Enroll hosts

Fleet gathers information from an osquery agent installed on each of your hosts. The recommended way to install osquery is using fleetd.

You can enroll macOS, Windows or Linux hosts via the CLI or UI. To learn how to enroll Chromebooks, see Enroll Chromebooks.

Supported osquery versions

Fleet supports the latest version of osquery.

CLI

You must have fleetctl installed. Learn how to install fleetctl.

The fleetctl package command is used to generate Fleet's agent (fleetd) install package..

The --type flag is used to specify the fleetd installer type.

• macOS: .pkg
  • Generating a .pkg on Linux requires Docker to be installed and running.
• Windows: .msi
  • Generating a .msi on Windows, Intel Macs, or Linux requires Docker to be installed and running. On Windows, you can use WiX without Docker instead.
  • Generating a .msi on Apple Silicon Macs requires Wine to be installed.
• Linux: .deb or .rpm

fleetctl on Windows can only generate MSI packages.

A --fleet-url (Fleet instance URL) and --enroll-secret (Fleet enrollment secret) must be specified in order to communicate with Fleet instance.

To generate fleetd for an Arm Linux or Windows host, use the --arch=arm64 flag.

Fleetd for Arm Windows is an experimental feature. This feature is undergoing rapid improvement, which may result in breaking changes to the API or configuration surface. It is not recommended for use in automated workflows.

Example

Generate fleetd on macOS (.pkg)

fleetctl package --type pkg --fleet-url=example.fleetinstance.com --enroll-secret=85O6XRG8'!l~P&zWt_'f&$QK(sM8_D4x

Tip: To see all options for fleetctl package command, run fleetctl package -h in your Terminal.

UI

To generate Fleet's agent (fleetd) in Fleet UI:

1. Go to the Hosts page, and select Add hosts.
2. Select the tab for your desired platform (e.g. macOS).
3. A CLI command with all necessary flags to generate an install package will be generated. Copy and run the command with fleetctl installed.

Install fleetd

You can use your tool of choice, like Munki on macOS or a package manager (APT or DNF) on Linux, to install fleetd.

Enroll hosts to a team

With hosts segmented into teams, you can apply unique queries and give users access to only the hosts in specific teams. Learn more about teams.

To enroll to a specific team: from the Hosts page, select the desired team from the menu at the top of the screen, then follow the instructions above for generating Fleet's agent (fleetd). The team's enroll secret will be included in the generated command.

Fleet Desktop

Fleet Desktop is a menu bar icon available on macOS, Windows, and Linux that gives your end users visibility into the security posture of their machine.

You can include Fleet Desktop in Fleet's agent (fleetd) by including --fleet-desktop in the fleetctl package command.

Debug TLS certificates and connection to Fleet

You can use fleetctl debug connection to troubleshoot issues with server/client TLS certificates, e.g.:

# Test TLS connection using the CA root file that will be embedded on fleetd packages:
fleetctl debug connection \
  https://fleet.example.com

# Test TLS connection using a custom CA root file:
fleetctl debug connection \
  --fleet-certificate ./your-ca-root.pem \
  https://fleet.example.com

Enroll Chromebooks

The fleetd Chrome browser extension is supported on ChromeOS operating systems that are managed using Google Admin. It is not intended for non-ChromeOS hosts with the Chrome browser installed.

Overview

Google Admin uses organizational units (OUs) to organize devices and users.

One limitation in Google Admin is that extensions can only be configured at the user level, meaning that a user with a MacBook running Chrome, for example, will also get the fleetd Chrome extension.

When deployed on OSs other than ChromeOS, the fleetd Chrome extension will not perform any operation and will not appear in the Chrome toolbar. However, it will appear in the "Manage Extensions" page of Chrome. Fleet admins who are comfortable with this situation can skip step 2 below.

To install the fleetd Chrome extension on Google Admin, there are two steps:

1. Create an OU for all users who have Chromebooks and force-install the fleetd Chrome extension for those users
2. Create an OU for all non-Chromebook devices and block the fleetd Chrome extension on this OU

More complex setups may be necessary, depending on the organization's needs, but the basic principle remains the same.

Step 1: OU for Chromebook users

Create an organizational unit where the extension should be installed. Add all the relevant users to this OU.

In the Google Admin console:

1. In the navigation menu, visit Devices > Chrome > Apps & Extensions > Users & browsers.
2. Select the relevant OU where you want the fleetd Chrome extension to be installed.
3. In the bottom right, select the + button and select Add Chrome app or extension by ID.
4. Go to your Fleet instance and select Hosts > Add Hosts and select ChromeOS in the popup modal.
5. Enter the Extension ID, Installation URL, and Policy for extensions using the data provided in the modal.
6. Under Installation Policy, select Force install, and under Update URL, select Installation URL (see above).

For the fleetd Chrome extension to have full access to Chrome data, it must be force-installed by enterprise policy as per above

Step 2: OU to block non-Chromebook devices

Create an organizational unit to house devices where the extension should not be installed. Add all the relevant devices to this OU.

In the Google Admin console:

1. In the navigation menu, select Devices > Chrome > Managed Browsers.
2. Select the relevant OU where you want the fleetd Chrome extension to be blocked.
3. In the bottom right, select the + button and select Add Chrome app or extension by ID.
4. Go to your Fleet instance and select Hosts > Add Hosts and select ChromeOS in the popup modal.
5. Enter the Extension ID and Installation URL using the data provided in the modal.
6. Under Installation Policy, select Block.

Unenroll

How to unenroll a host from Fleet:

1. Determine if your host has MDM features turned on by looking at the MDM status on the host's Host details page.

2. For macOS hosts with MDM turned on, select Actions > Turn off MDM to turn MDM off. Instructions for turning off MDM on Windows hosts coming soon.

3. Determine the platform of the host you're trying to unenroll and follow the instructions to uninstall the fleetd agent here.

4. Select Actions > Delete to delete the host from Fleet.

If an end user wants to switch their workstation's operating system (e.g. Windows to Linux), before they switch, delete the host from Fleet. Then, re-enroll the host.

Advanced

• Best practice for dual-boot workstations
• Fleet agent (fleetd) components
• Signing fleetd
• Grant full disk access to osquery on macOS
• Using mTLS
• Specifying update channels
• Testing osquery queries locally
• Finding fleetd logs
• Using system keystore for enroll secret
• Generating fleetd for Windows using local WiX toolset
• Config-less fleetd agent deployment
• Experimental features

Best practice for dual-boot workstations

When end users want to have a dual-boot environment (e.g. Windows and Linux on one computer), the best practice is to install fleetd, that uses --host-identifier=instance, on both operating systems. This enrolls two hosts, one per operating system, in Fleet.

fleetd components

Signing fleetd

Note: Currently, the fleetctl package command does not support signing Windows fleetd. Windows fleetd can be signed after building.

The fleetctl package command supports signing and notarizing macOS fleetd via the --sign-identity and --notarize flags.

Check out the example below:

  [email protected] AC_PASSWORD=app-specific-password fleetctl package --type pkg --sign-identity=[PATH TO SIGN IDENTITY] --notarize --fleet-url=[YOUR FLEET URL] --enroll-secret=[YOUR ENROLLMENT SECRET]

The above command must be run on a macOS device, as the notarizing and signing of macOS fleetd can only be done on macOS devices.

Also, remember to replace both AC_USERNAME and AC_PASSWORD environment variables with your Apple ID and a valid app-specific password, respectively. Some organizations (notably those with Apple Enterprise Developer Accounts) may also need to specify AC_TEAM_ID. This value can be found on the Apple Developer "Membership" page under "Team ID."

Grant full disk access to osquery on macOS

MacOS does not allow applications to access all system files by default.

If you are using an MDM solution or Fleet's MDM features, one of which is required to deploy these profiles, you can deploy a "Privacy Preferences Policy Control" policy to grant fleetd or osquery that level of access.

This is required to query for files located in protected paths as well as to use event tables that require access to the EndpointSecurity API, such as es_process_events.

Creating the configuration profile

Obtaining identifiers

If you use plain osquery, instructions are available here.

On a system with osquery installed via Fleet's agent (fleetd), obtain the CodeRequirement of fleetd by running:

codesign -dr - /opt/orbit/bin/orbit/macos/stable/orbit

The output should be similar or identical to:

Executable=/opt/orbit/bin/orbit/macos/edge/orbit
designated => identifier "com.fleetdm.orbit" and anchor apple generic and certificate 1[field.1.2.840.113635.100.6.2.6] /* exists */ and certificate leaf[field.1.2.840.113635.100.6.1.13] /* exists */ and certificate leaf[subject.OU] = "8VBZ3948LU"

Note down the executable path and the entire identifier.

Osqueryd will inherit the privileges from Orbit and does not need explicit permissions.

Creating the profile

Depending on your MDM, this might be possible in the UI or require a custom profile. If your MDM has a feature to configure Policy Preferences, follow these steps:

1. Configure the identifier type to “path.”
2. Paste the full path to Orbit as the identifier.
3. Paste the full code signing identifier into the Code requirement field.
4. Allow “Access all files.” Access to Downloads, Documents, etc., is inherited from this.

If your MDM solution does not have built-in support for privacy preferences profiles, you can use PPPC-Utility to create a profile with those values, then upload it to your MDM as a custom profile.

Test the profile

Link the profile to a test group that contains at least one Mac. Once the computer has received the profile, which you can verify by looking at Profiles in System Preferences, run this query from Fleet:

SELECT * FROM file WHERE path LIKE '/Users/%/Downloads/%%';

If this query returns files, the profile was applied, as Downloads is a protected location. You can now enjoy the benefits of osquery on all system files and start using the es_process_events table!

If this query does not return data, you can look at operating system logs to confirm whether or not full disk access has been applied.

See the last hour of logs related to TCC permissions with this command:

log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TCC"' --info --last 1h

You can then look for orbit or osquery to narrow down results.

Using mTLS

Applies only to Fleet Premium

Fleetd supports using TLS client certificates for authentication to the Fleet server and TUF server.

When generating the packages, use the following flags:

fleetctl package \
  [...]
  --fleet-tls-client-certificate=fleet-client.crt \
  --fleet-tls-client-key=fleet-client.key \
  --update-tls-client-certificate=update-client.crt \
  --update-tls-client-key=update-client.key \
  [...]

The certificates must be in PEM format.

The client certificates can also be pushed to existing installations by placing them in the following locations:

• For macOS and Linux:
  • /opt/orbit/fleet_client.crt
  • /opt/orbit/fleet_client.key
  • /opt/orbit/update_client.crt
  • /opt/orbit/update_client.key
• For Windows:
  • C:\Program Files\Orbit\fleet_client.crt
  • C:\Program Files\Orbit\fleet_client.key
  • C:\Program Files\Orbit\update_client.crt
  • C:\Program Files\Orbit\update_client.key

If using Fleet Desktop, you may need to specify an alternative host for the "My device" URL (in the Fleet tray icon). Such alternative host should not require client certificates on the TLS connection.

fleetctl package
  [...]
  --fleet-desktop \
  --fleet-desktop-alternative-browser-host=fleet-desktop.example.com \
  [...]

If this setting is not used, you will need to configure client TLS certificates on devices' browsers.

Specifying update channels

Fleetd uses the concept of "update channels" to determine the version of it's components: Orbit, Fleet Desktop, osquery.

Configure update channels for these components with the --orbit-channel, --desktop-channel and --osqueryd-channel flags when running the fleetctl package command.

Additionally, stable and edge are special channel names. The stable channel will provide the most recent osquery version that Fleet deems to be stable.

When a new version of osquery is released, it's added to the edge channel for beta testing. Fleet then provides input to the osquery TSC based on testing. After the version is declared stable by the osquery TSC, Fleet will promote the version to stable ASAP.

Testing osquery queries locally

Fleet comes packaged with osqueryi which is a tool for testing osquery queries locally.

With fleetd installed on your host, run orbit osqueryi or orbit shell to open the osqueryi.

Finding fleetd logs

Fleetd will send stdout/stderr logs to the following directories:

• macOS: /private/var/log/orbit/orbit.std{out|err}.log.
• Windows: C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\FleetDM\Orbit\Logs\orbit-osquery.log (the log file is rotated).
• Linux: Orbit and osqueryd stdout/stderr output is sent to syslog (/var/log/syslog on Debian systems, /var/log/messages on CentOS, and journalctl -u orbit on Fedora).

If the logger_path agent configuration is set to filesystem, fleetd will send osquery's "result" and "status" logs to the following directories:

• Windows: C:\Program Files\Orbit\osquery_log
• macOS: /opt/orbit/osquery_log
• Linux: /opt/orbit/osquery_log

The Fleet Desktop log files can be found in the following directories depending on the platform:

• Linux: $XDG_STATE_HOME/Fleet or $HOME/.local/state/Fleet
• macOS: $HOME/Library/Logs/Fleet
• Windows: %LocalAppData%/Fleet

The log file name is fleet-desktop.log.

Using system keystore for enroll secret

On macOS and Windows, fleetd will add the enroll secret to the system keystore (Keychain on macOS, Credential Manager on Windows) on launch. Subsequent launches will retrieve the enroll secret from the keystore.

System keystore access can be disabled via --disable-keystore flag for the fleetctl package command. On macOS, subsequent installations of fleetd must be signed by the same organization as the original installation to access the enroll secret in the keychain.

Note: The keychain is not used on macOS when the enroll secret is provided via MDM profile. Keychain support when passing the enroll secret via MDM profile is coming soon.

Generating fleetd for Windows using local WiX toolset

Applies only to Fleet Premium

When generating Fleet's agent (fleetd) for Windows hosts (.msi) on a Windows or macOS machine, you can tell fleetctl package to use local installations of the 3 WiX v3 binaries used by this command (heat.exe, candle.exe, and light.exe) instead of those in a pre-configured container, which is the default behavior. To do so:

1. Install the WiX v3 binaries. To install, you can download them here, then unzip the downloaded file.
2. Find the absolute filepath of the directory containing your local WiX v3 binaries. This will be wherever you saved the unzipped package contents.
3. Run fleetctl package, and pass the absolute path above as the string argument to the --local-wix-dir flag. For example:

    fleetctl package --type msi --fleet-url=[YOUR FLEET URL] --enroll-secret=[YOUR ENROLLMENT SECRET] --local-wix-dir "\Users\me\AppData\Local\Temp\wix311-binaries"

   If the provided path doesn't contain all 3 binaries, the command will fail.

Note: Creating a fleetd agent for Windows (.msi) on macOS also requires Wine. To install Wine see the script here.

Config-less fleetd agent deployment

Config-less deployment allows for Fleet's agent (fleetd) to be installed without embedding configuration settings directly into the package. This approach is ideal for environments requiring flexibility in managing enrollment secrets and server URLs. For detailed instructions, visit the Config-less fleetd agent deployment guide.

Warning: If you remove the configuration profile with the settings from macOS, fleetd won't work anymore until a similar profile is installed again. If the profile is delivered via MDM, and MDM is turned off, you might face this scenario.

Experimental features

Any features listed here are not recommended for use in production environments

Using fleetd without enrolling Orbit

Only available in fleetd v1.15.1 on Linux and macOS

It is possible to generate a fleetd package that does not connect to Fleet by omitting the --fleet-url and --enroll-secret flags when building a package.

This can be useful in situations where you would like to test using fleetd to manage osquery updates while still managing osquery command-line flags and extensions locally but can result in a large volume of error logs. In fleetd v1.15.1, we added an experimental feature to reduce log chatter in this scenario.

Applying the environmental variable "FLEETD_SILENCE_ENROLL_ERROR"=1 on a host will silence fleetd enrollment errors if a --fleet-url is not present. This variable is read at launch and will require a restart of the Orbit service if it is not set before installing fleetd v1.15.1.