1.5 KiB
Agent Security
Pulse agents incorporate several security mechanisms to ensure that the code running on your infrastructure is authentic and untampered with.
Self-Update Security
The agent's self-update mechanism is critical for security and stability. To prevent supply chain attacks or compromised update servers from distributing malicious or broken agents, Pulse employs a rigorous verification process.
1. Checksum Verification
The agent verifies a SHA-256 checksum of the downloaded binary. The server must provide
X-Checksum-Sha256; updates are rejected if the header is missing or mismatched.
2. Signature Verification
Release builds embed trusted Ed25519 update public keys and require
X-Signature-Ed25519 in addition to the checksum header. Updates are rejected
when the signature is missing or does not verify against the embedded trust
root.
3. Pre-Flight Checks
To prevent "brick-updates"—bad updates that crash immediately and require manual recovery—agents perform pre-flight validation before replacing the running executable.
Unified agent (pulse-agent):
- Download new binary.
- Verify checksum (required).
- Verify the Ed25519 release signature when trusted update keys are embedded.
- Validate binary magic (ELF/Mach-O/PE) and size limits (100MB max).
- Make executable and swap atomically.
API Security
- Token Authentication: All agent-to-server communication requires a valid API token.
- TLS: Encrypted by default (unless specifically disabled).