Integrate the scanner into your build pipeline

deprecation and removal notice

This feature was deprecated in Calico Cloud version 21.1.0 and will be removed in a future release. Availability depends on when you started using Calico Cloud.

• For users who started using Calico Cloud in April 2025 or later, this feature is not available.
• Legacy users, who started using Calico Cloud before April 2025, can continue to use this feature until it is removed in a future release.

Big picture

Integrate the Image Assurance CLI scanner into your build pipeline to ensure builds are checked by Image Assurance before deployment.

Value

The Image Assurance CLI scanner allows you to manually scan container images locally or remotely for on-demand scanning and emergency scanning. The CLI scanner is ideal for use in a CI/CD pipeline to automatically scan images before pushing them to a registry.

If the CLI scanner is part of your pipeline, scanning is done before runtime and the results are displayed in the Image Assurance dashboard in the web console.

Before you begin

Image requirements

• Docker container runtime
• Images must be available locally through the Docker container runtime environment where the Image Assurance scanner is running.

Scanner requirements

• Must have internet access to download and update the vulnerability database
• To see image scan results in the web console, the scanner must communicate with an external API endpoint outside your environment

How to

• Get the latest version of Image Assurance
• Start the scanner
• Integrate the scanner in your build pipeline
• Manually scan images
• Scan images using a configuration file

Get the latest version of Image Assurance

1. On the Managed Clusters page, select the cluster from the list, and click Reinstall.
2. Copy the updated installation script command and run it against your cluster.

Start the scanner

1. Download the latest version of the scanner.

   Linux

   curl -Lo tigera-scanner https://installer.calicocloud.io/tigera-scanner/v3.21.0-1.0-5/image-assurance-scanner-cli-linux-amd64

   macOS

   curl -Lo tigera-scanner https://installer.calicocloud.io/tigera-scanner/v3.21.0-1.0-5/image-assurance-scanner-cli-darwin-amd64

2. Set the executable flag on the binary.

   chmod +x ./tigera-scanner

note

You must download and set the executable flag each time you get a new version of the scanner.

3. Verify that the scanner works correctly by running the version command.

   ./tigera-scanner version
   v1.22.6

Integrate the scanner into your build pipeline

You can include the CLI scanner in your CI/CD pipelines (for example, Jenkins, GitHub actions). Ensure the following:

• Download the CLI scanner binary onto your CI runner
• If you are running an ephemeral environment in the pipeline, include the download, and update the executable steps in your pipeline to download the scanner on every execution
• Create a secret containing the API-Token and API URL and make it available in the pipeline (for example, using a SECURE_API_TOKEN environment variable)
• Add a step in your pipeline to run the image-assurance-scanner after building the container image, and specify the image name as a parameter. For example: ./image-assurance-cli-scanner --apiurl <sysdig-api-url> ${IMAGE_NAME}

If your CI platform supports it, you can also use the containerized version of Image Assurance scanner for integrations with other tools like Harness. To integrate the containerized version of Image Assurance scanner into your CI/CD platform, go to: Image Assurance containerized scanner and pull the latest image. For example:

   docker pull quay.io/tigera/image-assurance-scanner-cli:vx.x.x

Manually scan images

You can scan images and report results back to Calico Cloud, or scan images locally without reporting results to Calico Cloud.

Syntax:

tigera-scanner scan [OPTIONS] <image_name>

Options:

• --apiurl - Calico Cloud API URL path. You can get this URL in the web console, Image Assurance, Scan settings.
• --token - secure API or authorization token to make requests to Calico Cloud API URL. You can get this URL in the web console, Image Assurance, Scan settings.
• --warn_threshold - CVSS threshold for Warn scan results. Range from 0.0 - 10.0.
• --fail_threshold - CVSS threshold for Fail scan results. Range from 0.0 - 10.0.
• --vulnerability_db_path - path to a folder to store vulnerability data (defaults to $XDG_CACHE_HOME; if it is not set, defaults to $HOME/.cache).
• --input_file <file-path> - Path to a JSON file containing image URLs.
• --output_file <file-path> - File path that will contain scan results in a JSON format.

Examples

Scan an image, report results

./tigera-scanner scan ubuntu:latest --apiurl https://<my-org>.calicocloud.io --token ezBhbGcetc...

Scan an image locally, do not report results

./tigera-scanner scan ubuntu:latest

Scan an image with a failure and warning threshold

./tigera-scanner scan ubuntu:latest --fail_threshold 7.0 --warn_threshold 3.9

Scan multiple images locally, do not report results

./tigera-scanner scan ubuntu:latest alpine:latest

Scan multiple images using an input and output file

The input file must have the following JSON structure:

{
  "images": [
    "ubuntu:latest",
    "alpine:latest"
  ]
}

./tigera-scanner scan --input_file images.json --output_file results.json

Scan images using a configuration file

Create a configuration file in $HOME/.tigera-scanner.yaml for the scanner to read.

note

Key names must match the full name of arguments passed to the scanner. The configuration precedence order is options > environment variables > file configuration.

Options

Options	Shorthand	Environment variable	Description
--apiurl	-a	CC_API_URL	Calico Cloud API URL path. You can get this URL in the web console, Image Assurance, Scan settings.
--token	-t	CC_TOKEN	Secure API or authorization token to make requests to Calico Cloud API URL.
--warn_threshold	-w	CC_WARN_THRESHOLD	CVSS threshold for Warn scan results. Range from 0.0 - 10.0.
--fail_threshold	-f	CC_FAIL_THRESHOLD	CVSS threshold for Fail scan results. Range from 0.0 - 10.0.
--vulnerability_db_path	-p	CC_VULNERABILITY_DB_PATH	Path to a folder to store vulnerability data (defaults to $XDG_CACHE_HOME; if it is not set, defaults to $HOME/.cache).
--input_file	-i	CC_INPUT_FILE	Path to the JSON file containing image URLs.
--output_file	-o	CC_OUTPUT_FILE	File path that will contain scan results in a JSON format.

Next step

Set up alerts