Skip to main content

Nexus IQ step configuration



You can use the Nexus IQ Scanner in Harness STO to scan your Code Repositories for Software Composition Analysis (SCA). This document guides you through the configuration process, explaining each field and the information required to set up the scan step successfully.

info

The following topics contain useful information for setting up scanner integrations in STO:

Nexus IQ step settings​

The recommended workflow is to add the step to a Security or Build stage and then configure it as described below.

Scan​

Scan Mode​

  • Orchestration mode: In this mode, the step executes the scan, then processes the results by normalizing and deduplicating them.

  • Ingestion mode: In this mode, the step reads scan results from a data file, normalizes the data, and removes duplicates. It supports ingestion of results from scan results in SARIF format.

  • Extraction mode: In this mode, the step retrieves scan results from the Nexus IQ server/portal and stores them in STO

Scan Configuration​

The predefined configuration to use for the scan. All scan steps have at least one configuration.

Target​

Type​

  • Repository Scan a codebase repo.

    In most cases, you specify the codebase using a code repo connector that connects to the Git account or repository where your code is stored. For information, go to Configure codebase.

Target and variant detection​

When Auto is enabled for code repositories, the step detects these values using git:

  • To detect the target, the step runs git config --get remote.origin.url.
  • To detect the variant, the step runs git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD. The default assumption is that the HEAD branch is the one you want to scan.

Note the following:

  • Auto is not available when the Scan Mode is Ingestion.
  • Auto is the default selection for new pipelines. Manual is the default for old pipelines, but you might find that neither radio button is selected in the UI.

Name​

The identifier for the target, such as codebaseAlpha or jsmith/myalphaservice. Descriptive target names make it much easier to navigate your scan data in the STO UI.

It is good practice to specify a baseline for every target.

Variant​

The identifier for the specific variant to scan. This is usually the branch name, image tag, or product version. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.

Workspace​

The workspace path on the pod running the scan step. The workspace path is /harness by default.

You can override this if you want to scan only a subset of the workspace. For example, suppose the pipeline publishes artifacts to a subfolder /tmp/artifacts and you want to scan these artifacts only. In this case, you can specify the workspace path as /harness/tmp/artifacts.

Additionally, you can specify individual files to scan as well. For instance, if you only want to scan a specific file like /tmp/iac/infra.tf, you can specify the workspace path as /harness/tmp/iac/infra.tf

Ingestion File​

The path to your scan results when running an Ingestion scan, for example /shared/scan_results/myscan.latest.sarif.

  • The data file must be in a supported format for the scanner.

  • The data file must be accessible to the scan step. It's good practice to save your results files to a shared path in your stage. In the visual editor, go to the stage where you're running the scan. Then go to Overview > Shared Paths. You can also add the path to the YAML stage definition like this:

        - stage:
          spec:
            sharedPaths:
              - /shared/scan_results

Authentication​

Domain​

The fully-qualified URL to the scanner.

Access ID​

The username to log in to the scanner.

Access Token​

The access token to log in to the scanner. This is usually a password or an API key.

You should create a Harness text secret with your encrypted token and reference the secret using the format <+secrets.getValue("my-access-token")>. For more information, go to Add and Reference Text Secrets.

Scan Tool​

Lookup Type​

Select how to identify the application in Extraction scan mode. You can specify the application by its Public ID or Private ID.

Project Name​

The name of the scan project as defined in your scanner configuration. In Harness, this value is also used as the Target Name when the Auto option is selected under Target and Variant Detection.

Organization ID​

The unique identifier of your organization in Nexus IQ Server. This ID is used to associate policies, applications, and scan results with the correct organizational context in Nexus IQ. If the application doesn't exist and automatic creation is enabled, it will be created under this organization.

You can find the Organization ID in the URL of your Nexus IQ Server/Portal, e.g., for https://your-nexus-server/#/management/view/organization/44a7583387054c2fb55aefeb7c618195 the Organization ID is 44a7583387054c2fb55aefeb7c618195.

Lookup ID​

The identifier for the specific application you are scanning in Nexus IQ, also known as the Application ID. This maps scan results to a known application profile in your Nexus IQ Server. When automatic creation is enabled and this ID hasn't been used before, a new application is created with this ID.

  • The Public ID is typically what you use for application lookups and can be found under the App Name in Nexus IQ UI.
  • The Private ID is an internal reference, mainly used in API calls or advanced scenarios.

Exclude​

Define the exclusions to the scan's initial scope. The format should follow the Nexus IQ scanner requirements. You can exclude both files and folders, separated by commas. For example: exclude="cmd,*/go.mod"

Log Level​

The minimum severity of the messages you want to include in your scan logs. You can specify one of the following:

  • DEBUG
  • INFO
  • WARNING
  • ERROR

Additional CLI flags​

Use this field to run the Nexus with flags.

caution

Passing additional CLI flags is an advanced feature. Harness recommends the following best practices:

  • Test your flags and arguments thoroughly before you use them in your Harness pipelines. Some flags might not work in the context of STO.

  • Don't add flags that are already used in the default configuration of the scan step.

    To check the default configuration, go to a pipeline execution where the scan step ran with no additional flags. Check the log output for the scan step. You should see a line like this:

    Command [ scancmd -f json -o /tmp/output.json ]

    In this case, don't add -f or -o to Additional CLI flags.

Fail on Severity​

Every STO scan step has a Fail on Severity setting. If the scan finds any vulnerability with the specified severity level or higher, the pipeline fails automatically. You can specify one of the following:

  • CRITICAL
  • HIGH
  • MEDIUM
  • LOW
  • INFO
  • NONE — Do not fail on severity

The YAML definition looks like this: fail_on_severity : critical # | high | medium | low | info | none

Additional Configuration​

The fields under Additional Configuration vary based on the type of infrastructure. Depending on the infrastructure type selected, some fields may or may not appear in your settings. Below are the details for each field

Advanced settings​

In the Advanced settings, you can use the following options:

Proxy settings​

This step supports Harness Secure Connect if you're using Harness Cloud infrastructure. During the Secure Connect setup, the HTTPS_PROXY and HTTP_PROXY variables are automatically configured to route traffic through the secure tunnel. If there are specific addresses that you want to bypass the Secure Connect proxy, you can define those in the NO_PROXY variable. This can be configured in the Settings of your step.

If you need to configure a different proxy (not using Secure Connect), you can manually set the HTTPS_PROXY, HTTP_PROXY, and NO_PROXY variables in the Settings of your step.

Definitions of Proxy variables:​

  • HTTPS_PROXY: Specify the proxy server for HTTPS requests, example https://sc.internal.harness.io:30000
  • HTTP_PROXY: Specify the proxy server for HTTP requests, example http://sc.internal.harness.io:30000
  • NO_PROXY: Specify the domains as comma-separated values that should bypass the proxy. This allows you to exclude certain traffic from being routed through the proxy.