From 3166aa88dd016133e4168a114b2a2a672d1faf62 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Erich Blume Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2026 09:24:32 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] docs: retire Prowler image + IaC scans, keep K8s CIS only Document the decision to retire the container-image CVE scan and the IaC scan, which generated tens of thousands of un-actioned, un-muted findings weekly with no realized value. The K8s CIS scan (fully mutelisted, runs clean) is retained. Rationale captured in deploy-prowler. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) --- docs/how-to/operations/deploy-prowler.md | 49 ++++++------------- .../operations/read-compliance-reports.md | 11 +++-- docs/reference/operations/security.md | 8 +-- docs/reference/services/prowler.md | 12 ++--- 4 files changed, 33 insertions(+), 47 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/how-to/operations/deploy-prowler.md b/docs/how-to/operations/deploy-prowler.md index 75dced2..1475680 100644 --- a/docs/how-to/operations/deploy-prowler.md +++ b/docs/how-to/operations/deploy-prowler.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- title: Deploy Prowler CIS Scanner -modified: 2026-03-24 +modified: 2026-06-08 last-reviewed: 2026-03-24 tags: - how-to @@ -11,7 +11,20 @@ tags: # Deploy Prowler CIS Scanner -Prowler runs weekly CIS Kubernetes Benchmark scans against minikube-indri and writes HTML/CSV/JSON reports to the NFS share on sifaka. +Prowler runs a weekly CIS Kubernetes Benchmark scan against minikube-indri and writes HTML/CSV/JSON reports to the NFS share on sifaka. + +## Why only the K8s CIS scan + +Prowler originally ran three CronJobs: K8s CIS, container-image CVE scanning, and IaC scanning. The image and IaC scans were **retired in 2026-06**. + +Both were pure toil with no realized value: + +- **Image scan** produced ~20,000 unmuted findings per run and growing, none ever triaged or muted. They were overwhelmingly CVEs in *upstream* base images we don't control and can't patch, and the job re-scanned every historical tag still in the registry, multiplying the count. +- **IaC scan** produced ~650 Trivy KSV findings (`runAsNonRoot`, `readOnlyRootFilesystem`, drop-capabilities, …) against our own manifests — real but systemic, homelab-acceptable, and likewise never muted, so the weekly review re-surfaced all of them indefinitely. + +The K8s CIS scan, by contrast, is fully mutelisted and runs clean (0 unmuted findings week over week), so it stays. The guiding principle matches [[ai-scraper-mitigation]]: don't keep generating a firehose of output that has no audience. If image-CVE signal is wanted later, the right shape is critical-severity-only, currently-deployed-tags-only, alert-on-new — a rebuild, not a revival (tracked as the "Trivy for image/IaC scanning" task). + +Note that the K8s CIS scan itself is tied to minikube-indri, which is slated for retirement; on k3s only ~22 of 70 checks produce results (no static pods). Re-pointing a lean posture check at ringtail is tracked separately ("prowler scan against ringtail"). ## What it checks @@ -33,38 +46,6 @@ Prowler's Kubernetes provider runs ~70 checks from the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark **k3s note:** k3s embeds the control plane in a single binary — no static pods exist. Only core + RBAC checks (~22 of 70) produce results. Consider `kube-bench` for k3s control plane checks. -### Image vulnerability scanning (Saturday 3am) - -Prowler's image provider scans all `blumeops/*` container images in `registry.ops.eblu.me` for: - -- **CVEs** — known vulnerabilities from NVD, Alpine SecDB, Debian Security Tracker, and other sources -- **Embedded secrets** — credentials or API keys baked into image layers -- **Misconfigurations** — Dockerfile best practices (running as root, missing HEALTHCHECK, etc.) - -Uses Trivy under the hood. Reports are written to `sifaka:/volume1/reports/prowler-images/`. - -To run an ad-hoc image scan: - -```fish -kubectl create job --from=cronjob/prowler-image-scan prowler-image-manual -n prowler --context=minikube-indri -``` - -### IaC scanning (Saturday 2am) - -Prowler's IaC provider scans the blumeops repository (cloned at scan time) for misconfigurations in: - -- **Dockerfiles** — running as root, using `latest` tags, missing `HEALTHCHECK` -- **Kubernetes manifests** — missing resource limits, privileged containers, insecure settings -- **Other IaC files** — Terraform, CloudFormation, etc. if present - -Uses Trivy under the hood. Reports are written to `sifaka:/volume1/reports/prowler-iac/`. - -To run an ad-hoc IaC scan: - -```fish -kubectl create job --from=cronjob/prowler-iac-scan prowler-iac-manual -n prowler --context=minikube-indri -``` - ## Reports Reports are written to `sifaka:/volume1/reports/prowler/` with timestamped filenames. See [[read-compliance-reports]] for how to access and interpret them. diff --git a/docs/how-to/operations/read-compliance-reports.md b/docs/how-to/operations/read-compliance-reports.md index e676ad5..2990026 100644 --- a/docs/how-to/operations/read-compliance-reports.md +++ b/docs/how-to/operations/read-compliance-reports.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- title: Read Compliance Reports -modified: 2026-04-06 +modified: 2026-06-08 last-reviewed: 2026-04-06 tags: - how-to @@ -27,8 +27,13 @@ Reports are stored on sifaka at `/volume1/reports/`. Each scanner writes to its | Scanner | Path | Schedule | |---------|------|----------| | [[prowler]] K8s CIS | `sifaka:/volume1/reports/prowler/` | Weekly (Sunday 3am) | -| [[prowler]] Image | `sifaka:/volume1/reports/prowler-images/` | Weekly (Saturday 3am) | -| [[prowler]] IaC | `sifaka:/volume1/reports/prowler-iac/` | Weekly (Saturday 2am) | + +> **Retired (2026-06):** the Prowler **image** (`prowler-images/`) and **IaC** +> (`prowler-iac/`) scans were retired. They produced tens of thousands of +> un-actioned, un-muted findings every week — mostly unpatchable upstream-image +> CVEs and systemic pod-security KSV warnings — and nobody triaged them. See +> [[deploy-prowler#Why only the K8s CIS scan]] for the rationale. Their stale +> report directories may linger on sifaka until manually removed. Copy reports to your local machine (remember `scp -O` for sifaka): diff --git a/docs/reference/operations/security.md b/docs/reference/operations/security.md index 11c4df9..86b3d3b 100644 --- a/docs/reference/operations/security.md +++ b/docs/reference/operations/security.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- title: Security & Compliance -modified: 2026-03-24 +modified: 2026-06-08 last-reviewed: 2026-03-24 tags: - operations @@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ Security posture and compliance scanning for BlumeOps infrastructure. ## Scanning tools -- [[prowler]] — CIS Kubernetes Benchmark scanner (weekly CronJob) +- [[prowler]] — CIS Kubernetes Benchmark scanner (weekly CronJob). The container-image CVE scan and IaC scan were retired in 2026-06 (un-actioned noise — see [[deploy-prowler#Why only the K8s CIS scan]]); only the K8s CIS scan remains. - [[deploy-prowler]] — deployment and ad-hoc scan how-to - [[read-compliance-reports]] — accessing and interpreting reports - [[kingfisher]] — Secret detection and live validation for Forgejo repos (weekly CronJob + prek hook) @@ -52,5 +52,5 @@ Suppressed findings are kept in Prowler mutelist YAML under `argocd/manifests/pr - No SOC 2 compliance mapping for Kubernetes (Prowler only maps SOC 2 for AWS/Azure/GCP) - k3s control plane checks produce no results (embedded binary, no static pods) — consider kube-bench -- Container image scanning covers `blumeops/*` images only — upstream images (ollama, immich, etc.) are not scanned -- IaC scanning covers the blumeops repo only — no scanning of third-party Helm charts or vendored manifests +- No container-image CVE scanning (the Prowler image scan was retired 2026-06 as un-actioned noise). If reintroduced, scope it to critical-severity, currently-deployed tags, alert-on-new +- No automated IaC misconfiguration scanning (the Prowler IaC scan was retired 2026-06). Manifest pod-security hardening is now an accept-and-document decision rather than a weekly report diff --git a/docs/reference/services/prowler.md b/docs/reference/services/prowler.md index f45955f..9f7e4b3 100644 --- a/docs/reference/services/prowler.md +++ b/docs/reference/services/prowler.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- title: Prowler -modified: 2026-03-24 +modified: 2026-06-08 last-reviewed: 2026-03-24 tags: - service @@ -17,20 +17,20 @@ CIS Kubernetes Benchmark scanner for compliance posture reporting. |----------|-------| | **Namespace** | `prowler` | | **Image** | `registry.ops.eblu.me/blumeops/prowler` (see `argocd/manifests/prowler/kustomization.yaml` for current tag) | -| **Schedule** | K8s CIS: Sunday 3am / Image: Saturday 3am / IaC: Saturday 2am | -| **Reports** | `sifaka:/volume1/reports/prowler/`, `prowler-images/`, `prowler-iac/` (NFS) | +| **Schedule** | K8s CIS: Sunday 3am | +| **Reports** | `sifaka:/volume1/reports/prowler/` (NFS) | | **Manifests** | `argocd/manifests/prowler/` | ## What it does -Runs Prowler 5 as two CronJobs: +Runs Prowler 5 as a single CronJob: - **K8s CIS scan** (Sunday) — CIS Kubernetes Benchmark v1.11 checks across pod security, RBAC, apiserver, etcd, kubelet, controller-manager, and scheduler -- **Image scan** (Saturday) — CVE, secret, and misconfiguration scanning of all `blumeops/*` container images in the registry via Trivy -- **IaC scan** (Saturday) — static analysis of Dockerfiles, K8s manifests, and other IaC files in the repo via Trivy Reports are written in HTML, CSV, and JSON-OCSF to the NFS share on sifaka. +The **image** and **IaC** scans (formerly Saturday CronJobs) were retired in 2026-06 — they generated tens of thousands of un-actioned findings weekly. See [[deploy-prowler#Why only the K8s CIS scan]]. + ## See also - [[security]] — security & compliance posture overview