Using the Nexpose API in Linux shell scripts to bulk-create users

2016-03-02 15:09:00

The past few weeks I've spent at $CLIENT, working on their Nexpose virtual appliances. Nexpose is Rapid7's automated vulnerability scanning tool, which may also be used in unison with Rapid7's more famous product: Metasploit. It's a pretty nice tool, but it certainly needs some work to get it all up and running in a large, corporate environment.

One of the more practical aspects of our setup, is the creation of user accounts in Nexpose's web interface. Usually, you'd have to click a few times and enter a bunch of textfields for each user. This gets boring for larger groups of users, especially if you have more than one Security Console host. To make our lives just a little easier, we have at least setup the hosts to authenticate against AD.

I've fiddled around with Nexpose's API this afternoon, and after a lot of learning and trying ("Van proberen ga je het leren!" as I always tell my daughter) I've gotten things to work very nicely! I now have a basic Linux shell script (bash, but should also work in ksh) that creates user accounts in the Nexpose GUI for you!

Below is a small PoC, which should be easily adjusted to suit your own needs. Enjoy!

=====================================

#!/bin/bash
 
# In order to make API calls to Nexpose, we need to setup a session.
# A successful login returns the following:
# <LoginResponse success="1" session-id="F7377393AEC8877942E321FBDD9782C872BA8AE3"/>
 
NexposeLogin() {
        NXUSER=""
        NXPASS=""
        NXSERVER="127.0.0.1"
        NXPORT="3780"
        API="1.1"
        URI="https://${NXSERVER}:${NXPORT}/api/${API}/xml"
        NXSESSION=""
 
        echo -e "\n===================================="
        echo -e " LOGGING IN TO NEXPOSE, FOR API CALLS."
        echo -e "\n===================================="
        echo -e "Admin username: \c"; read NXUSER
        echo -e "Admin password: \c"; read NXPASS
 
        LOGIN="<LoginRequest synch-id='0' password='${NXPASS}' user-id='${NXUSER}'></LoginRequest>"
 
        export NXSESSION=$(echo "${LOGIN}" | curl -s -k -H "Content-Type:text/xml" -d @- ${URI} | head -1 | awk -F\" '{print $4}')
}
 
# Now that we have a session, we can make new users.
#    You will need to know the ID number for the desired authenticator.
# You can get this with: <UserAuthenticatorListingRequest session-id='...'/>
#    A user request takes the following shape, based on the API v1.1 docu.
#  <UserSaveRequest session-id='...'>
#  <UserConfig id="-1" role-name="user" authsrcid="9" authModule="LDAP" name="apitest2"
#   fullname="Test van de API" administrator="0" enabled="1">
#  </UserConfig>
#  </UserSaveRequest>
# On success, this returns:
#  <UserSaveResponse success="1" id="41">
# </UserSaveResponse>
 
NexposeCreateUser() {
        NEWUSER="${1}"
        SUCCESS="0"
        NXAUTHENTICATOR="9" # You must figure this out from Nexpose, see above
        NXROLE="user"
        SCRATCHFILE="/tmp/$(basename ${0}).temp"
 
        echo "<UserSaveRequest session-id='${NXSESSION}'>" > ${SCRATCHFILE}
        echo "<UserConfig id='-1' role-name='${NXROLE}' authsrcid='${NXAUTHENTICATOR}' authModule='LDAP' name='${NEWUSER}' fullname='${NEWUSER}' administrator='0' enabled='1'>" >> ${SCRATCHFILE}
        echo "</UserConfig>" >> ${SCRATCHFILE}
        echo "</UserSaveRequest>" >> ${SCRATCHFILE}
 
        SUCCESS=$(cat ${SCRATCHFILE} | curl -s -k -H "Content-Type:text/xml" -d @- ${URI} | head -1 | awk -F\" '{print $2}')
        [[ ${SUCCESS} -eq 0 ]] && logger ERROR "Failed to create Nexpose user ${NEWUSER}."
        rm ${SCRATCHFILE}
}
 
NexposeLogin
NexposeCreateUser apitest1

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