cpan-audit - Audit CPAN modules
cpan-audit [command] [options]
Commands:
module [version range] audit module with optional version range (all by default) modules [version range] audit module list with optional version range (all by default) dist|release [version range] audit distribution with optional version range (all by default) deps [directory] audit dependencies from the directory (. by default) installed audit all installed modules show [advisory id] show information about specific advisory
Options:
--ascii use ascii output --fresh|f check the database for freshness (CPAN::Audit::FreshnessCheck) --help|h show the help message and exit --no-color switch off colors --no-corelist ignore modules bundled with perl version --perl include perl advisories --quiet be quiet (overrules --verbose) --verbose be verbose (off if --quiet in effect) --version show the version and exit --exit-zero always exit with 0 even if advisories are reported --exclude <str> exclude/ignore the specified advisory/cve (multiple) --exclude-file <file> read exclude/ignore patterns from file --json output JSON
Examples:
cpan-audit dist Catalyst-Runtime cpan-audit dist Catalyst-Runtime 7.0 cpan-audit dist Catalyst-Runtime '>5.48' cpan-audit module Catalyst 7.0 cpan-audit modules "Catalyst;7.0" "Mojolicious;>8.40,<9.20" cpan-audit deps . cpan-audit deps /path/to/distribution cpan-audit installed cpan-audit installed local/ cpan-audit installed local/ --exclude CVE-2011-4116 cpan-audit installed local/ --exclude CVE-2011-4116 --exclude CVE-2011-123 cpan-audit installed local/ --exclude-file ignored-cves.txt cpan-audit installed --json cpan-audit installed --json --exit-zero cpan-audit show CPANSA-Mojolicious-2018-03
cpan-audit is a command line application that checks the modules or distributions for known vulnerabilities. It is using its internal database that is automatically generated from a hand-picked database https://github.com/briandfoy/cpan-security-advisory.
cpan-audit
cpan-audit does not connect to anything, that is why it is important to keep it up to date. Every update of the internal database is released as a new version. Ensure that you have the latest database by updating CPAN::Audit frequently; the database can change daily. You can use enable a warning for a possibly out-of-date database by adding --fresh, which warns if the database version is older than a month:
--fresh
% cpan-audit --fresh ... % cpan-audit -f ... % env CPAN_AUDIT_FRESH_DAYS=7 cpan-audit -f ...
cpan-audit can automatically detect dependencies from the following sources:
Carton
Parses cpanfile.snapshot file and checks the distribution versions.
Parses cpanfile taking into account the required versions.
It is assumed that if the required version of the module is less than a version of a release with a known vulnerability fix, then the module is considered affected.
If you request JSON output, the data looks like
{ "meta" : { ... meta information ... "dists": { "<distribution1>": { ... distribution info ... } } "errors" : [ ... list of errors - if any ... ] }
The meta data contains information about the run of cpan-audit.
{ "args": [ "Mojo::File", "Mojo::UserAgent", "LWP::UserAgent" ], "cpan_audit": { "version": "20230601.002" }, "total_advisories": 19, "command": "modules" }
These information are shown
cpan_audit
The version of cpan_audit that is used for the audit
command
The command of cpan_audit that was run
args
Arguments for the command
total_advisories
Number of found advisories
For each distribution where at least one advisory was found, the JSON looks like:
"Dist-Name": { "queried_modules": [ "Queried::Namespace" ], "version": "Any", "advisories": [ { ... advisory data as in the audit database ... }, ... more advisories ... ] },
The advisory data is basically the data from the database. So this depends on what is known for the given advisory.
The distribution information contains:
version
The version (range) that is checked for advisories. If there's no version specified, all versions are checked and the version is report as "Any".
queried_modules
The actual namespaces queried, either from the command line or another source, such as a cpanfile.
advisories
A list of all vulnerabilities found for the version range
In prior versions, cpan-audit exited with the number of advisories it found. Starting with 1.001, if there are advisories found, cpan-audit exits with 64 added to that number. The maximum number of reported advisories is 62, since values over 126 are spoken for.
If the option --exit-zero is set cpan-audit exits always with a normal exit code (0). This allows to use cpan-audit in build environments together with bash exit mode activated (set -e).
--exit-zero
set -e
0 - no advisories found
2 - problem with program invocation, such as bad switches or values
64+n - advisories found. Subtract 64 to get the advisory count, up to 62 advisories
255 - unspecified program error
Copyright (C) Viacheslav Tykhanovskyi.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
To install CPAN::Audit, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm CPAN::Audit
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install CPAN::Audit
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.