Orbit osquery
Orbit is an osquery runtime and autoupdater. With Orbit, it's easy to deploy osquery, manage configurations, and stay up to date. Orbit eases the deployment of osquery connected with a Fleet server, and is a (near) drop-in replacement for osquery in a variety of deployment scenarios.
Orbit is the recommended agent for Fleet. But Orbit can be used with or without Fleet, and Fleet can be used with or without Orbit.
Try Orbit
fleetctl preview
already running and Go installed:
With # From within the top-level directory of this repo…
# Generate a macOS installer pointed at your local Fleet
go run ./cmd/package --type=pkg --fleet-url=localhost:8412 --insecure --enroll-secret=YOUR_FLEET_ENROLL_SECRET_HERE
With fleetctl preview running, you can find your Fleet enroll secret by selecting the "Add new host" button on the Hosts page in the Fleet UI.
An installer configured to point at your Fleet instance has now been generated.
Now run that installer (double click, on a Mac) to enroll your own computer as a host in Fleet. Refresh after several seconds (≈30s), and you should now see your local computer as a new host in Fleet.
Bugs
To report a bug or request a feature, click here.
Capabilities
Capability | Status |
---|---|
Secure autoupdate for osquery | |
Secure autoupdate for Orbit | |
Configurable update channels | |
Full osquery flag customization | |
Package tooling for macOS .pkg |
|
Package tooling for Linux .deb |
|
Package tooling for Linux .rpm |
|
Package tooling for Windows .msi |
|
Manage/update osquery extensions | |
Manage cgroups for Linux performance |
Usage
General information and flag documentation can be accessed by running orbit --help
.
Permissions
Orbit generally expects root permissions to be able to create and access it's working files.
To get root level permissions:
macOS/Linux
Prefix orbit
commands with sudo
(sudo orbit ...
) or run in a root shell.
Windows
Run Powershell or cmd.exe with "Run as administrator" and start orbit
commands from that shell.
Osquery shell
Run an osqueryi
shell with orbit osqueryi
or orbit shell
.
Connect to a Fleet server
Use the --fleet-url
and --enroll-secret
flags to connect to a Fleet server.
For example:
orbit --fleet-url=https://localhost:8080 --enroll-secret=the_secret_value
Use --fleet_certificate
to provide a path to a certificate bundle when necessary for osquery to verify the authenticity of the Fleet server (typically when using a Windows client or self-signed certificates):
orbit --fleet-url=https://localhost:8080 --enroll-secret=the_secret_value --fleet-certificate=cert.pem
Add the --insecure
flag for connections using otherwise invalid certificates:
orbit --fleet-url=https://localhost:8080 --enroll-secret=the_secret_value --insecure
Osquery flags
Orbit can be used as near drop-in replacement for osqueryd
, enhancing standard osquery with autoupdate capabilities. Orbit passes through any options after --
directly to the osqueryd
instance.
For example, the following would be a typical drop-in usage of Orbit:
orbit -- --flagfile=flags.txt
Packaging
Orbit, like standalone osquery, is typically deployed via OS-specific packages. Tooling is provided with this repository to generate installation packages.
Dependencies
Orbit currently supports building packages on macOS and Linux.
Before building packages, clone or download this repository and install Go.
Building Windows packages requires Docker to be installed.
Packaging support
-
macOS -
.pkg
package generation with (optional) Notarization and codesigning - Persistence vialaunchd
. -
Linux -
.deb
(Debian, Ubuntu, etc.) &.rpm
(RHEL, CentOS, etc.) package generation - Persistence viasystemd
. -
Windows -
.msi
package generation - Persistence via Services.
Building packages
Use go run ./cmd/package
from this directory to run the packaging tools.
The only required parameter is --type
, use one of deb
, rpm
, pkg
, or msi
.
Configure osquery to connect to a Fleet (or other TLS) server with the --fleet-url
and --enroll-secret
flags.
A minimal invocation for communicating with Fleet:
go run ./cmd/package --type deb --fleet-url=fleet.example.com --enroll-secret=notsosecret
This will build a .deb
package configured to communicate with a Fleet server at fleet.example.com
using the enroll secret notsosecret
.
When the Fleet server uses a self-signed (or otherwise invalid) TLS certificate, package with the --insecure
or --fleet-certificate
options.
See go run ./cmd/package
for the full range of packaging options.
Update channels
Orbit uses the concept of "update channels" to determine the version of Orbit, osquery, and any extensions (extension support coming soon) to run. This concept is modeled from the common versioning convention for Docker containers.
Configure update channels for Orbit and osqueryd with the --orbit-channel
and --osqueryd-channel
flags when packaging.
Channel | Versions |
---|---|
4 |
4.x.x |
4.6 |
4.6.x |
4.6.0 |
4.6.0 |
Additionally stable
and edge
are special channel names. stable
will always return the version Fleet deems to be stable, while edge
will provide newer releases for beta testing.
macOS signing & Notarization
Orbit's packager can automate the codesigning and Notarization steps to allow the resulting package to generate packages that appear "trusted" when install on macOS hosts. Signing & notarization are supported only on macOS hosts.
For signing, a "Developer ID Installer" certificate must be available on the build machine (generation instructions). Use security find-identity -v
to verify the existence of this certificate and make note of the identifier provided in the left column.
For Notarization, valid App Store Connect credentials must be available on the build machine. Set these in the environment variables AC_USERNAME
and AC_PASSWORD
. It is common to configure this via app-specific passwords.
Build a signed and notarized macOS package with an invocation like the following:
AC_USERNAME=zach@example.com AC_PASSWORD=llpk-sije-kjlz-jdzw go run ./cmd/package --type=pkg --fleet-url=fleet.example.com --enroll-secret=63SBzTT+2UyW --sign-identity 3D7260BF99539C6E80A94835A8921A988F4E6498 --notarize
This process may take several minutes to complete as the Notarization process completes on Apple's servers.
After successful notarization, the generated "ticket" is automatically stapled to the package.
FAQs
How does Orbit compare with Kolide Launcher?
Orbit is inspired by the success of Kolide Launcher, and approaches a similar problem domain with new strategies informed by the challenges encountered in real world deployments. Orbit does not share any code with Launcher.
- Both Orbit and Launcher use The Update Framework specification for managing updates. Orbit utilizes the official go-tuf library, while Launcher has it's own implementation of the specification.
- Orbit can be deployed as a (near) drop-in replacement for osquery, supporting full customization of the osquery flags. Launcher heavily manages the osquery flags making deployment outside of Fleet or Kolide's SaaS difficult.
- Orbit prefers the battle-tested plugins of osquery. Orbit uses the built-in logging, configuration, and live query plugins, while Launcher uses custom implementations.
- Orbit prefers the built-in osquery remote APIs. Launcher utilizes a custom gRPC API that has led to issues with character encoding, load balancers/proxies, and request size limits.
- Orbit encourages use of the osquery performance Watchdog, while Launcher disables the Watchdog.
Additionally, Orbit aims to tackle problems out of scope for Launcher:
- Configure updates via release channels, providing more granular control over agent versioning.
- Support for deploying and updating osquery extensions (
🔜 ). - Manage osquery versions and startup flags from a remote (Fleet) server (
🔜 ). - Further control of osquery performance via cgroups (
🔜 ).
Is Orbit Free?
Yes! Orbit is licensed under an MIT license and all uses are encouraged.
How does orbit update osquery? And how do the stable and edge channels get triggered to update osquery on a self hosted Fleet instance?
Orbit uses a configurable update server. We expect that many folks will just use the update server we manage (similar to what Kolide does with Launcher's update server). We are also offering tooling for self-managing an update server as part of Fleet Basic (the subscription offering).
Community
Chat
Please join us in the #fleet channel on osquery Slack.