IntelOwl 101

In this article, I'm going to show you what IntelOwl is, what it does, and how to install, and use it for your own cybersecurity projects so let's get started!

What is IntelOwl

IntelOwl is an open-source intelligence tool that gathers as much data possible of an observable(IP, File, domain, etc). Basically, it collects data from various sources (websites, blogs, APIs, etc.) and presents them in a unified manner that can be easily read and parsed!

If you want to know how IntelOwl works and its underlying architecture visit their github and website

Installing IntelOwl

One great feature of IntelOwl is its easy installment. Using the power Docker and docker-compose you can set it up and start using it under 10 minutes!

Prerequisites

Before we get started you need to have the following:

• Python
• Docker
• docker-compose

so if you don't have these install them!

First lets clone their repository:

git clone https://github.com/intelowlproject/IntelOwl

then change your directory to IntelOwl

cd IntelOwl/

After this, we need to set up the environment files to configure IntelOwl so go to the docker directory.

cd docker/

Application configuration

cp env_file_app_template env_file_app

Database configuration

cp env_file_postgres_template env_file_postgres

Integrations configuration

cp env_file_integrations_template env_file_integrations

Note: if you want to configure it to your needs you check the documentation.

After this we need to install all the dependencies by the following commands:

cd ..
./initialize.sh

After you get the prompt

Now you can start IntelOwl by running the start.py file (eg: `python3 start.py prod up` for production environment)

You are good to go!

Running IntelOwl

Now to start IntelOwl write or copy the command if you're like me ;)

python3 start.py prod up

Note: if you're in windows write python instead of python3

Creating a User

After running IntelOwl execute the command (in a new terminal or tab)

Note: you need to only create a user once!

docker exec -ti intelowl_uwsgi python3 manage.py createsuperuser

After this, it'll prompt you to give a username, email, password, etc.

Once you've created your user go to

http://localhost:80

Congratulations! You've successfully installed IntelOwl. In the next article, I'll teach you how to use it and how things work. Till then happy typing!