Overview

This page describes how to get started with the Unified Agent.

Prerequisites

Ensure you have one of the following Java versions on the computer on which you want to run the Unified Agent. 

• Java JDK 8

• Java JRE 8

• Java JDK 11

Additionally, depending on your project type, ensure that the relevant package managers are installed:

Unified Agent Usage Overview

Downloading the Unified Agent

The Unified Agent latest version can be downloaded from Amazon S3 or GitHub.

Setting Up the Unified Agent

There are several methods for configuring the Unified Agent:

• Configuration File
  The path to the configuration file can be passed to the Unified Agent in the command line using the -c argument. If no file is specified, the Unified Agent will look for a configuration file named wss-unified-agent.config in the current working directory.  Refer here for more information.
  Download the latest Unified Agent's configuration file here.
  For the full configuration parameters reference, refer to the Unified Agent Configuration Parameters page.

• Environment Variables
  All the parameters available in the configuration file can be also passed to the Unified Agent using environment variables. For more information, refer here.

• Command-line Parameters
  The Unified Agent supports command-line options and parameters. For more information refer here.

The configuration is applied in the following order of precedence:

1. Command-line parameters

2. Environment variables

3. Configuration file

4. Default values

Setting the Configuration Parameters

Set the following configuration parameters, in any of the available methods, for the Unified Agent's execution:

For setting more advanced and specific environment-related parameters, refer here.

Scanning Best Practices

General Tips

• Optimal detection using the WhiteSource tools is achieved when scanning during (or before) the build where dependency files used to create the product are available. 

• During the detection, manifest files (such as requirements.txt in python, for example) are being scanned and used to pinpoint a specific version of the package used.  

• In case the dependency/manifest files are missing during the scan and detection process, WhiteSource Unified Agent is detecting source files (such as .py files in Python)  and matches them against the WhiteSource Index of source files.

• For each matched source file, the likely origin/repo of that source is determined. 

Scanning Source Files Overview

WhiteSource matches your source files to the source library (from GitHub, SourceForge, or other SCM) from which they most likely originated, done by utilizing a set of advanced algorithms. WhiteSource’s knowledge base includes ~340M source files and ~45M open-source projects (source libraries).

The source files matching method is required when there are no known packages that can be resolved by utilizing the dependency resolution process. It is instead required to match a list of scanned source files to a source library from where the files are downloaded - along with its version - in order to detect open source licensing information.

Note that the algorithm does not affect security vulnerabilities reporting as this information depends on source files.

Scanning Procedure 

The following is an example of scanning C and C++ source files:

includes=**/*.c **/*.cc **/*.cp **/*.cpp **/*.cxx **/*.c++ **/*.h **/*.hpp **/*.hxx

ignoreSourceFiles=false (default)

It is recommended to enable SmartMatch* (an enhanced matching algorithm) for an existing organization in the Advanced Settings section in the Integrate tab.

Running the Unified Agent 

To run the Unified Agent from the command line, execute the following command on the machine where your code base is located, or in a shell script task as part of your build pipeline:

Linux/macOS:

java -jar /path/to/wss-unified-agent.jar -c /path/to/wss-unified-agent.config -d /path/to/project/root/directory

Windows:

java -jar "C:\path\to\wss-unified-agent.jar" -c "C:\path\to\wss-unified-agent.config" -d "C:\path\to\project\root\directory"

NOTES:

• Either full or relative paths can be used

• Whenever an argument value includes spaces, it must be double-quoted

• If no file is specified via the -c parameter, the Unified Agent will look for a configuration file named wss-unified-agent.config in the current working directory

• If no path is specified via the -d parameter, the Unified Agent will scan the current working directory

Running the Unified Agent in a Docker Container

The Unified Agent can also be executed via Docker container. A Dockerfile template containing different package managers (e.g. maven, npm, etc.) can be found here. The file includes installation commands that enable you to create a customizable run environment for scanning projects/files, plus a basic (editable) set of package managers.

NOTE: This option currently does not support Docker scanning.

Viewing and Understanding the Scan Steps and Summary

The Unified Agent command-line interface enables you to view the steps that ran as part of a scan and understand how long each step took.

Start/End Indication

A start/end indication is displayed for each scan step. For example:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------- Start: Pre-Step & Resolve Dependencies ------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] [2019-03-07 13:58:02,775 +0200] - Trying to resolve MAVEN dependencies
[INFO] [2019-03-07 13:58:02,776 +0200] - topFolder = C:\Users\Me\Desktop\UAtests\GenerateScanReport\generateScanReport\Data
[INFO] [2019-03-07 13:58:07,105 +0200] - Start parsing pom files
[INFO] [2019-03-07 13:58:07,112 +0200] - End parsing pom files , found : search-engine,search-engine-client,search-engine-server
[INFO] [2019-03-07 13:58:07,191 +0200] - Trying to resolve HTML dependencies
[INFO] [2019-03-07 13:58:09,113 +0200] -
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------- End: Pre-Step & Resolve Dependencies --------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary Table

A summary at the end of scan with all the relevant information on each step is also displayed. It Includes the following columns:

• Step: The relevant step of the scan

• Completion Status: Either 'COMPLETED' or 'FAILED'

• Elapsed: The time that step took. Note that the sub-steps are not included in the total elapsed running time (e.g., Maven, HTML).

• Comments: When available, more information on the step.

For example: 

Step                                 Completion Status                              Elapsed                              Comments
======================================================================================================================================================
Fetch Configuration                     COMPLETED                                 00:00:00.078                           --------
Scan Files Matching 'Includes' Pattern  COMPLETED                                 00:00:00.014                   1 source/binary files
Pre-Step & Resolve Dependencies         COMPLETED                                 00:00:06.378                   7 total dependencies (7 unique)
   MAVEN                                COMPLETED                                 00:00:04.416                   5 total dependencies (5 unique)
   HTML                                 COMPLETED                                 00:00:01.922                   2 total dependencies (2 unique)
Update Inventory                        COMPLETED                                 00:00:01.551                   2 updated projects

======================================================================================================================================================
Elapsed running time:                                                             00:00:08.021
======================================================================================================================================================
Process finished with exit code SUCCESS (0)

Execution Examples

The following are several syntax examples for various use cases of the Unified Agent execution:

Executing the Unified Agent: 

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -d /path/to/lib/folder

If you want to place the configuration file in a different folder, then you can specify its path as follows:

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -c /path/to/config/file -d /path/to/lib/folder

Multiple folders and files from text file:

(1)  To avoid a long command line string, use a text file with folders and files separated by new lines. For example:

/path/to/javascript/lib
/path/to/ruby/lib
/path/to/jars/aopalliance-1.0.jar
/path/to/jars/antlr-2.7.7.jar
/path/to/cpp/httpclient.cpp

 (2)  Run the agent using the argument '-f' (see Command Line Parameters):

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -f files.list

Multiple Folders and Files

Multiple folders and files can be scanned by entering comma-separated paths and using the argument '-d':

NOTE: Single files inserted via the -d argument are not excluded if they match the exclude glob pattern.

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -c /path/to/config/file -d /path/to/java/lib,/path/to/cpp/lib,/path/to/js/lib,/path/to/file/myfile.rb

Run the Unified Agent with the project and/or product parameters from the command line instead of the configuration file:

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -c /path/to/config/file -d /path/to/lib/folder -product my-product-name -productVersion 1.0.0 -project my-project-name -projectVersion 1.0.0

Allow downloading and using a configuration file from remote locations as well:

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -c http://user:password@example.com:8080/ -d /path/to/lib/folder

Run the Unified Agent with updateType from the command line:

NOTE: Supported from version 17.11.2. If not specified, the default value is updateType OVERRIDE.

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -updateType APPEND -c /path/to/config/file -d /path/to/lib/folder

Run the Unified Agent to create one project per subfolder:

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -projectPerFolder true -c /path/to/config/file -d /path/to/lib/folder

Run the Unified Agent with apiKey from the command line instead of the configuration file

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -c /path/to/config/file -apiKey your-api-key -d /path/to/lib/folder

Example:

Run the Unified Agent with proxy parameters from the command line instead of the configuration file

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -c /path/to/config/file -d /path/to/lib/folder -proxy.host my-proxy-host-name -proxy.port my-proxy-port-number -proxy.user my-proxy-username -proxy.pass my-proxy-password

Allow downloading and using the configuration file from remote locations with proxy 

NOTE: Running the Unified Agent with '-product' and '-project' parameters from the CLI will ignore the same parameters set in the configuration file (supported from version 1.7.1).

java -jar /path/to/jar/wss-unified-agent.jar -c path/to/config/file/in/remote -proxy scheme://<user>:<password>@host:port/ -d /path/to/lib/folder

*SmartMatch is trademarked.