Hello everyone,
I've been tasked with preparing for a potential deployment of Absolute Secure Access, and as part of our internal security and procurement policy, we have a requirement to deeply understand the architecture of any persistent agent software we install. Specifically, we aim to minimize its attack surface and resource footprint. The documentation mentions that the "Claw" agent is designed to be lightweight, but I need to validate this for our own compliance and total cost of ownership (TCO) assessment.
To that end, I've been experimenting with isolating the agent's dependencies in a minimal container base image. My goal is to understand exactly what the agent requires to function, separate from a typical full OS installation. This helps us plan for standardized deployments and assess potential risks.
I've started with an Alpine Linux base and attempted to install the agent, but I'm running into several dependency issues. My process so far has involved:
* Starting with `alpine:latest` and adding required packages like `ca-certificates`, `libstdc++`, and `openssl`.
* Pulling the Absolute Secure Access agent package and attempting a minimal install.
* Encountering errors related to dynamic libraries and specific kernel modules that may not be present.
My core questions for the community, especially anyone who has done a deep-dive or works with this in constrained environments, are:
* Has anyone successfully containerized or run the Claw agent on a truly minimal base image? If so, what were the absolute mandatory dependencies you had to include?
* Beyond the listed packages, are there specific system calls or kernel capabilities that the agent requires to function correctly for its persistent communication and geofencing features?
* How does the agent handle updates in such a constrained environment? Does it pull additional dependencies dynamically, or is the initial package set truly all it needs?
* From a vendor evaluation perspective, how flexible is Absolute generally with supporting non-standard or stripped-down deployments? Is this a supported path, or does it void any service agreements?
Understanding this level of detail is crucial for our implementation timeline and for building a robust exit strategy. We need to know how tightly coupled the agent is to the underlying OS. Any insights, shared experiences, or even a list of confirmed shared libraries would be incredibly helpful.
Great approach for a TCO and security check! I hit similar dependency headaches last year with a different endpoint agent on Alpine. In my case, missing libgcc was the sneaky one causing runtime failures after a clean install. Might be worth checking for that too.
The resource footprint angle is smart. Once you get it running, you could use something like `docker stats` over a few days to see its baseline. That data was gold for our procurement team.
Curious if you're planning to host the final minimal image in a private registry, or if this is just for the initial assessment?