Running as a service (version 5.0.2

[hasninbl]

I Install the new version 5.0.2, but when I notice the fail to start the service.

root@lab-virtual-machine:/opt/cve/cve-search/_etc/systemd/system# systemctl start cvesearch.db_init.service
Failed to start cvesearch.db_init.service: Unit cvesearch.db_init.service not found.
root@lab-virtual-machine:/opt/cve/cve-search/_etc/systemd/system#

[oh2fih]

The units in _etc/systemd/system are SystemD service examples. You should revise they fit to your needs & environment.

• You already using the path in WorkingDirectory=/opt/cve/cve-search.

• The example units also assume you have user cve.

• Because the path /opt/cve/cve-search is used a a working directory, the user may also need to be a owner with write access to the path for, e.g., saving the log files.

  Personally, I use a different approach with a dynamic user that doesn't even exist in /etc/passwd, e.g.,

  [Service]
  User=cvesearch
  DynamicUser=yes
  StateDirectory=cvesearch
  Environment=HOME=/var/lib/cvesearch
  SyslogIdentifier=cvesearch.db_updater
  LogsDirectory=cve-search
  

After revising the units you can activate them by copying them to /etc/systemd/system/, and you probably also need to add your NVD NIST API KEY (get it using NIST's Request an API Key form) in your environment for all the units that needs it, e.g.,

sudo cp /opt/cve/cve-search/_etc/systemd/system/* /etc/systemd/system/
sudo mkdir /etc/systemd/system/cvesearch.db_init.service.d
sudo mkdir /etc/systemd/system/cvesearch.db_repopulate.service.d
sudo mkdir /etc/systemd/system/cvesearch.db_updater.service.d
echo -e "[Service]\nEnvironment=NVD_NIST_API_KEY=add-your-own-api-key" \
  | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/cvesearch.db_init.service.d/APIKEY.conf \
  | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/cvesearch.db_repopulate.service.d/APIKEY.conf \
  | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/cvesearch.db_updater.service.d/APIKEY.conf
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Finally, you need to notice that systemctl start cvesearch.db_init.service won't work because the unit has RefuseManualStart=true. As documented in the Populating the database section, there is the .target unit:

These could be also run as a SystemD service. Example units are under _etc/systemd/system/: cvesearch.db_init.service & cvesearch.db_init.target.

sudo systemctl start --no-block cvesearch.db_init.target

The purpose of this .target unit is to handle service dependencies. It stops the cvesearch.web.service because during database initialization (and repopulation) the data is in indefinable state and the API would give false results. Again, the SystemD units should be revised, because on a Production Installation with UWSGI app it might be the UWSGI that should be stopped, instead.

It is likely that the documentation is incomplete as it assumes some general knowledge on administering Linux servers. Any feedback on the documentation is welcome, so that it can be improved to help more users.

[oh2fih]

✅ I have once again tested the cvesearch.db_init.target with CVE-Search 5.0.2 & CveXplore 0.3.29.

Testing environment:

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
• An empty MongoDB cvedb.
• The following dependencies come as stable versions from the Ubuntu repositories:

   python3-aiohttp,
   python3-aioretry,
   python3-alembic,
   python3-aniso8601,
   python3-ansicolors,
   python3-attr,
   python3-bs4,
   python3-click-completion,
   python3-click,
   python3-dateutil,
   python3-dicttoxml,
   python3-dominate,
   python3-dotenv,
   python3-flask-login,
   python3-flask-socketio,
   python3-flask,
   python3-flaskext.wtf,
   python3-gevent-websocket,
   python3-gevent,
   python3-gunicorn,
   python3-ijson,
   python3-itsdangerous,
   python3-jinja2,
   python3-jsonpickle,
   python3-jsonschema,
   python3-markupsafe,
   python3-nltk,
   python3-oauthlib,
   python3-pandas,
   python3-pygelf,
   python3-pymongo,
   python3-pyrsistent,
   python3-redis,
   python3-requests,
   python3-six,
   python3-sqlalchemy,
   python3-tqdm,
   python3-tz,
   python3-urllib3,
   python3-werkzeug,
   python3-whoosh,
   python3-wtforms,
   python3
  

• And the rest fresh from pip:

  tqdm==4.66.1
  ansicolors==1.1.8
  pygelf>=0.4.2
  aioretry>=5.0.2
  https://github.com/marianoguerra/feedformatter/archive/master.zip
  Flask-restx==1.1.0
  Flask-Breadcrumbs==0.5.1
  Flask-Bootstrap4==4.0.2
  Flask-JWT-Extended==4.3.1
  Flask-plugins==1.6.1
  requirements-parser==0.5.0
  nested-lookup==0.2.25
  Flask-Menu==0.7.2
  visitor==0.1.3 # Required-by: Flask-Bootstrap4