Getting Started with Turbot Pipes

Turbot Pipes is the only intelligence, automation & security platform built specifically for DevOps. Sign up now and be running your first benchmark in just minutes!

To sign up, go to pipes.turbot.com. You can sign up with your GitHub or Google login (you will need to authorize Turbot Pipes to allow you to log in using OAuth) or with an email address.

Create a Workspace

Since you have no workspaces the first time you sign in, you will land on the workspace page. To get started with Pipes, you must create a Workspace.

Click New Workspace to create a workspace.

Each workspace must have a handle. The workspace handle is a friendly identifier for your workspace and must be unique across your workspaces. You can also choose an instance type for your Steampipe workspace database. Enter a handle for your workspace, select the instance type that meets your capacity, performance, capability, and cost requirements, and click Create Workspace.

Set up a Connection

You are now prompted to create a Connection. A connection provides a way for Pipes to interact with an external service or system and may be used from Steampipe, Flowpipe, or Powerpipe.

In this tutorial, we will install the AWS plugin. Click Amazon Web Services.

The available settings vary by plugin, but every connection has a handle. The connection handle will be used as the name of the schema in Steampipe. A single AWS connection will connect to a single AWS account, but you may have many AWS connections. As a result, it's a good idea to name the connection in a way that reflects which account it is connecting to. Additionally, it's common practice to prefix the connection name with the plugin type.

An AWS connection can query multiple regions. You may want to limit the regions that it queries to reduce the number of API calls or to avoid errors in regions that you do not have access to, but most people use the default and allow Steampipe to access All Regions.

To connect to AWS, Turbot Pipes will need credentials. You can select Access Key mode and enter an access key and secret key that has read access to your account, but we recommend using Cross-Account Role access mode to avoid using long-term credentials. Turbot Pipes can assist you in creating the IAM role in your AWS account - click/role in your AWS account. Click Download Terraform Plan or Download CloudFormation Template and then run the downloaded file/plan against your account to create the role with the generated external ID. Once the role has been created, enter the Role ARN.

To add the connection schema to your workspace's Steampipe database, select Add to workspace schema automatically.

You can verify your credentials using the Test connection button and then click Create connection.

Note that the wizard only prompts for a single connection. You can create and attach additional connections later from the Settings tab for your workspace.

Install Mods

You will then be given the opportunity to install one or more mods, which will give you access to hundreds of off-the-shelf dashboards and benchmarks for you to visualize within your workspace. Turbot Pipes also allows you to manage variables exposed by the mod to create dynamic behavior customized to your requirements.

The list of mods shown are ones from the official mod registry that are compatible with the type of connection(s) you created previously. Click the mods to select or deselect them. Lets install the AWS Compliance, AWS Insights, and AWS Perimeter mods. Select them, then click Install Mods. It will take a minute for the mods to be installed in your workspace.

Note that some plugins may not have any compatible mods, and you can Skip this section. You can always manage mods later via the mod settings pages.

Dashboards

After you create your workspace, add your connection, and install a mod(s), you will be taken to the Dashboards tab for your workspace.

You can browse the catalog of existing dashboards, including compliance frameworks or service-specific dashboards and reports that answer a variety of questions. Click on a dashboard to run it.

Query

You can also run queries from the query tab. You can browse or search the schemas and tables and run ad-hoc queries right from the web console!