Manage cnspec Providers

Providers are the components of cnspec that allow it to query and scan specific platforms. By default, cnspec automatically manages providers for you, so most users never need this page. To learn how automatic management works and when you might need to step in (containers, read-only hosts, and air-gapped environments), read About cnspec Providers.

This page covers the provider commands. To build a provider for a platform cnspec doesn't yet support, read Create Custom cnspec Providers.

Available providers

You can download the latest versions of providers at https://releases.mondoo.com/providers/. Past versions are always available at the same location.

List installed providers

To see what providers are installed:

cnspec providers

For help on the providers subcommand:

cnspec providers -h

Install a provider

To install a provider:

cnspec providers install NAME

For NAME, substitute the provider name from the table above. For example:

cnspec providers install k8s

For help on manual provider installation:

cnspec providers install -h

To install from a file:

cnspec providers install -f PATH

For example:

cnspec providers install -f providers/os/dist/os.tar.xz

To install from a URL:

cnspec providers install --url URL

For example:

cnspec providers install --url https://releases.mondoo.com/providers/os/9.0.7/os_9.0.7_linux_arm.tar.xz

Update providers

To update all installed providers to the latest version:

cnspec providers update

To update a specific provider:

cnspec providers update NAME

For example:

cnspec providers update vsphere

Remove a provider

To remove a provider:

cnspec providers delete NAME

For example:

cnspec providers delete terraform

Disable automatic provider updates

By default, each time you run a cnspec command, cnspec downloads the latest version of the provider needed (unless it's already installed). You can change this behavior.

Disable for all commands

To disable automatic updates, set the auto_update value in the cnspec configuration file to false.

On Linux or macOS, cnspec configuration is stored in one of these locations:

• /etc/opt/mondoo/mondoo.yml configures cnspec for all user accounts on Linux
• /Library/Mondoo/etc/mondoo.yml configures cnspec for all user accounts on macOS
• ~/.config/mondoo/mondoo.yml configures cnspec for a single user

On Windows:

• C:\ProgramData\Mondoo\mondoo.yml configures cnspec for all users
• C:\Users\{username}\.config\mondoo\mondoo.yml configures cnspec for a single user

Add this setting:

auto_update: false

Disable for a single command

To skip checking for provider updates for a single command, add the --auto-update=false flag:

cnspec scan --auto-update=false

The command line flag overrides the auto_update setting in the mondoo.yml configuration file.