Really like the simplicity of Inspect! In my own world view, the only
thing that really matters is automating the C&A compliance burden and
doing so with tools+content that people can actually use (SCAP or not,
don't really care).
There are roadblocks to using Inspec: not natively included in
enterprise operating systems, the US Gov doesn't recognize it as a
configuration or vulnerability scanner, and results cannot be ingested
by mandatory tooling like ACAS and various CDM tools. Same challenges
that Ansible and Puppet face, too.
Out of the Ansible/Puppet/Chef grouping, Ansible is the only one with
roadmap to be natively included in Linux. However Ansible 'check mode'
isn't nearly as easy/robust as Inspec. Makes me feel a little.... stuck.
If content was developed for Inspec, how would people be able to consume
it? Theoretically the @redhat.com'ers could finagle a way to ship the
/content/. We certainly could upload it to the NIST National Checklist
Program. But how would people get the Inspec /tooling/? I'm not sure if
downloading off the internet is viable for most system owners.
On 3/22/17 10:05 AM, Trevor Vaughan wrote:
So, in my case, I'm working on the application and validation of
different compliance profiles as part of the SIMP project.
In each of our configuration modules, I wanted to integrate an SSG
scan into the final phases of our acceptance testing.
I probably should have said 'development framework' instead of
'demonstration framework'. But, the idea is that we can run regular
acceptance tests as part of our CI process by integrating inspec into
that mix.
We started down a path similar to inspec but abandoned it because we
wanted to use the authoritative SSG materials so that we could show
the C&A authorities an apples-to-apples comparison.
Unfortunately, this proved to be simply too complex since we could not
extract micro data streams out of the SSG in an automated fashion. For
example, we have an auditd module. For this, we would want to apply
our settings against NIST 800-53 and then test against the 800-53 SSG
profile. We would then want to switch to STIG and test against the
STIG profile, etc... However, we *only* want to do it for the auditd
portions of the SSG and we just couldn't find an easy way to make this
happen that didn't require a LOT of upkeep.
Thanks,
Trevor
On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 11:37 PM, Jason Newton <nevion(a)gmail.com
<mailto:nevion@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Trevor,
The hope is that any work with SSG, rigor included would be 10x less
cost of any lines of the SSG. So it is a new cost but relative to
long term maintenance costs, it likely more than wins out - and
hopefully the SSG project would arrive at that point fast - in like a
month or two if someone puts in serious porting effort and starts
getting peer review going.
For running Inspec on production nodes - I went back and forth on my
reply here and my final thoughts are, well this is the double edge
sword of solving all integration and parsing problems by hosting the
DSL in ruby. If all concerning functionally cannot be hidden (using
ruby-fu) prior to module loading without breaking functionality, then
there's not really much that can be done with this approach
fundamentally - perhaps they could make some validatable Inspec
DSL-based document (that is not ruby) for the InSpec DSL that is
runnable
Was not quite sure what you meant regarding validating demonstration
frameworks and utility although the condition of peer reviewed came
through clearly.
Any devs care to weigh in?
-Jason
On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 8:36 PM, Trevor Vaughan
<tvaughan(a)onyxpoint.com <mailto:tvaughan@onyxpoint.com>> wrote:
> I've also been looking at Inspec and it shows quite a bit of
promise to fix
> a lot of the usability issues of the SSG project.
>
> However, to be an integrated enhancement/replacement, it will
need to go
> through the same level of rigor as the SSG checks.
>
> Let's face it, while that rigor can be painful, it is at least
validatable
> while Inspec is truly just whatever code you wish to run on a
system.
>
> I'd be a bit scared of running Inspec on production nodes since it's
> basically a root-level command and control system with almost
nothing in the
> way of checks and balances.
>
> That said, for validating demonstration frameworks, it may be
useful if, and
> only if, the community content can become peer reviewed and
concrete.
>
> Thoughts about integrating it into the SSG project?
>
> Trevor
>
> On Sun, Mar 12, 2017 at 8:17 PM, <nevion(a)gmail.com
<mailto:nevion@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I've watched the project for a couple of years now and done
some work with
>> it. I'm grateful many of you took the time to get SSG where
it's at.
>> Recently I came across chef.io <
http://chef.io>'s Inspec and I
thought hey, this seems to
>> solve alot of the engineering challenges the SSG project seems
to have,
>> especially with multi-distro support.
>> Github:
https://github.com/chef/inspec
>> Product:
https://www.chef.io/inspec/
>>
>> Here are some of the benefits my eyes see:
>>
>> * Content is centralized (less mutli-file editing for the same
tests aka
>> less XMHell :-)
>> * Content is encouraged to be less distribution specific but
allowed to be
>> as specific as it needs, and this is encouraged inside a
module, meaning
>> less versions are floating around in the codebase
>> * Declarative/Programmatic as opposed to Declaritive/document
oriented -
>> I'd say with the later case has led to somewhat awkward and
hard write
>> tests, in some cases
>> * Can test active configuration as well as configuration file state
>> * Looks significantly less verbose - as in saving 10x lines of
sourcecode
>> (not counting XML output) and developer productivity would be
much higher
>> * and as a possible benefit, I wouldn't be surprised if tests
ran much
>> faster - though I have done no extensive tests to show this.
>>
>> Most importantly I believe inspec could pave the way to all distros
>> working off of a common and smaller codebase than the existing SSG
>> implementation and be far less maintenance burden and as such I
wanted to
>> raise awareness and get a topic going on the ML.
>>
>> Inspec doesn't seem compatible out right with openscap (or
maybe it is -
>> they have bidirectional oval/xccdf consumers/emitters), but it
IS aiming to
>> replace OVAL/XCCDF as something more sane and just plain old
better for the
>> tasks. They also have tools for running it without scap tools
involved of
>> course so it doesn't have to lean on openscap et al, but for
some people
>> being seperate from SCAP tools is going to be a con and not a pro.
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Trevor Vaughan
> Vice President, Onyx Point, Inc
> (410) 541-6699 x788 <tel:%28410%29%20541-6699%20x788>
>
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