Offline Discovery with chctl¶

Overview¶

chctl provides a simple mechanism to support CHAI™ offline discovery functionality from your local workstation.

CHAI™ Offline Discovery Architecture

Offline discovery can be performed within an air-gapped environment that may be completely isolated and disconnected from the CHAI™ portal. Cloud practitioners can use the CHAI™ command-line utility (chctl) to trigger offline discovery for Linux and Windows systems within the air-gapped environment.

The offline discovery information is captured from the Linux and Windows systems, and the captured metadata is transferred to the CHAI™ portal when internet connectivity becomes available.

Prerequisites¶

Windows Discovery Requirements¶

For Windows discovery, the latest version (7.3+) of Microsoft PowerShell with WinRM must be installed:

WinRM PowerShell Module Installation¶

To install the WinRM PowerShell module, run the following command:

sudo pwsh -Command 'Install-Module -Name PSWSMan -Force'

To check the installed WinRM module version (recommended version is 2.3+), run:

pwsh -Command 'find-module -Name PSWSMan'

Expected output:

Version   Name      Repository   Description
-------   ----      ----------   -----------
2.3.1     PSWSMan   PSGallery    Module to install and manage the forked WSMan client libraries for Linux and macOS.

chctl Tool Download¶

Download the latest version of chctl from the links below:

macOS: https://chctl-preview.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/chctl_mac
Linux: https://chctl-preview.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/chctl_linux
Windows: https://chctl-preview.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/chctl.exe

Make the chctl tool executable and copy it to your system path.

Before starting offline discovery, log in to the CHAI™ portal:

chctl utils login --username user@email --password password --server https://app.cloudhedge.io

Offline Discovery Process¶

Download the chctl tool to your local laptop or workstation
Ensure all prerequisites are in place
Gather connection information for the local application servers (hostname/IP, credentials)
Trigger offline discovery according to the scenarios described in the Scenarios section below

Data Upload Workflow¶

With internet connection: If there is internet connectivity between your local laptop/workstation and the CHAI™ portal, the offline discovery information is uploaded directly to the CHAI™ portal
Without internet connection: If connectivity is not available, the discovered data is stored on your local system
Deferred upload: Once internet connectivity is established, the discovered data can be published to the CHAI™ portal

Scenarios¶

Scenario 1: Discover Linux System with Password-Based Authentication¶

Example parameters: - System hostname: node1 - System username: ch - System password: base64encpassword (example encoded password)

chctl discover local --node node1 --osType linux --userName remoteuser --secret R0hUIzAK --waveName offline-wave

Note: Replace R0hUIzAK with your actual base64-encoded password.

Scenario 2: Discover Linux System with Key-Based Authentication¶

Example parameters: - System hostname: node1 - System username: ch - System key: base64enckey (example encoded key)

chctl discover local --node node1 --osType linux --userName remoteuser --secret GDRE454WWx --waveName offline-wave

Note: Replace GDRE454WWx with your actual base64-encoded key.

Scenario 3: Discover Windows System with Password-Based Authentication¶

Example parameters: - System hostname: winnode1 - System username: ch - System password: base64encpassword (example encoded password)

chctl discover local --node winnode1 --osType windows --userName remoteuser --secret R0hUIzAK --waveName offline-wave