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Nikto scanner reference for STO



You can scan your application instances and ingest results from Nikto.

Important notes for running Nikto scans in STO​

The following topics contain useful information for setting up scanner integrations in STO:

Nikto step settings for STO scans​

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

Scan​

Scan Mode​

  • Orchestration Configure the step to run a scan and then ingest, normalize, and deduplicate the results.

Scan Configuration​

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

Target​

Type​

  • Instance Scan a running application.

Target and variant detection​

When Auto is enabled for application instances, the step detects these values as follows:

  • The target is based on the Instance Domain and Path defined in the step or runtime input, for example https://qa.jpgr.org:3002/login/us.
  • The variant is the UTC timestamp when the step scanned the instance.

Note the following:

  • Auto is not available when the Scan Mode is Ingestion.

  • Auto is the default selection for new pipelines. Manual is the default for old pipelines, but you might find that neither radio button is selected in the UI.

  • You should carefully consider the baseline you want to specify for your instance target. Every target needs a baseline to enable the full suite of STO features. Here are a few options:

    • Specify a RegEx baseline that captures timestamps. This ensures that every new scan compares issues in the new scan vs. the previous scan. Then it updates the baseline to the current scan.

      You can use this RegEx to capture timestamps: \d{2}/\d{2}/\d{4}\,\s\d{2}\:\d{2}\:\d{2}

    • Specify a fixed baseline.

      1. Scan the instance using a manual variant name.
      2. Select the baseline as a fixed value.
      3. Update the step to use auto-detect for future scans.

      This ensures that future scans get compared with one fixed baseline.

Name​

The identifier for the target, such as codebaseAlpha or jsmith/myalphaservice. Descriptive target names make it much easier to navigate your scan data in the STO UI.

It is good practice to specify a baseline for every target.

Variant​

The identifier for the specific variant to scan. This is usually the branch name, image tag, or product version. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.

Instance​

Domain​

Domain of the application instance to scan. You can include the full path to the app in this field, or split the full path between the Domain and the Path fields. Example: https://myapp.io/portal/us

Protocol​

HTTPS (default) or HTTP.

Port​

The TCP port used by the scanned app instance.

Path​

Path to append to the application instance domain, if you're splitting the full path between the Domain and Path settings. For example, you might specify the domain as https://myapp.io and the path as /portal/us.

Ingestion​

Ingestion File​

The path to your scan results when running an Ingestion scan, for example /shared/scan_results/myscan.latest.sarif.

  • The data file must be in a supported format for the scanner.

  • The data file must be accessible to the scan step. It's good practice to save your results files to a shared path in your stage. In the visual editor, go to the stage where you're running the scan. Then go to Overview > Shared Paths. You can also add the path to the YAML stage definition like this:

        - stage:
          spec:
            sharedPaths:
              - /shared/scan_results

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​

Use this field to run the nikto scanner with specific flags. For example, the -Tuning flag customizes the tests that the scanner runs. The following example excludes a test from the scan:

-Tuning x01

caution

Passing additional CLI flags is an advanced feature. Harness recommends the following best practices:

  • Test your flags and arguments thoroughly before you use them in your Harness pipelines. Some flags might not work in the context of STO.

  • Don't add flags that are already used in the default configuration of the scan step.

    To check the default configuration, go to a pipeline execution where the scan step ran with no additional flags. Check the log output for the scan step. You should see a line like this:

    Command [ scancmd -f json -o /tmp/output.json ]

    In this case, don't add -f or -o to Additional CLI flags.

Fail on Severity​

Every Custom Scan 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 use this field to specify environment variables for your scanner.

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: