3. Installation

3.1. Requirements

Aurora runs on Windows 7 or newer and requires administrative privileges.

Other OS (Linux or macOS) are not supported.

3.1.1. Supported

  • Windows 7 x86 / x64

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 x64

  • Windows 8.1

  • Windows Server 2012

  • Windows Server 2012 R2

  • Windows 10

  • Windows 11

  • Windows Server 2016

  • Windows Server 2019

  • Windows Server 2022

3.1.2. Update Servers

To download the newest updates for Aurora and our signatures, you need an active internet connection. The endpoint performing the update needs to reach our update servers to do this.

For a detailed and up to date list of our update and licensing servers, please visit https://www.nextron-systems.com/resources/hosts/.

Hint

You do not need an active internet connection to run Aurora on an endpoint. This is only needed if you want to update to the latest Aurora or signature versions.

3.1.3. Define an Antivirus / EDR Exclusion

It is recommended to exclude Aurora from your Antivirus / EDR solution.

Depending on your architecture and whether Aurora was installed or started interactively from a temporary directory, the exclusion paths are:

  1. For an installed Aurora

C:\Program Files\Aurora-Agent\aurora-agent-64.exe
C:\Program Files\Aurora-Agent\aurora-agent.exe

  1. For a interactively started Aurora the path you have used for extraction. For example:

C:\aurora\aurora-agent-64.exe
C:\aurora\aurora-agent.exe

3.2. Quick Installation

  1. Extract the program package into a temporary folder (e.g. C:\aurora)

  2. Make sure to place the license file (*.lic) into the extracted folder

  3. Start a cmd.exe as administrator

  4. Change directory to the extracted folder (cd C:\aurora)

  5. Run one of the following commands (with/without GUI)

C:\aurora>aurora-agent.exe --install
C:\aurora>aurora-agent.exe --install --dashboard

  1. Verify new events in the local "Application" event log (Event Viewer) or the Aurora Dashboard

  2. Run the following commands to get details on the current status of the agent

C:\aurora>aurora-agent.exe --status
C:\aurora>aurora-agent.exe --status --trace

See the Function Tests section for ideas on how to test Aurora is working as expected.

3.3. Manual installation

3.3.1. Install Aurora

You can install the agent using the following command line from command line terminal that has been started "As Administrator".

C:\aurora>aurora-agent.exe --install

After the installation the agent, configuration files and rules reside in C:\Program Files\Aurora Agent\.

It automatically copies all rule files located in the sub-folders signatures\sigma-rules and custom-signatures. The signatures\sigma-rules folder contains the current open source rule set maintained in the Sigma repository. The custom-signatures folder can be used to add your own sigma rules.

Aurora comes with with 4 configuration presets that we encourage you to explore and use:

  • Standard (agent-config-standard.yml)

  • Reduced (agent-config-reduced.yml)

  • Minimal (agent-config-minimal.yml)

  • Intense (agent-config-intense.yml)

The different presets are explained in more detail in the chapter Configuration.

An installation that uses the preset named "reduced" would look like this:

C:\aurora>aurora-agent.exe --install -c agent-config-reduced.yml

3.3.2. Custom Settings

Adding your own Sigma rules or IOCs is described in chapter Custom Signatures and IOCs. The preferred way is to add them to the custom-signatures folder before you install Aurora.

All the flags that you use after --install get written to the configuration file named agent-config.yml in the C:\Program Files\Aurora Agent\ folder and will be used by the service.

A typical command to install Aurora would look like this

C:\aurora>aurora-agent.exe --install --activate-responses

3.3.3. Uninstall Aurora

To uninstall the agent simply run the following command:

C:\Program Files\Aurora-Agent>aurora-agent.exe --uninstall

If the uninstaller fails due to unknown errors, you can uninstall Aurora manually with these commands (Run from an administrative shell)

C:\Users\nextron>sc stop aurora-agent
C:\Users\nextron>sc delete aurora-agent
C:\Users\nextron>rmdir /s /q "C:\Program Files\Aurora-Agent"
C:\Users\nextron>schtasks /Delete /F /TN aurora-agent-program-update
C:\Users\nextron>schtasks /Delete /F /TN aurora-agent-signature-update

3.4. Installation using ASGARD

When using ASGARD Management Center, Aurora can be installed using the Service Control tab; see the relevant chapter in the ASGARD manual for details.