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Getting Started with the IaC Provider

Prowler's Infrastructure as Code (IaC) provider enables you to scan local or remote infrastructure code for security and compliance issues using Checkov. This provider supports a wide range of IaC frameworks, allowing you to assess your code before deployment.

Supported Frameworks

The IaC provider leverages Checkov to support multiple frameworks, including:

  • Terraform
  • CloudFormation
  • Kubernetes
  • ARM (Azure Resource Manager)
  • Serverless
  • Dockerfile
  • YAML/JSON (generic IaC)
  • Bicep
  • Helm
  • GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Bitbucket Pipelines, Azure Pipelines, CircleCI, Argo Workflows
  • Ansible
  • Kustomize
  • OpenAPI
  • SAST, SCA (Software Composition Analysis)

How It Works

  • The IaC provider scans your local directory (or a specified path) for supported IaC files, or scan a remote repository.
  • No cloud credentials or authentication are required for local scans.
  • For remote repository scans, authentication can be provided via git URL, CLI flags or environment variables.
  • Mutelist logic is handled by Checkov, not Prowler.
  • Results are output in the same formats as other Prowler providers (CSV, JSON, HTML, etc.).

Usage

To run Prowler with the IaC provider, use the iac argument. You can specify the directory or repository to scan, frameworks to include, and paths to exclude.

Scan a Local Directory (default)

prowler iac --scan-path ./my-iac-directory

Scan a Remote GitHub Repository

prowler iac --scan-repository-url https://github.com/user/repo.git

Authentication for Remote Private Repositories

You can provide authentication for private repositories using one of the following methods:

  • GitHub Username and Personal Access Token (PAT): 
    prowler iac --scan-repository-url https://github.com/user/repo.git \
  --github-username <username> --personal-access-token <token>
  • GitHub OAuth App Token: 
    prowler iac --scan-repository-url https://github.com/user/repo.git \
  --oauth-app-token <oauth_token>
  • If not provided via CLI, the following environment variables will be used (in order of precedence):
    • GITHUB_OAUTH_APP_TOKEN
    • GITHUB_USERNAME and GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN
  • If neither CLI flags nor environment variables are set, the scan will attempt to clone without authentication or using the provided in the git URL.

Mutually Exclusive Flags

  • --scan-path and --scan-repository-url are mutually exclusive. Only one can be specified at a time.

Specify Frameworks

Scan only Terraform and Kubernetes files:

prowler iac --scan-path ./my-iac-directory --frameworks terraform kubernetes

Exclude Paths

prowler iac --scan-path ./my-iac-directory --exclude-path ./my-iac-directory/test,./my-iac-directory/examples

Output

You can use the standard Prowler output options, for example:

prowler iac --scan-path ./iac --output-formats csv json html

Notes

  • The IaC provider does not require cloud authentication for local scans.
  • For remote repository scans, authentication is optional but required for private repos.
  • CLI flags override environment variables for authentication.
  • It is ideal for CI/CD pipelines and local development environments.
  • For more details on supported frameworks and rules, see the Checkov documentation.