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Drone User Guide

Here you'll find how to install, configure, and administer the Drone service. The Drone service consists of a MySQL database and a Ruby on Rails web service. It can be installed on any host system.

If you have a single host system with one Manager, then it is recommended that the Drone service be installed on the same host system. However, one Drone service can support multiple Managers running on various host systems. Therefore, if you have multiple Managers, it is recommended that the Drone service be installed on a single system that each Manager can contact directly.

  1. MySQL
    1. Install MySQL
    2. Start MySQL Server
    3. Add MySQL to System Startup
    4. Set the MySQL Root Password
    5. Create the Drone Service Account
  2. Ruby
    1. Install Ruby
    2. Install RubyGems (Latest Version)
    3. Install the RubyGem: hpricot (Latest Version)
    4. Install the RubyGem: RbYAML (Latest Version)
    5. Install Rake (Latest Version)
  3. Create a Drone User Account
  4. Download the Drone Package
  5. Rails
    1. Modify Connection Settings
    2. Create the Database
    3. Create the Tables
  6. Start the Drone Service
  7. Access the Drone Service

MySQL

Install MySQL

The Honeyclient Drone database components were tested for compatibility with MySQL. Installation documentation can be found at the MySQL website.

Start MySQL Server

This can usually be accomplished by executing the following command as root: 

# /etc/init.d/mysql start

However, this command may vary for certain OS distributions.

Add MySQL to System Startup

Refer to your OS distribution's documentation for adding MySQL as a startup service. Verify that MySQL automatically starts when the Drone system reboots.

Set the MySQL Root Password

Set the MySQL root password, if you didn't already do so during installation. This can be accomplished by connecting to the MySQL database console and typing the following commands: 

mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('root_pass') WHERE User='root';

Create the Drone Service Account

Set the user account that the Ruby on Rails web service will use to interact with the MySQL database. 

mysql> GRANT ALL ON drone_development.* TO 'drone_user'@'127.0.0.1' IDENTIFIED BY 'drone_pass';
mysql> GRANT ALL ON drone_test.* TO 'drone_user'@'127.0.0.1' IDENTIFIED BY 'drone_pass';
mysql> GRANT ALL ON drone_production.* TO 'drone_user'@'127.0.0.1' IDENTIFIED BY 'drone_pass';

If the user 'drone_user' does not exist, these statements will create this account.

Ruby

Install Ruby

Most of the Drone components were developed using Ruby. Installation of Ruby is well documented and varies depending on the OS. If your OS package management system does not provide Ruby, download it at:

Note: Header files will be required for compiling extension modules. Certain distributions including Ubuntu and Debian will require you to apt-get ruby1.8-dev as well.

Install RubyGems (Latest Version)

RubyGems is a packaging system for Ruby components that must be installed. You can download it at:

Install the RubyGem: hpricot (Latest Version)

The hpricot gem is required for the Drone service. Once RubyGems is installed, execute the following as root: 

# gem install hpricot

Install the RubyGem: RbYAML (Latest Version)

The RbYAML gem is required for the Drone service. Once RubyGems is installed, execute the following as root: 

# gem install RbYAML

Install Rake (Latest Version)

Rake (or Ruby Make) is a build program for Ruby, similar to make that must be installed. You can download it at:

Create a Drone User Account

Create a user account on the Drone system and change to the user's home directory (e.g., /home/user). If you're installing the Drone service on the host system, then this user directory can also be where the honeyclient package was extracted, as well.

Download the Drone Package

Download and extract the latest version of Drone package from the downloads page.

Note: This guide assumes the data has been downloaded/extracted to the /home/user/drone directory.

Rails

The Drone application can operate in 3 modes: production, development, or test. By default, it will use the development mode. In order to use a different environment, you'll need to specify an environment. This can be done by prefixing all rake commands with the RAILS_ENV environment variable. In all our examples, we assume the application will run in production mode.

Modify Connection Settings

The Drone application must be configured to access your database. In order to do this, edit the file: ~/drone/config/database.yml. Change all references of drone_user and drone_pass to the actual username and password used when you created the MySQL Drone service account. 

cd ~/drone
vi config/database.yml

Create the Database

To create the database, execute the following command: 

$ cd ~/drone
$ RAILS_ENV=production rake db:create

Create the Tables

To migrate to the current version of the database, execute the following command: 

$ cd ~/drone
$ RAILS_ENV=production rake db:migrate

Start the Drone Service

In order to use the services provided by Drone, application must be available on a web server. By default, we provide the WEBrick daemon, which can be executed, as follows: 

$ cd ~/drone
$ ruby script/server -e production

Access the Drone Service

To access the Drone service, launch a web browser and specify the Drone system's URL, as follows: 

http://<drone_ip_address>:3000

The default login for the web interface is:

user: admin
pass: test

Note: This interface is considered beta. It is recommended analysts also use the MySQL Query Browser for additional data views.