For Managers

This section is aimed at managers of some part of a BOMnipotent system. A manager in this context means a user account that has the permissions to upload or modify supply chain security documents, or to manage access permissions of other users.

Mar 22, 2025

Subsections of For Managers

Managing Subscriptions

Most actions that add data to your BOMnipotent database require an active subscription, while reading and removing data do not. This policy ensures that your users do not loose access to the existing data should you one day choose to stop paying for the product.

Commercial entities like companies can acquire a subscription on bomnipotent.de . If you are a non-commercial entity, you can use BOMnipotent without any charge. Request access by sending an email to info@wwh-soft.com .

This page describes how you can use BOMnipotent Client and your subscription key to (de)activate an instance of BOMnipotent Server. The subscription itself, meaning payment, validation and trialing are all handled by the external company Paddle. Describing the management of these aspects would be beyond the scope of this documentation. Please refer to their help page if you require assistance.

Shortly after you have acquired a subscription, you will receive an email containing your subscription key.

Subscriptions can only be managed by a user with the “admin” role.

Activating

To activate your new subscription, simply call:

Input
bomnipotent_client subscription activate your_subscription_key
Output
[INFO] Successfully stored subscription key.

The server will tell you if something goes wrong during activation:

Input
bomnipotent_client subscription activate wrong_subscription_key
Output
[ERROR] Received response:
404 Not Found
Failed to activate subscription key: The subscription is missing in the sever database, which most likely means that there was an error in the input.

Status

To get more information about your current subscription, call:

Input
bomnipotent_client subscription status
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Key      โ”‚ Product     โ”‚ Subscription Status โ”‚ Valid Until             โ”‚ Last Updated            โ”‚ Assessment                 โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ ***n_key โ”‚ BOMnipotent โ”‚ active              โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚ The subscription is valid. โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

This output contains an obfuscated print of your key, a status, and some additional information.

Removing

If you want to remove your subscription from an instance of BOMnipotent Server (because you for example want to use it for another instance), call

Input
bomnipotent_client subscription remove your_subscription_key
Output
[INFO] Subscription key was removed

To avoid accidently deactivating a BOMnipotent Server instance that you have admin access to, this requires the correct key as an argument.

Input
bomnipotent_client subscription remove wrong_subscription_key
Output
[ERROR] Received response:
403 Forbidden
Subscription key does not match stored key
Jun 16, 2025

Document Management

BOMnipotent knows two types of supply chain security documents: Bills of Materials (BOMs) and Common Security Advisory Framework (CSAF) documents. In addition, it can host information on vulnerabilities associated with a BOM.

A typical document management workflow looks like this:

  1. A new version of a product is released, together with its corresponding BOM. The BOM may for example be generated with syft . This document is uploaded to the server. In contrast to the other documents, BOMs should be treated as static data. Modifying or deleting BOMs is possible, but rare.
  2. An automated tooling or script regularly downloads the BOMs, and checks them for vulnerabilities. This may for example be done with grype . The findings are updated on the server.
  3. Another tooling or script regularly checks the BOMnipotent Server for new vulnerabilities and sounds an alarm when it finds one. A human mind is needed!
  4. The human thoroughly analyses the vulnerability and determines if and how your customers have to react. They create a CSAF document, using for example secvisogram . The CSAF document is uploaded to BOMnipotent Server.
  5. Your consumers will now find the new CSAF document when they poll your instance of BOMnipotent Server.
May 21, 2025

Subsections of Document Management

BOMs

Bills of Materials stand at the forefront of both BOMnipotents functionality and name. A BOM is a list of all components that make up a product. In the context of cybersecurity, the most prominent variant is the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), but BOMs allow for more general considerations as well.

For BOM interactions beyond reading, you need the BOM_MANAGEMENT permission. The section about Access Management describes how it is granted.

Uploading

To upload a BOM, call:

Input
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json
Output
[INFO] Uploaded BOM Your Project_1.0.0

BOMnipotent expects its BOMs in the structured CycloneDX JSON format.

Consult the Syft tutorial to learn how to generate a BOM for your product.

The BOMnipotent Client will read the file at the provided path and upload its content. It can then be viewed by the consumers with appropriate permissions.

BOMs for Consumers describes how to list and download the BOMs on the server.

To add a BOM to the database, the BOMnipotent Client has to have some additional information: a name, a version, and optionally a TLP label. The identifiers name and version can either be inferred (recommended), or overwritten, as described below.

Name and Version

BOMnipotent uses name and version to identify a BOM. It tries to infer these from the provided CycloneDX JSON fields “metadata.component.name” and “metadata.component.version”. However, according to the CycloneDX specification , the metadata.component field is optional.

If no version is specified, BOMnipotent instead uses the date of “metadata.timestamp”, if available.

To avoid any complications, it is recommended that you specify a name and version when generating the BOM, as is shown in the Syft tutorial .

If for some reason your BOM lacks a name or version, or if it is incorrect, the BOMnipotent Client offers to remedy that via command line arguments:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/dev_env_sbom.cdx.json --name-overwrite="Other Project" --version-overwrite="2.7.1"
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/dev_env_sbom.cdx.json -n "Other Project" -v "2.7.1"
Output
[WARN] Warning: Overwriting name with 'Other Project'. The data stored on the server will differ from the provided file.
[WARN] Warning: Overwriting version with '2.7.1'. The data stored on the server will differ from the provided file.
[INFO] Uploaded BOM Other Project_2.7.1

Important: The BOMnipotent Client will in this case modify the data before sending it to the server. It does not modify the local file, as that would be overstepping. This means that your local file and the data on the server are now out-of-sync. What’s maybe worse, if you signed your BOM, your signature is now invalid.

If you do use this option, it is thus recommended that you immediately download the BOM from the server (as described in BOMs for Consumers ) and replace your local file with the result.

TLP Classification

For consumers, BOMnipotent manages access to data using the Traffic Light Protocol (TLP) . The CycloneDX Format on the other hand does not currently support document classification.

To tell BOMnipotent how to classify a document, you have two options:

  1. Set a default TLP Label in the server config. This will then be used for all BOMs without further specifications.
  2. Provide a tlp classification via command line argument:
Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/container_sbom.cdx.json --tlp=WHITE # This makes the BOM public.
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/container_sbom.cdx.json -t WHITE # This makes the BOM public.
Output
[INFO] Uploaded BOM Your Project Container_1.2.3

If you do neither, BOMnipotent will treat any unclassified documents as if they were labelled TLP:RED, and will log a warning every time it has to do that.

Conflict Handling

The combination of name and version of the main component of a BOM need to be unique. Trying to upload another document with the same combination results in an error.

Input
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json
Output
[ERROR] Received response:
409 Conflict
BOM Your Project_1.0.0 already exists in the database.

You can override this behaviour with the “on-existing” option, telling BOMnipotent to either skip or replace conflicting documents:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json --on-existing=skip
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json -o skip
Output
[INFO] 
Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json --on-existing=replace
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom upload /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json -o replace
Output
[INFO] Modified BOM Your Project_1.0.0.

Modifying

In the simplest case, modifying an existing BOM works very much like uploading a new one.

Input
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json
Output
[INFO] Modified BOM Your Project_1.0.0.

This will infer the name and version from the document, and overwrite the existing content on the server. If the data does not exist on the server, it will return a 404 Not Found error.

Modifying TLP Label

If a TLP label had previously been assigned to the BOM, a modification of the contents will not automatically alter it.

If you want to specify a new TLP label, you can do so via argument:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json --tlp=AMBER
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json -t AMBER
Output
[INFO] Modified BOM Your Project_1.0.0.

If the contents of the BOM have not changed and you just want to modify the TLP label, you do not need to upload the document again. Instead of providing a path to a file, you can specify name and version of the BOM you want to reclassify:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify --name="Other Project" --version="2.7.1" --tlp=GREEN
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify -n "Other Project" -v "2.7.1" -t GREEN
Output
[INFO] Modified BOM Other Project_2.7.1.

If you specify “none”, “default” or “unlabelled” as the TLP label, any existing classification will be removed, and the server falls back to the default TLP Label of the server config:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json --tlp=none
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json --tlp=default # Does the same
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json --tlp=unlabeled # Does the same
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json -t none
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json -t default # Does the same
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/sbom.cdx.json -t unlabeled # Does the same
Output
[INFO] Modified BOM Your Project_1.0.0.
[INFO] Modified BOM Your Project_1.0.0.
[INFO] Modified BOM Your Project_1.0.0.

Modifying Name or Version

If the document you are uploading has a different name or version than the data it shall modify, you need to provide that information to the BOMnipotent Client using command line arguments:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/dev_env_sbom.cdx.json --name="Other Project" --version="2.7.1"
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/dev_env_sbom.cdx.json -n "Other Project" -v "2.7.1"
Output
[INFO] Modified BOM Your Development Environment_1.2.3.

BOMnipotent will infer the new data from the document you provide and change the database entries accordingly.

As with uploading, it is possible to overwrite the name and/or version stored in the local document:

Input
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/dev_env_sbom.cdx.json --name-overwrite="Other Project" --version-overwrite="2.7.1"

Important: As with uploading, this modifies the JSON data before uploading to the server! The same caveats apply.

If the data on the server has a different name and/or version than specified in the document, you can combine the specification with an overwrite of the data:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/dev_env_sbom.cdx.json --name="Your Development Environment" --version="1.2.3" --name-overwrite="Best Project" --version-overwrite="3.1.4"
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom modify /home/your_project/dev_env_sbom.cdx.json -n "Your Development Environment" -v "1.2.3" --name-overwrite="Best Project" --version-overwrite="3.1.4"
Output
[WARN] Warning: Overwriting name with 'Best Project'. The data stored on the server will differ from the provided file.
[WARN] Warning: Overwriting version with '3.1.4'. The data stored on the server will differ from the provided file.
[INFO] Modified BOM Best Project_3.1.4.

Changing name and/or version without providing the complete document is not supported.

Deleting

Deleting a BOM is very straightforward:

Input
bomnipotent_client bom delete "Best Project" "3.1.4"
Output
[INFO] Deleted BOM Best Project_3.1.4

If the BOM does not exist, the server will return 404 Not Found. If it does exists, it is removed from the database.

All components and vulnerabilities associated with the BOM are also deleted.

Jun 28, 2025

Vulnerabilities

An activity at the core of supply chain security is to compare the contents of a BOM, meaning all components of a product, to databases of known vulnerabilities.

For vulnerability interactions beyond reading, you need the VULN_MANAGEMENT permission. The section about Access Management describes how it is granted.

Detecting

BOMnipotent does not itself detect new vulnerabilities. One tool that can be used in combination with BOMnipotent is grype , which takes a BOM as input and produces a list of vulnerabilities as output. The grype tutorial contains some additional information on its usage. Other tools can be used as long as they provide output in CycloneDX JSON format .

Using the BOMnipotent Client, you can directly print the contents of a BOM and pipe it to grype.

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client bom get "Your Project" "1.0.0" | grype --output cyclonedx-json=/home/vuln.cdx.json
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client bom get "Your Project" "1.0.0" | grype -o cyclonedx-json=/home/vuln.cdx.json

This will check the software components agains several databases and add the result to the CycloneDX. It then stores all that in a file called “vuln.cdx.json” (or whichever other name you provide).

Grype currently has a small known bug that makes it forget the version of the main component when it adds the vulnerabilities. This is a bit problematic because BOMnipotent needs the version to uniquely identify a product. One possible workaround is to re-add the version to the document, for example via jq '.metadata.component.version = "<VERSION>"' "vuln.cdx.json" > "vuln_with_version.cdx.json". Starting with BOMnipotent v0.3.1 you can instead directly provide the version during the vulnerability upload, as described below.

Updating

The command to update the vulnerabilities associated with a BOM is:

Input
bomnipotent_client vulnerability update /home/your_project/vuln.cdx.json
Output
[INFO] Updated vulnerabilities of BOM Your Project_1.0.0

The “<VULNERABILITIES>” argument needs to be a path to a file in CycloneDX JSON format.

Ideally, this file contains the name and version of the associated BOM, in which case they will automatically be read. If one of the values is missing (due to a known bug in grype, for example), you can provide it with an optional argument:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client vulnerability update /home/your_project/vuln_wrong_metadata.cdx.json --name="Your Project" --version="1.0.0"
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client vulnerability update /home/your_project/vuln_wrong_metadata.cdx.json -n "Your Project" -v "1.0.0"
Output
[INFO] Updated vulnerabilities of BOM Your Project_1.0.0

Vulnerabilities are meant to updated periodically. Doing so will completely replace any previous vulnerabilities associated a BOM. The uploaded CycloneDX document thus needs to contain a full list of all known vulnerabilities.

You can only update vulnerabilities for a BOM that exists on the server:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client vulnerability update /home/your_project/vuln_wrong_metadata.cdx.json --name=Schlagsahne --version=2.7.1;
bomnipotent_client vulnerability update /home/your_project/vuln_wrong_metadata.cdx.json --version=1.0.1;
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client vulnerability update /home/your_project/vuln_wrong_metadata.cdx.json -n Schlagsahne -v 2.7.1;
bomnipotent_client vulnerability update /home/your_project/vuln_wrong_metadata.cdx.json -v 1.0.1;
Output
[ERROR] Received response:
404 Not Found
BOM Schlagsahne_2.7.1 not found in database
[ERROR] Received response:
404 Not Found
BOM Your Project_1.0.1 not found in database

Listing

The section about listing vulnerabilities in the documentation for consumers covers most aspects of listing vulnerabilities.

One aspect not mentioned there is the “–unassessed” option. With it, BOMnipotent Client lists only those vulnerabilities that have no CSAF document associated with it.

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client vulnerability list --unassessed
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client vulnerability list -u
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Product      โ”‚ Version โ”‚ Vulnerability       โ”‚ Description                โ”‚ Score โ”‚ Severity โ”‚ TLP     โ”‚ CSAF Assessment โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ Your Project โ”‚ 1.0.0   โ”‚ GHSA-qg5g-gv98-5ffh โ”‚ rustls network-reachable p โ”‚       โ”‚ medium   โ”‚ Default โ”‚                 โ”‚
โ”‚              โ”‚         โ”‚                     โ”‚ anic in `Acceptor::accept` โ”‚       โ”‚          โ”‚         โ”‚                 โ”‚
โ”‚ Your Project โ”‚ 1.1.0   โ”‚ GHSA-qg5g-gv98-5ffh โ”‚ rustls network-reachable p โ”‚       โ”‚ medium   โ”‚ Default โ”‚                 โ”‚
โ”‚              โ”‚         โ”‚                     โ”‚ anic in `Acceptor::accept` โ”‚       โ”‚          โ”‚         โ”‚                 โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ
[ERROR] Found 2 unassessed vulnerabilities.

In this mode, BOMnipotent Client exits with a code indicating an error if and only if there are unassessed vulnerabilites. This makes it easy to integrate this call in your periodic CI/CD.

You can freely combine this option with specifying a product name or version:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client vulnerability list "Your Project" "1.0.0" --unassessed
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client vulnerability list "Your Project" "1.0.0" -u
Output
error: unexpected argument 'Your Project' found

Usage: bomnipotent_client vulnerability list [OPTIONS]

For more information, try '--help'.
Jun 16, 2025

CSAF Documents

A Common Security Advisory Framework (CSAF) document is a vendor’s response to a newly discovered vulnerability. It is a machine-readable format to spread information on how a user of your product should react: Do they need to update to a newer version? Do they need to modify a configuration? Is your product even truly affected, or does it maybe never call the affected part of the vulnerable library?

For CSAF interactions beyond reading, you need the CSAF_MANAGEMENT permission. The sectino about Access Management describes how it is granted.

Uploading

To upload a CSAF document, call

Input
bomnipotent_client csaf upload /home/your_project/advisory.json
Output
[INFO] Uploaded CSAF with id "ghsa-qg5g-gv98-5ffh_advisory".

Before your CSAF document is uploaded, BOMnipotent Client checks that it is valid according to the OASIS CSAF Standard .

Conflict Handling

CSAF documents are identified by their, well, identifier, which needs to be unique. Trying to upload another document with the same id results in an error:

Input
bomnipotent_client csaf upload /home/your_project/advisory.json
Output
[ERROR] Received response:
409 Conflict
CSAF with id 'ghsa-qg5g-gv98-5ffh_advisory' already exists in the database.

You can override this behaviour with the “on-existing” option, telling BOMnipotent to either skip or replace conflicting documents:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client csaf upload /home/your_project/advisory.json --on-existing=skip
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client csaf upload /home/your_project/advisory.json -o skip
Output
[INFO] 
Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client csaf upload /home/your_project/advisory.json --on-existing=replace
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client csaf upload /home/your_project/advisory.json -o replace
Output
[INFO] Modified CSAF with id "ghsa-qg5g-gv98-5ffh_advisory".

Listing

You can view the result of the operation with

Input
bomnipotent_client csaf list
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ ID                         โ”‚ Title                      โ”‚ Initial Release         โ”‚ Current Release         โ”‚ Status โ”‚ TLP       โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ ghsa-qg5g-gv98-5ffh_adviso โ”‚ Network-reachable panic in โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚ final  โ”‚ TLP:AMBER โ”‚
โ”‚ ry                         โ”‚  Your Product              โ”‚                         โ”‚                         โ”‚        โ”‚           โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

All data is taken from the CSAF document.

If the document does not have the optional TLP label entry, it is treated with the default tlp configured for the server.

...โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
...โ”‚ Status โ”‚ TLP     โ”‚
...โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
...โ”‚ final  โ”‚ Default โ”‚
...โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

Modifying

When the status of your document changes, if you want to reclassify it, or if new information has come to light, you may want to modify your document. To upload the new version, call:

Input
bomnipotent_client csaf modify /home/your_project/advisory.json
Output
[INFO] Modified CSAF with id "ghsa-qg5g-gv98-5ffh_advisory".

The command can even modify the ID of the CSAF document. Because the old ID cannot be inferred from the new document in that case, it has to be provided as an optional argument:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client csaf modify <PATH/TO/CSAF> --id=<OLD-ID>
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client csaf modify <PATH/TO/CSAF> -i <OLD-ID>

Deleting

To delete a CSAF document from your server (which you should really only do if something went completely wrong), simply call:

Input
bomnipotent_client csaf delete ghsa-qg5g-gv98-5ffh_advisory
Output
[INFO] Deleted CSAF with id ghsa-qg5g-gv98-5ffh_advisory
Jun 28, 2025

Access Management

Supply chain security documents are the what of BOMnipotent, users are the who. Unless you explicitly state otherwise, the hosted documents are only visible to those user accounts you grant access to.

BOMnipotent uses role-based access control (RBAC): Users have roles, and roles have permissions . After setup, BOMnipotent contains a few default roles. These are sufficient for managing the server, but to start accepting user request, you will probably want to create at least one new role.

Once that is done, a typical workflow for introducing a new user to your BOMnipotent system is as follows:

  1. A new user requests access to your server. During this step, BOMnipotent Client sends a public key associated with the account to your server, where it is stored and marked as “requested”.
  2. You approve the request. The new user account is now accepted as valid, but it does not have any permissions yet.
  3. You assign one or more roles to the new user account.
Mar 22, 2025

Subsections of Access Management

Permissions

In BOMnipotent, permissions are not directly associated with user accounts, but rather with roles. The section about role management covers how this association is managed, and the section about role assignment explains how roles (and thus ultimately permissions) are assigned to users.

The server has several permissions embedded in its code, some of which are hardcoded, some of which are configurable, and all of which are explained here. To learn how to actually create a permission associated with a role, please refer to the section dedicated to exactly that topic.

The permissions can mentally be split into permissions associated with consumers , managers , and some special tasks reserved for admins.

Consumer Permissions

Your customers are typically associated with one or more of your products. They will want to view all types of documents and information for that particular product, but they are not automatically entitled to information about other products.

PRODUCT_ACCESS

A permission with the value “PRODUCT_ACCESS(<PRODUCT>)” grants read permissions to any document associated with “<PRODUCT>”. This includes any BOM for that product, any vulnerabilities associated with these BOMs, and any CSAF documents covering this product.

For example, a role with the “PRODUCT_ACCESS(BOMnipotent)” could view (and only view) all documents associated with BOMnipotent.

It is possible to use the asterisk operator “*” to glob product names. In that case, the asterisk matches an arbitrary number of symbols. For example, the permission “PRODUCT_ACCESS(BOM*ent)” would match “BOMnipotent” as well as the (fictional) products “BOMent” and “BOM-burรกrum-ent”, but not “BOMtastic” (because the latter does not end on “ent”).

Consequently, “PRODUCT_ACCESS(*)” allows the viewing of all documents.

Manager Permissions

For managers of documents, the situation is usually reversed: They need the permission to not only view but also modify the contents in the database. Their scope is typically not restricted to a specific product, but instead to a specific type of document. This is why the segregation of manager permissions takes another perspective.

BOM_MANAGEMENT

This permission allows the uploading, modifying and deleting of Bills of Materials (BOMs). It also automatically grants permission to view all hosted BOMs.

VULN_MANAGEMENT

This permission allows to update and view the list of vulnerabilities associated with any BOM.

CSAF_MANAGEMENT

Unsurprisingly, this permission allows the uploading, modifying and deleting of Common Security Advisory Framework (CSAF) documents. It also automatically grants view permissions to all hosted CSAF documents.

ROLE_MANAGEMENT

With this permission, a user can modify the permissions of roles, which can have far reaching consequences, because the changes potentially affect many users.

USER_MANAGEMENT

This permission is required to approve, deny or view users, or to individually assign roles to them.

Special Admin permissions

BOMnipotent knows one hardcoded special role called “admin”. This role always has all permissions that can be given to users. Additionally, there are some tasks that can only be done by a user with the admin role:

May 21, 2025

Role Management

BOMnipotent uses a role-based access model (RBAC), in which users are associated with roles, and roles with permissions. While permissions are largely hardcoded into BOMnipotent, roles can be managed (almost) freely. This section explains how to do that.

To modify or even view roles and their permissions, your user account needs the ROLE_MANAGEMENT permission.

Default Roles

When you spin up your BOMnipotent Server for the first time, it creates several colourfully named default roles in the database:

You can modify or delete these roles at will, they are merely suggestions.

If you do not like these roles, use the following calls to delete them:

Input
bomnipotent_client role-permission remove bom_manager BOM_MANAGEMENT;
bomnipotent_client role-permission remove csaf_manager CSAF_MANAGEMENT;
bomnipotent_client role-permission remove role_manager ROLE_MANAGEMENT;
bomnipotent_client role-permission remove user_manager USER_MANAGEMENT;
bomnipotent_client role-permission remove vuln_manager VULN_MANAGEMENT;
Output
[INFO] Removed permission BOM_MANAGEMENT from role bom_manager
[INFO] Removed permission CSAF_MANAGEMENT from role csaf_manager
[INFO] Removed permission ROLE_MANAGEMENT from role role_manager
[INFO] Removed permission USER_MANAGEMENT from role user_manager
[INFO] Removed permission VULN_MANAGEMENT from role vuln_manager

Admin Role

There is a special role called “admin”, which is not listed among the other roles. The reason is that it is not part of the database, but of the BOMnipotent code itself. As such, it cannot be modified.

Input
bomnipotent_client role-permission remove admin BOM_MANAGEMENT
Output
[ERROR] Received response:
422 Unprocessable Entity
Cannot modify admin role permissions

The admin role has all permissions that can be granted, and then some more .

List

To list all roles and their associated permissions, call:

Input
bomnipotent_client role-permission list
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Role         โ”‚ Permission      โ”‚ Last Updated            โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ bom_manager  โ”‚ BOM_MANAGEMENT  โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ csaf_manager โ”‚ CSAF_MANAGEMENT โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ role_manager โ”‚ ROLE_MANAGEMENT โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ user_manager โ”‚ USER_MANAGEMENT โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ vuln_manager โ”‚ VULN_MANAGEMENT โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

The output can be filtered by role or permission:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client role-permission list --role=bom_manager --permission=BOM_MANAGEMENT
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client role-permission list -r bom_manager -p BOM_MANAGEMENT
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Role        โ”‚ Permission     โ”‚ Last Updated            โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ bom_manager โ”‚ BOM_MANAGEMENT โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

Add

Because roles without permissions are meaningless, the two always come in pairs. There is no dedicated mechanism to create a new role: rather, you add a permission to a role, and henceforth it exists.

The syntax to add a permission to a role is

Input
bomnipotent_client role-permission add rick_role "PRODUCT_ACCESS(BOMnipotent)"
Output
[INFO] Added permission PRODUCT_ACCESS(BOMnipotent) to role

You could for example unify several permissions into the roles “doc_manager” and “access_manager”:

Input
bomnipotent_client role-permission add doc_manager BOM_MANAGEMENT;
bomnipotent_client role-permission add doc_manager CSAF_MANAGEMENT;
bomnipotent_client role-permission add doc_manager VULN_MANAGEMENT;
bomnipotent_client role-permission add access_manager ROLE_MANAGEMENT;
bomnipotent_client role-permission add access_manager USER_MANAGEMENT;
Output
[INFO] Added permission BOM_MANAGEMENT to role
[INFO] Added permission CSAF_MANAGEMENT to role
[INFO] Added permission VULN_MANAGEMENT to role
[INFO] Added permission ROLE_MANAGEMENT to role
[INFO] Added permission USER_MANAGEMENT to role

If you have removed the default roles as described above, this leaves you with:

Input
bomnipotent_client role-permission list
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Role           โ”‚ Permission      โ”‚ Last Updated            โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ access_manager โ”‚ ROLE_MANAGEMENT โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ access_manager โ”‚ USER_MANAGEMENT โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ doc_manager    โ”‚ BOM_MANAGEMENT  โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ doc_manager    โ”‚ CSAF_MANAGEMENT โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ doc_manager    โ”‚ VULN_MANAGEMENT โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

If the permission you want to add does not exist or is malformed, you will receive an error:

Input
bomnipotent_client role-permission add clam_manager CLAM_MANAGEMENT
Output
[ERROR] Received response:
422 Unprocessable Entity
Failed to parse permission: Invalid UserPermission string: CLAM_MANAGEMENT

Remove

To remove a permission from a role, simply call:

Input
bomnipotent_client role-permission remove rick_role "PRODUCT_ACCESS(BOMnipotent)"
Output
[INFO] Removed permission PRODUCT_ACCESS(BOMnipotent) from role rick_role

Once you have removed the last role from a permission, that role does no longer exist.

To prevent oopsie-moments, BOMnipotent does not support deleting whole batches of role-permissions.

Existence

The "exists" subcommand checks whether or not at least one object on the server matches some filters. It is available for all commands that accept the "list" subcommand, and accepts the same filters.

Depending on the output mode, the client prints:

  • normal mode: a sentence including the number of found objects.
  • code: The string "200" if at least one item was found, or "404" if none were found.
  • raw: The string "true" if at least one item was found, or "false" if none were found.
Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client role-permission exists --role=bom_manager
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client role-permission exists -r bom_manager
Output
[INFO] Yes, the server contains 1 role permissions matching the filters.
Jun 16, 2025

User Management

The first step when creating a new user is to request a new account. This step is described elsewhere , because it is relevant for managers and consumers alike.

From BOMnipotent’s point of view, a user is associated with a unique email address or username, which is used as an identifier, and a public key, which is used for authentication. This is all the data sent during the creation of a new user account.

After a new account has been requested, it is up to a user manager to approve or deny the request.

For most user interactions, including listing, you need the USER_MANAGEMENT permission.

List

To list all users in your database, call

Input
bomnipotent_client user list
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Username               โ”‚ Status    โ”‚ Expires                 โ”‚ User Type โ”‚ Last Updated            โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ admin@example.com      โ”‚ APPROVED  โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚ HUMAN     โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ example_robot          โ”‚ REQUESTED โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚ ROBOT     โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ other_user@example.com โ”‚ REQUESTED โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚ HUMAN     โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ user@example.com       โ”‚ VERIFIED  โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚ HUMAN     โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

You can see the email addresses or usernames of the users and their stati.

A user that does not have the status APPROVED has no special permissions, no matter which roles they have.

An expiration date is also associated with each user, which is the point in time at which the public key is considered invalid and has to be renewed. The period for which a key is considered valid can be freely configured in the server config.

The list of users can be filtered by username, approval status, and whether or not they are expired:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client user list --user=admin@example.com --status=APPROVED --expired=false
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client user list -u admin@example.com -s APPROVED -e false
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Username          โ”‚ Status   โ”‚ Expires                 โ”‚ User Type โ”‚ Last Updated            โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ admin@example.com โ”‚ APPROVED โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚ HUMAN     โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

The “true” argument for the expired filter is optional:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client user list --expired=true;
bomnipotent_client user list --expired # does the same
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client user list -e true;
bomnipotent_client user list -e # does the same
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Username โ”‚ Status โ”‚ Expires โ”‚ User Type โ”‚ Last Updated โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Username โ”‚ Status โ”‚ Expires โ”‚ User Type โ”‚ Last Updated โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค

Approve or Deny

If you were expecting the user request, you can approve it via

Input
bomnipotent_client user approve user@example.com
Output
[INFO] Changed status of user@example.com to APPROVED

If the user has not yet verified their email address, the server denies the approval. If you are absolutely sure that you know what you are doing, you can overwrite this behaviour with the ‘–allow-unverified’ option (there’s no short version for options that bypass security measures):

Input
bomnipotent_client user approve other_user@example.com --allow-unverified
Output
[INFO] Changed status of other_user@example.com to APPROVED

If the account belongs to a robot, it can not be verified. In that case you can approve it with the ‘–robot’ option.

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client user approve example_robot --robot
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client user approve example_robot -r
Output
[INFO] Changed status of example_robot to APPROVED

Important: You should be absolutely certain that this is the account you want to approve.

Analogously, you can decide agains allowing this user any special access:

Input
bomnipotent_client user deny unwanted@example.com
Output
[INFO] Changed status of unwanted@example.com to DENIED

Contrary to approval, this action does not care which status the user had before the denial.

It is possible to deny a user that has already been approved, effectively revoking the account.

Remove

If you want to get rid of a user account alltogether, call:

Input
bomnipotent_client user remove unwanted@example.com
Output
[INFO] Deleted user "unwanted@example.com".

This also removes all roles associated with the user.

Existence

The "exists" subcommand checks whether or not at least one object on the server matches some filters. It is available for all commands that accept the "list" subcommand, and accepts the same filters.

Depending on the output mode, the client prints:

  • normal mode: a sentence including the number of found objects.
  • code: The string "200" if at least one item was found, or "404" if none were found.
  • raw: The string "true" if at least one item was found, or "false" if none were found.
Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client user exists --status=APPROVED
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client user exists -s APPROVED
Output
[INFO] Yes, the server contains 4 users matching the filters.
Jun 16, 2025

Role Assignment

Roles are what connects users to permissions. Adding or removing roles to and from users indirectly controls to what extend users can interact with your BOMnipotent Server instance.

For your convenience, several default roles are created upon starting BOMnipotent Server for the first time. In addition, BOMnipotent knows of the admin role , which receives some special treatment.

To modify or even view user roles, your user account needs the USER_MANAGEMENT permission.

List

To list all roles of all users, call

Input
bomnipotent_client user-role list
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Username          โ”‚ Role         โ”‚ Last Updated            โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ admin@example.com โ”‚ admin        โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ example_robot     โ”‚ bom_manager  โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ example_robot     โ”‚ vuln_manager โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ”‚ user@example.com  โ”‚ rick_role    โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

The output can be filtered by user or role:

Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client user-role list --user=admin@example.com --role=admin
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client user-role list -u admin@example.com -r admin
Output
[INFO] 
โ•ญโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ฌโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฎ
โ”‚ Username          โ”‚ Role  โ”‚ Last Updated            โ”‚
โ”œโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ผโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ค
โ”‚ admin@example.com โ”‚ admin โ”‚ 2025-01-01 10:11:12 UTC โ”‚
โ•ฐโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”ดโ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ”€โ•ฏ

Add

To add a new role to a user, call

Input
bomnipotent_client user-role add user@example.com rick_role
Output
[INFO] Added role to user

The user account needs to exist on the server at this point, the role does not.

Only users with the admin role can add the admin role to other users.

Remove

To remove a role from a user, call:

Input
bomnipotent_client user-role remove user@example.com rick_role
Output
[INFO] Removed role rick_role from user user@example.com

This will show an error if either does not exist:

Input
bomnipotent_client user-role remove admin@example.com wrong_role;
bomnipotent_client user-role remove wrong_user admin
Output
[ERROR] Received response:
404 Not Found
User with username "admin@example.com" does not have role wrong_role.
[ERROR] Received response:
404 Not Found
No user with username "wrong_user" was found: Record not found

Only users with the admin role can remove the admin role from other users.

Existence

The "exists" subcommand checks whether or not at least one object on the server matches some filters. It is available for all commands that accept the "list" subcommand, and accepts the same filters.

Depending on the output mode, the client prints:

  • normal mode: a sentence including the number of found objects.
  • code: The string "200" if at least one item was found, or "404" if none were found.
  • raw: The string "true" if at least one item was found, or "false" if none were found.
Input (long variant)
bomnipotent_client user-role exists --role=bom_manager
Input (short variant)
bomnipotent_client user-role exists -r bom_manager
Output
[INFO] Yes, the server contains 1 user roles matching the filters.