dev rabbitmq-server mongodb-server curl libcurl4-openssl-dev
Note
It is helpful to assume the followings for the purpose of this guide:
Minion has two components: minion-backend and minion-frontend. To get both installed, the quick way is to use setup.sh. This script resides in a different repository: https://github.com/mozilla/minion.
Note
If you want to set up the backend and the frontend individually (suitable for production), please refer to Install Minion Backend and Install Minion Frontend.
$ git clone https://github.com/mozilla/minion.git
$ cd minion
$ ./setup.sh clone
$ ./setup.sh develop
By cloning we clone both the backend and frontend to the current directory (which in this case we assume it to be /home/user/minion directory.
The last command will create a virtualenv called env under /home/user/minion. This virtualenv is shared by the backend and frontend (this is not the best practice, but for the purpose of getting started this is enough). The develop command will then source into this virtualenv and run python setup.py develop on the backend and the frontend to get all the dependencies fulfill.
There is also ./setup.sh install which performs python setup.py install. This is better for production. To learn more about the usage of the script, please refer to Using setup.sh.
As aforementioned, Minion is broken down into backend and frontend which are both using Flask web framework. Minion backend also runs three celery workers which are used to communicate between plugin scanning processes.
Let’s have five terminals opened. Each terminal will cd minion so that the current working directory is /home/user/minion. Then for each terminal, run one of the following commands:
$ ./setup.sh run-backend
$ ./setup.sh run-frontend
$ ./setup.sh run-plugin-worker
$ ./setup.sh run-state-worker
$ ./setup.sh run-scan-worker
By default, the backend runs on 127.0.0.1:8383 while the frontend runs on 0.0.0.0:8080; you can visit the frontend by going to http://<vm-ip-address>:8080/ in your browser assuming that your VM IP is accessible to your host computer.
If you wonder how these commands actually work, please refer to Using setup.sh.
To configure Minion, please refer to Configure Minion.
Almost there! The very last bit is to create a Minion super user. To do this, the backend comes with a handy script called minion-db-init.
$ cd minion
$ cd minion-backend/scripts
$ ./minion-db-init
Enter the administrator's Persona email:
Enter the administrator's name:
Do you want to import some test sites into minion? [y/n]
Enter an email that has been registered as Persona email account. If you don’t have one or you are new to Persona, please check out Sign up for a Persona account before proceeding.
You don’t have to provide a real name, but this is the name we use in formal information such as sending invitation to a friend to join Minion. Mozilla does not collect data from self-hosted Minion if you care about your privacy.
You also don’t need to import test sites. By test sites we mean security testing sites. These sites are developed and free to security testers for testing security tools. We encourage new users to import them when learning about Minion. You can always delete them later (or start from scratch when you deploy a production version).
I have a separate page to guide you how to use the frontend. Please check Using Frontend.
Plugins are essentials. As a new Minion owner, you should try installing new plugins. We have a separate guide on this topic, so please check Installing Plugins.