This article overviews how Scanning Agent works and how to use it.
What is a Scanning Agent?
Probely's Scanning Agent allows you to scan internal applications without the need to expose them on the Internet or even to our IP addresses. It is the ideal approach to scan any application that is only reachable from within your network, including development/staging/pre-release and/or internal production applications that support your business.
You can use a single Scanning Agent to scan multiple internal targets, but you can also have different Agents, each reaching a part of your network. There is no need to have a single Scanning Agent with connectivity to the whole network.
It creates an encrypted and authenticated tunnel in which traffic flows securely between Probely and your network.
To make sure we meet your security expectations, we follow a set of principles:
All code is open source and publicly available.
You have complete control over the Agent, including the right to change it
Probely cannot access Scanning Agent
Scanning Agent runs in containers, with the least required privileges
All traffic is encrypted end-to-end
Scanning Agent does not open any network port
How to scan with the Agent?
When the Scanning Agent is configured and running, you must choose which targets will use it:
Go to Settings of the target you want to scan with the Scanning Agent.
Select the Scanning Agent you want to use.
Click Save.
In the following example, we have a Scanning Agent named Staging. Scans to this target will always go through Scanning Agent Staging.
Clicking Delete removes this configuration for the target.
Choosing an Agent in the target settings.
You can also assign Scanning Agent to multiple targets in the targets list. Select the targets you want to configure, and the options will appear:
Assigning Scanning Agent to multiple targets.
As the image above shows, targets configured to use an Agent will show a green cloud icon with a tunnel in the listing.
Complete installation reference and source code for the installer is available at Probely's Github repositories,
Don't hesitate to reach us for any questions about the Scanning Agent.
P.S.: Why the name Farcaster? Read here.