Getting started guide

Hi there, if you're looking around here then you probably have a few questions about how you can get started using arctil. I'll be happy to try and point you in the right direction.

The arctil web security assessment tool runs on both Windows and Linux based operating systems, although it's not open-source it is completely free to use and share. Okay now that we've introduced ourselves lets get started.

Getting your copy of arctil

Absolutely anyone can download arctil for free, simply navigate to the download page. Once there you'll have the option to download arctil for either Windows or Linux based operating systems, just click your operating systems and let the download begin.

Running arctil

Depending on your operating system there are a couple of different paths to getting up and running. Don't worry, I'll include steps for both Windows and Linux below.

- Windows: As the arctil application has not been digitally signed when you run the executable file you'll see a security prompt, this is just letting you know that Windows doesn't know where the file is from and that you should be careful. Worry not, just click the "More Info" link and you'll see an option below saying "Run Anyway". After you have done this arctil will download its required config files and start running, happy days.

- Linux: Running arctil on Linux requires a couple of extra steps, although it is still relatively simple. Once you have downloaded the arctil file you'll need to open your Terminal and enter the command below. This command will just tell Linux to navigate to the downloads directory and that the arctil file is an executable.

Now that you have done this you'll be able to open the arctil file just like you would with any other.

Scanning with arctil

We've done everything we can to make using arctil as simple as possible, depending on your use case, you can either select exactly what you want to check for or just run one of the built in scanning profile.

When you run arctil for the first time you'll see a window that has 5 areas, right now we're only interested in the target url input. Once you select this you'll be able to specify your target, simply enter your specified URL and then you're almost ready to go.

The final step will be to select your scan options, you can either navigate to "Scan Preferences" via the "Options" menu or enter a profile into the target URL input. For now we'll just run an information gathering scanning profile but you can fully customize your scans by navigating to the "Scan preferences" window.

To run the information gathering profile just enter -I after your URL and the select the start scan button, you should then start to see arctil go to work.

Still need help?

Are you having trouble using arctil? Why not try reaching out to our Community Forum.

Alternatively, you can try contacting us through the Contact page.