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Mondoo 9.0 is out!

· 11 min read
Tim Smith
Mondoo Core Team
Dominik Richter
Mondoo Core Team

🥳 Mondoo 9.0 is out!​

This is a major new release with exciting improvements to cnquery and cnspec's extensibility.

This release includes a whole new cnquery and cnspec client, enhanced GitLab scanning, piles of new resource updates, and more!

Get this release: Installation Docs | Package Downloads | Docker Container

🎉 NEW FEATURES​

All new cnspec and cnquery clients!​

Up to this point, both cnquery and cnspec had all connectors and providers built into one binary file each. This was great when we only had a few connectors and things were small. Recently, however, the binaries have exploded in size with every new technology that we added. Since both projects are designed to also run on small devices and embedded controllers, we wanted to change this approach for some time now.

This release includes entirely new binaries for cnquery and cnspec. Both are 90% smaller, re-usable, and extensible now!

  1. Provider plugins

    When you connect to any technology (like AWS, Azure, K8s, etc) we now install a dedicated provider for that technology. This happens automatically for all core technologies we support:

    > cnquery run aws -c asset.name
    → installing provider 'aws' version=9.0.8
    → successfully installed aws provider path=/home/zero/.config/mondoo/providers/aws version=9.0.8
    → loaded configuration from /home/zero/.config/mondoo/mondoo.yml using source default
    asset.name: "AWS Account lunalectric-management (177043759486)"

    These provider plugins are shared between cnquery and cnspec. If you install any provider for cnquery, it is available to cnspec and vice versa.

  2. Automatic updates

    Providers are automatically updated to the latest version of the current major release:

    ~ $> cnspec shell aws
    → found a new version for 'aws' provider installed=9.0.5 latest=9.0.8
    → successfully installed aws provider path=/home/zero/.config/mondoo/providers/aws version=9.0.8
    ...

    We avoid breaking changes during all major versions and will notify users of deprecations with a full major version of grace period, during which you can use deprecated features.

    For containers and restricted environments, you can turn off updates via --auto-update=false or auto_update: false in the config file. This will prevent existing providers from getting updated and prevent new providers from being installed.

    For example: If you install cnquery or cnspec on a container, you can pre-install all providers you aim to use with it. At the end of the build process you then deactivate the auto-update in the config file.

  3. Custom providers

    You can view all providers via the providers subcommand:

    > cnquery providers

    → builtin (found 2 providers)

      core 9.0.1
      mock 9.0.0 with connectors: mock

    → /home/zero/.config/mondoo/providers (found 4 providers)

      aws 9.0.8 with connectors: aws
      azure 9.0.4 with connectors: azure
      gitlab 9.0.4 with connectors: gitlab
      os 9.0.8 with connectors: local, ssh, winrm, vagrant, container, docker, filesystem

    → /opt/mondoo/providers has no providers

    This command not only prints the current providers and versions, but it also shows the locations in which providers are installed.

    In the coming days we will share written and video guides on how to create your very own provider. In the meantime, feel free to check out cnquery's "providers" folder with lots of examples! All providers are distributed as binaries with a proto interface, so you can write them in Go or any other language with GRPC support.

    You can now create custom providers and install them everywhere you want to run them! This also includes restricted code that may use your company's internal APIs and which you don't want to publish. Mondoo will support the schema-upload shortly so you can see results in our UI without exposing any code.

Hassle-free asset discovery in GitLab scans​

We've removed the pain of manually discovering assets throughout your GitLab environment with new hassle-free asset discovery. The GitLab Mondoo Platform integration and the cnspec CLI now include options to automatically discover all GitLab projects, groups, and even Terraform files within your GitLab projects. Set it once and continuously scan your entire environment to secure your software supply chain and the Terraform files that define your infrastructure.

GitLab Setup

New cnspec GitLab discovery options:

cnspec scan gitlab --token TOKEN <- returns all groups the user has access to
cnspec scan gitlab --token TOKEN --discover groups <- returns the defined group and all subgroups of that group
cnspec scan gitlab --token TOKEN --discover projects <- returns all the projects discovered in all the groups the user has access to
cnspec scan gitlab --token TOKEN --discover terraform  <- returns all the Terraform files in all the projects discovered in all the groups the user has access to

Set asset annotations during client login​

Asset annotations let you add additional information on assets that can't necessarily be detected using Mondoo resources. Traditionally, these annotations have been set in the console on each asset page, but now you can automate setting annotations during the client registration process. This allows you to pass in data like employee workstation asset tags from an MDM solution.

Setting annotations during the client login:

cnspec login --token <token> --annotation assetid=MONDOO1234 --annotation location=PDX

Asset notations

🧹 IMPROVEMENTS​

New resources and resource fields​

What fun is a Mondoo release without new resources and fields to secure your infrastructure? For version 9.0, we went big with 46 new fields and resources. Stay tuned for updated policies and new asset inventory capabilities using some of these new additions.

aws.ec2.instance​

  • New httpEndpoint property: Status of the IMDS endpoint enabled on the instance
  • New stateTransitionTime property: Time when the last state transition occurred

aws.elb​

  • New createdTime property: Date the load balancer was created
  • New vpcID property: The ID of the VPC where the load balancer is located

aws.rds.dbInstances​

  • Improve default values for use in cnquery shell
  • New storageAllocated property: The amount of storage, in GiB, provisioned on the instance
  • New storageIops property: The storage IOPS provisioned on the instance
  • New storageType property: The type of storage provisioned on the instance
  • New availabilityZone property: Availability zone where the instance exists
  • New engineVersion property: The version of the database engine for this DB instance
  • New createdTime property: The creation date of the RDS instance

aws.s3.bucket​

  • New createdTime property: Date the bucket was created

aws.vpc​

  • Fix routeTables to return the correct values for the VPC
  • New cidrBlock property: IPv4 CIDR block of the VPC
  • New instanceTenancy property: How instance hardware tenancy settings are enforced on instances launched in this VPC
  • New endpoints subresource with additional fields:
    • id: Unique ID of the endpoint
    • type: Type of the endpoint
    • vpc: VPC the endpoint exists in
    • region: Region the VPC exists in
    • serviceName: The name of the endpoint service
    • policyDocument: The policy document associated with the endpoint, if applicable
    • subnets: The subnets for the (interface) endpoint
  • New subnets subresource with additional fields:
    • arn: ARN of the subnet
    • id: Unique ID of the subnet
    • cidrs: A list of CIDR descriptions
    • mapPublicIpOnLaunch: Whether instances launched in this subnet receive a public IPv4 address

azure.subscription.monitorService.activityLog​

  • New subscriptionId property: The subscription identifier

azure.subscription.monitorService.diagnosticsetting​

  • New storageAccountId property: ID of the diagnostic setting storage account

azure.subscription.monitorService.logprofile​

  • New storageAccountId property: ID of the log profile storage account

github.organization​

  • New membersCanForkPrivateRepos property: Whether members can fork private repositories to their own GitHub account

github.repository​

  • New hasDiscussions property: Whether the repository has discussions
  • New isTemplate property: Whether the repository is an organization repository template

gitlab.project​

  • New allowMergeOnSkippedPipeline property: Allow merging merge requests when a pipeline is skipped
  • New archived property: Is the project archived?
  • New autoDevopsEnabled property: Is the Auto DevOps feature enabled?
  • New containerRegistryEnabled property: Is the container registry feature enabled?
  • New createdAt property: Create date of the project
  • New defaultBranch property: Default git branch
  • New emailsDisabled property: Disable project email notifications
  • New fullName property: The full name of the project, including the namespace
  • New issuesEnabled property: Is the issues feature enabled?
  • New mergeRequestsEnabled property: Is the merge request feature enabled?
  • New mirror property: Is the project a mirror?
  • New onlyAllowMergeIfAllDiscussionsAreResolved property: Only allow merging merge requests if all discussions are resolved
  • New onlyAllowMergeIfPipelineSucceeds property: Only allow merging merge requests if the pipelines succeed
  • New packagesEnabled property: Is the packages feature enabled?
  • New requirementsEnabled property: Is the requirements feature enabled?
  • New serviceDeskEnabled property: Is the Service Desk feature enabled?
  • New snippetsEnabled property: Is the snippets feature enabled?
  • New webURL property: URL of the project
  • New wikiEnabled property: Is the wiki feature enabled?

gitlab.group​

  • New emailsDisabled property: Disable group email notifications
  • New preventForkingOutsideGroup property: Don't allow forking projects outside this group
  • New mentionsDisabled property: Disable group mentions within issues and merge requests
  • New webURL property: URL of the group

k8s.namespace​

  • New kind property: Kubernetes object type

rsyslog.conf​

  • New path property: Path for the main rsyslog file and search

terraform.settings​

  • New backend property: Backend configuration information

Improved query packs​

  • The Azure Asset Inventory Pack now includes a list of all public IP addresses in Azure subscriptions.
  • The Mondoo Asset Count query pack now includes asset counts for all GCP and GitLab assets, including all new GCP assets discovered when scanning with the --discover all flag.

MQL improvements​

Mondoo 9.0 further improves MQL so you can more easily query assets in your environment and write custom security policies.

Simple accessors for unstructured data​

Accessing structures in JSON, Terraform, and Kubernetes has often been painful:

dict["one"]["more"]["field"]

To make it easier to access these nested fields, we've introduced a new optional syntax. This is well-known from other scripting languages (like JS and TS):

dict.one.more.field

This mode continues to support our GraphQL foundation:

dict {
  one { more.field }
  two
  ...
}

It has helped simplify many use-cases for Terraform and Kubernetes:

# OLD:
tfblock {
  _["attributes"]["account_id"]["value"]
}

# NEW:
tfblock {
  attributes.account_id.value
}

Empty type​

With the new empty type, there's no need for complex logic to check for different kinds of empty values. Each of these common situations evaluate as empty:

[] == empty
null == empty
'' == empty
{} == empty

A single query can now check for an empty value in any type of data:

users.list == empty

Expanded platform EOL data​

  • Add Fedora 39: November 12, 2024
  • Add Google COS 109: September 1, 2025

🐛 BUG FIXES AND UPDATES​

  • Significantly improve querying time of ports on Linux systems. If you query ports without accessing its related process, it will now return in a fraction of the time. We are working to further speed this up for use-cases with related processes.
  • Remove errors for files.find when no results were returned. Do not return an empty file object.
  • Improve output of GCP resources in the cnquery shell.
  • Resolve errors running the CIS Ensure default user shell timeout is 900 seconds or less check.
  • Resolve errors running the CIS Ensure lockout for failed password attempts is configured check.
  • Resolve errors running the CIS Ensure password hashing algorithm is SHA-512 or yescrypt check.
  • Resolve errors running the CIS Ensure password reuse is limited check.
  • Fix false positive in the CIS Ensure lockout for failed password attempts is configured check.
  • Don't show buttons to accept a compliance exception if the user only has viewer privileges in the space.
  • Don't show null at the end of compliance framework and control descriptions.
  • Show the asset completion percentage on compliance control pages.
  • Fix invalid CloudFormation links on the AWS integration page.
  • Avoid repeatedly generating registration tokens in the organization/space page.
  • Fix incorrect integrations listed on the Google Workspace integration page.
  • Add missing label examples in the search page.
  • Change all unknown and unrated check statuses to unscored.
  • Improve the rendering of Compliance Hub control distribution graphs with large numbers of controls.
  • In the registry, fix platform icons not displaying correctly for policies that use variants.
  • Allow updating the GCP service account configuration file in GCP integrations.
  • Fix scanning of untagged Amazon ECR images.
  • Fix some check links in Compliance Hub not loading.
  • Fix EC2 instance detection when IMDSv1 is disabled.