Deploying AcuSensor for .NET - AWS Elastic Beanstalk

AcuSensor Network Prerequisites
AcuSensor makes use of the AcuSensor Bridge. To learn more about the AcuSensor Bridge, refer to the AcuSensor Bridge document.

This guide shows you how to run a dotNET application in AWS Elastic Beanstalk and then use AcuSensor to run an interactive application security testing (IAST) scan for that application. There are 5 steps to this process:

Step 1: Create your Target in Acunetix

For this example, we will assume that the URL for your Target is http://eb.acunetixexample.com.

  1. Create a Target in Acunetix with your URL
  2. Configure your Target Settings to enable AcuSensor. 
  3. Download the AcuSensor agent file dotnet-acusensor.zip and save this file for use later on.

Step 2: Create your web application using Visual Studio

  1. Select File > New > Project from the menu.

  1. Search for web application, then select ASP.NET Web Application (.NET Framework), and click Next.

  1. Set your Project name (in this example we are using axexample-dotnet), then click Create.

  1. Select the Empty template, uncheck the Configure for HTTPS option, then click Create.

  1. Right-click on your project name and select Add > HTML Page from the context menu.

  1. Set the Item name field to index and click OK.

  1. Edit your index.html file to read as follows:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

    <meta charset="utf-8" />

    <title></title>

</head>

<body>

    <h1>Test dotNET Site Example for AWS Elastic Beanstalk</h1>

    <br>

    Hello World! - Main Page

    <br>

    <a href="/page1.html">Goto Page 1</a>

</body>

</html>

  1. Repeat the process to create a page1.html file. Edit your page1.html file to read as follows:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

    <meta charset="utf-8" />

    <title></title>

</head>

<body>

    <h1>Test dotNET Site Example for AWS Elastic Beanstalk</h1>

    <br>

    Hello World! - Page 1

    <br>

    <a href="/">Goto Main Page</a>

</body>

</html>

  1. Save your changes to your index.html and page1.html files.

  1. Right-click on your project name and select Publish from the context menu.

  1. Select the Web Server (IIS) target, then click Next.

  1. Select the Web Deploy Package specific target, then click Next.

  1. Set the Package location to the folder where you want to keep your files and set the Site name. Then click Finish. In our example, we have set the package location to C:\axexample-dotnet\axexample-dotnet.zip and the site name to axexample-dotnet.

  1. Click Publish.

  1. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to your version of the C:\axexample-dotnet folder and remove the following files:
  • axexample-dotnet.deploy.cmd
  • axexample-dotnet.deploy-readme.txt
  • axexample-dotnet.SourceManifest.xml

Your folder should now only contain the following two files:

  • axexample-dotnet.zip
  • axexample-dotnet.SetParameters.xml

Step 3: Complete your application source code bundle

This simple web application will be defined through the following file structure:

  • C:\axexample-dotnet\.ebextensions
  • C:\axexample-dotnet\.ebextensions\acesensor.config
  • C:\axexample-dotnet\aws-windows-deployment-manifest.json
  • C:\axexample-dotnet\axexample-dotnet.SetParameters.xml
  • C:\axexample-dotnet\axexample-dotnet.zip
  • C:\axexample-dotnet\dotnet-acusensor.zip

  1. Create your C:\axexample-dotnet\.ebextensions folder.

  1. Create your C:\axexample-dotnet\.ebextensions\acusensor.config file to read as follows:

files:

  "C:\\Program Files\\Amazon\\ElasticBeanstalk\\hooks\\appdeploy\\post\\90create_folder.bat":

    content: mkdir C:\acusensor

  "C:\\Program Files\\Amazon\\ElasticBeanstalk\\hooks\\appdeploy\\post\\91extract_acusensor.bat":

    content: powershell Expand-Archive -force C:\staging-previous\dotnet-acusensor.zip -DestinationPath C:\acusensor

  "C:\\Program Files\\Amazon\\ElasticBeanstalk\\hooks\\appdeploy\\post\\92inject_acusensor.bat":

    content: "C:\acusensor\.NET Framework\injector.exe" -m inject -t http://localhost:80/

  1. Create your C:\axexample-dotnet\aws-windows-deployment-manifest.json file to read as follows:

{

  "manifestVersion": 1,

  "deployments": {

    "msDeploy": [

      {

        "name": "axexample-dotnet",

        "parameters": {

          "appBundle": "axexample-dotnet.zip",

          "iisPath": "/"

        }

      }

    ]

  }

}

  1. Copy the dotnet-acusensor.zip file you created earlier into C:\axexample-dotnet\dotnet-acusensor.zip.

  1. Build the source code bundle from the command line with:

powershell Compress-Archive -Path C:\axexample-dotnet\* -DestinationPath %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\axexample-dotnet-aws.zip

  1. Retain your zip file for the deployment steps below.

Step 4: Deploy your web application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk

  1. From your AWS Dashboard, navigate to Elastic Beanstalk > Environments.

  1. Click Create a new environment.

  1. Set your environment tier to Web server environment, then click Select.

  1. Set the Application name field to the name of your web application. (In this example we have uses the name axexample-dotnet).

  1. Set the Platform dropdown to .NET on Windows Server.

  1. Enable the Upload your code option, then click Choose file.

  1. Select your source code bundle for upload (in our example, axexample-dotnet.zip) and click Create environment. AWS Elastic Beanstalk will now create your environment. This can take a few minutes.

  1. When the process is complete you will be sent to your environment's dashboard. Take note of your environment's new URL which was created automatically by AWS Elastic Beanstalk. You will need this to create a CNAME to point to this URL.

  1. Create a CNAME for your URL to point to your environment's new URL that was created automatically by AWS Elastic Beanstalk. In our example, we used the Namecheap cPanel interface to create a CNAME for eb.acunetixexample.com to point to axexampledotnet-env.eba-phzhexiv.us-east-1.elasticbeanstalk.com.

  1. Once the CNAME record has been added (giving time for DNS records to propagate), you can see the web application you have created by browsing to your URL (in this example http://eb.acunetixexample.com).

Step 5: Test and scan your web application

  1. Point your browser to your web application (in this example http://eb.acunetixexample.com) to confirm it is running as intended. You will get the following:

  1. Run a scan on your Target. The Activity section on the Scan Information tab of your Target's scan results will confirm that AcuSensor was detected and used for the scan.

 

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