Installation & Setup

Cert-IX is a cloud-hosted platform — there is nothing to install to get started. Sign in at app.cert-ix.com, and you can run external scans, track compliance, and use the dashboard immediately. The Quick Start Guide walks you through your first scan.

You only install software when you want deeper reach than a cloud service can have on its own — chiefly, visibility inside your private network.

What you might set up

Your goal	What to set up	Install required?
Scan internet-facing assets, use the dashboard	Nothing — just sign in	No
Discover & monitor internal / private-network assets	Deploy a scanner agent	Yes (a lightweight agent)
Automate scanning in scripts or CI/CD	Create a Scan API key	No
Let your AI coding agent block vulnerable dependencies	Add the DepCheck MCP	No (config only)

Deploy a scanner agent

External scanning only sees what's exposed to the internet. To inventory and continuously monitor the assets inside your network, deploy a Cert-IX scanner agent — a lightweight, signed binary that registers with the platform and streams telemetry over an encrypted, Kafka-first pipeline.

Cert-IX offers a small family of purpose-built agents:

Agent	Purpose
Bitcollector	Asset telemetry — processes, ports, software inventory, system metrics
Bitscanner	Host & network vulnerability scanning and CVE detection
Bitmapper	Network topology — service discovery and network mapping
Bitenforcer	Compliance enforcement — CIS, STIG, and PCI-DSS hardening and drift detection

Requirements

• A Cert-IX account with an active subscription.
• Your Tenant ID — found in Settings → Organization.
• Root / administrator access on the target host.
• Outbound HTTPS (port 443) to api.cert-ix.com and downloads.cert-ix.com.

Fastest path: the dashboard wizard

From the dashboard, go to Asset Management → Devices and click Deploy Agent. The wizard generates copy-paste commands pre-filled with your Tenant ID for each platform.

Or install from the command line

A minimal Linux (x86_64) deploy looks like this:

# Download the Bitcollector agent
curl -fsSL "https://downloads.cert-ix.com/bitcollector-linux-amd64" \
  -o /usr/local/bin/bitcollector
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/bitcollector

# Verify the download, then register with your tenant
sha256sum /usr/local/bin/bitcollector

Full, authoritative instructions

This page is an overview. For every platform (Linux x86_64/ARM64, macOS), checksum verification, running the agent as a service, and configuration, follow the Agent Deployment Guide.

Learn more:

• Scanner Agents — what each agent collects and how they work.
• Agent Deployment Guide — step-by-step deployment for every platform.
• Agent Configuration — tune collection intervals, scopes, and policies.

Connect via the API

No install needed. Create a scoped API key in the dashboard under Settings → API Keys, then call the Scan API at https://api.cert-ix.com/scan-api/api/v1. See the Scan API — Getting Started guide.

Connect your AI coding agent (MCP)

Point any MCP-capable coding assistant (Claude, Cursor, VS Code) at Cert-IX DepCheck to check dependencies for known vulnerabilities before they enter your codebase — no install, just client configuration. See the MCPs overview.

Next steps

• Quick Start Guide — run your first scan in minutes.
• Asset Management — organize everything the agents discover.
• Dashboard Overview — read your security score and alerts.

Need a hand? Email [email protected].