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Enable/Disable Scanners

You can enable/disable scanners with the --scanners flag.

Supported values:

  • vuln
  • misconfig
  • secret
  • license

For example, container image scanning enables vulnerability and secret scanners by default. If you don't need secret scanning, it can be disabled.

$ trivy image --scanners vuln alpine:3.15

Exit Code

Scanner Supported
Vulnerability ✓
Misconfiguration ✓
Secret ✓
License ✓

By default, Trivy exits with code 0 even when security issues are detected. Use the --exit-code option if you want to exit with a non-zero exit code.

$ trivy image --exit-code 1 python:3.4-alpine3.9
Result 
2019-05-16T12:51:43.500+0900    INFO    Updating vulnerability database...
2019-05-16T12:52:00.387+0900    INFO    Detecting Alpine vulnerabilities...

python:3.4-alpine3.9 (alpine 3.9.2)
===================================
Total: 1 (UNKNOWN: 0, LOW: 0, MEDIUM: 1, HIGH: 0, CRITICAL: 0)

+---------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+
| LIBRARY | VULNERABILITY ID | SEVERITY | INSTALLED VERSION | FIXED VERSION |             TITLE              |
+---------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+
| openssl | CVE-2019-1543    | MEDIUM   | 1.1.1a-r1         | 1.1.1b-r1     | openssl: ChaCha20-Poly1305     |
|         |                  |          |                   |               | with long nonces               |
+---------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+

This option is useful for CI/CD. In the following example, the test will fail only when a critical vulnerability is found.

$ trivy image --exit-code 0 --severity MEDIUM,HIGH ruby:2.4.0
$ trivy image --exit-code 1 --severity CRITICAL ruby:2.4.0

Exit on EOL

Scanner Supported
Vulnerability ✓
Misconfiguration
Secret
License

Sometimes you may surprisingly get 0 vulnerabilities in an old image:

  • Enabling --ignore-unfixed option while all packages have no fixed versions.
  • Scanning a rather outdated OS (e.g. Ubuntu 10.04).

An OS at the end of service/life (EOL) usually gets into this situation, which is definitely full of vulnerabilities. --exit-on-eol can fail scanning on EOL OS with a non-zero code. This flag is available with the following targets.

  • Container images (trivy image)
  • Virtual machine images (trivy vm)
  • SBOM (trivy sbom)
  • Root filesystem (trivy rootfs)
$ trivy image --exit-on-eol 1 alpine:3.10
Result 
2023-03-01T11:07:15.455+0200    INFO    Vulnerability scanning is enabled
...
2023-03-01T11:07:17.938+0200    WARN    This OS version is no longer supported by the distribution: alpine 3.10.9
2023-03-01T11:07:17.938+0200    WARN    The vulnerability detection may be insufficient because security updates are not provided

alpine:3.10 (alpine 3.10.9)
===========================
Total: 1 (UNKNOWN: 0, LOW: 0, MEDIUM: 0, HIGH: 0, CRITICAL: 1)

┌───────────┬────────────────┬──────────┬───────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Library  │ Vulnerability  │ Severity │ Installed Version │ Fixed Version │                            Title                            │
├───────────┼────────────────┼──────────┼───────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ apk-tools │ CVE-2021-36159 │ CRITICAL │ 2.10.6-r0         │ 2.10.7-r0     │ libfetch before 2021-07-26, as used in apk-tools, xbps, and │
│           │                │          │                   │               │ other products, mishandles...                               │
│           │                │          │                   │               │ https://avd.aquasec.com/nvd/cve-2021-36159                  │
└───────────┴────────────────┴──────────┴───────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
2023-03-01T11:07:17.941+0200    ERROR   Detected EOL OS: alpine 3.10.9

This option is useful for CI/CD. The following example will fail when a critical vulnerability is found or the OS is EOSL:

$ trivy image --exit-code 1 --exit-on-eol 1 --severity CRITICAL alpine:3.16.3

Mirror Registries

EXPERIMENTAL

This feature might change without preserving backwards compatibility.

Trivy supports mirrors for remote container images and databases.

To configure them, add a list of mirrors along with the host to the trivy config file.

Note

Use the index.docker.io host for images from Docker Hub, even if you don't use that prefix.

Example for index.docker.io: 

registry:
  mirrors:
    index.docker.io:
     - mirror.gcr.io

Registry check procedure

Trivy uses the following registry order to get the image:

  • mirrors in the same order as they are specified in the configuration file
  • source registry

In cases where we can't get the image from the mirror registry (e.g. when authentication fails, image doesn't exist, etc.) - Trivy will check other mirrors (or the source registry if all mirrors have already been checked).

Example: 

registry:
  mirrors:
    index.docker.io:
     - mirror.with.bad.auth // We don't have credentials for this registry
     - mirror.without.image // Registry doesn't have this image

When we want to get the image alpine with the settings above. The logic will be as follows:

  1. Try to get the image from mirror.with.bad.auth/library/alpine, but we get an error because there are no credentials for this registry.
  2. Try to get the image from mirror.without.image/library/alpine, but we get an error because this registry doesn't have this image (but most likely it will be an error about authorization).
  3. Get the image from index.docker.io (the original registry).