Starting a Trial of PDQ Detect

Introduction

This document is intended to give you a detailed look at the guided tour you'll experience when you start a trial of PDQ Detect. It will walk you through your first PDQ Detect Agent installation or your first instance of the agentless scanner VM, let you see how the platform receives the scan information, and give you some suggestions for what you can do next.

Everything you'll try out during this guided tour can also be done within the PDQ Detect platform itself, so don't worry about missing anything!

See Getting Started with PDQ Detect for detailed steps to set up each feature within the platform.

Start a Trial

1. To start a trial of PDQ Detect, visit https://www.pdq.com/pdq-detect/.
2. Enter your business email address, your name, your company name, and your company website URL, as well as an estimate of how many devices you'll want to manage.
3. Complete the reCAPTCHA challenge to prove you're not a robot, or that you're an exceptionally skillful one, and then click Start a 14-day trial.
   You will see a confirmation message when you submit the form.
   
4. Check your email (be sure to check the spam/junk e-mail folder!) for a message with the subject line, Your Trial has begun on PDQ Detect. In this email, click the Start Trial button. The trial signup guide will launch in your browser.
5. On the Let's get the paperwork out of the way page, scroll to the bottom of the End User License Agreement and click Accept to proceed.
   
6. Enter a password (if you selected SSO, you will be prompted to sign in instead).
   
7. On the What is your initial focus? page, choose one of the available options.
   
   • Agent-based: Install agents to perform in-depth scans directly on your devices.
   • Agentless: Perform network scans with our virtual appliance, which you can host on-prem or in the cloud (in your Azure or AWS tenant).
   
   
   
   
    

   New to PDQ Detect? Don't worry too much about this selection. You'll be able to switch to a different option or use both side-by-side later on.

Agent-based

1. On the Use Detect agents to gain more insights on your organization's internal security page, note the OS options available, as well as the version requirements.
   
2. Select one of the available OS versions and proceed with installing the Detect Agent on an endpoint.
   
   • Windows: You may download and run an .exe or an .msi version of the PDQ Detect Agent installer. You will see two important pieces of information - the Detect Agent Management URL and Token. You will need these to install the agent.
     
     Don't worry! You won't have to manually specify these each time, and if you'd like to try a silent installation, that is an option.
     
   • macOS/Linux:
     For macOS and Linux, the Detect agent can be installed using a command which is displayed here. This command (curl for macOS, and wget for Linux) will automatically download the agent, install it, and configure it with your Detect Management URL and Token.
     
     
     During this process, we would recommend installing on just a few test endpoints to begin with - you can always add more later. After you have installed and configured your agent on one or more endpoints, click the I have installed & configured the agent button to proceed past this screen.
3. On the Your agent is collecting data page, wait for your agent to report in its data.
   
4. Note that you will see two counts - on the left, the number of heartbeats (agents you've installed that Detect has heard from) and on the right, the number of agents that have reported data. When these two numbers are equal (meaning all agents have reported in data).
   
   When you're ready, click Your scan is finished! Click here to continue.
   
   
   
5. On the Your initial scan data has been processed page, choose what you'd like to do next!
   
   Your options include:
   • Elements
   • Executive Report
   • Remediations
   • Vulnerabilities
   • Risks

Your trial signup and Agent-based setup is now complete!

Everything you see on this page will open within the Detect platform, so you can see where you'll find each item during normal operations. And each option will open in a new browser tab, so feel free to come back and try them all, or feel free to click through the platform and explore on your own.

If you'd like to try the guided setup for Agentless mode, visit the Getting Started guide and follow the steps there.

Agentless

1. On the Install an Internal Scanner service page, choose a scanner type. The Scanner VM will be in an environment that you set up and control, either within your cloud virtualization tenant, or in an on-prem virtual machine. 
   
   
   • Azure Marketplace
     
     • Make sure you are signed into your Microsoft Azure tenant. When you select this option, an Azure Marketplace listing (link) for CODA Footprint Cloud Appliance will open in a new browser tab.
     • Click Get It Now to proceed with setup of your Azure VM, specifying the Footprint Management URL and Internal Scanner Token when you are prompted.
     • For detailed setup instructions for your Azure VM, see this article, or continue below to see an example.
   • AWS Marketplace
     
     • Make sure you are signed into your Amazon AWS tenant. When you select this option, an AWS Marketplace listing (link) for CODA Footprint Cloud Appliance will open in a new browser tab.
     • For detailed setup instructions for your AWS VM, see this article, or continue below to see an example.
   • On your own on-prem VM (proceed to step 6)
     •  (optional) To install the cloud scanner on your own on-prem virtual machine, select your hypervisor to download the corresponding virtual hard disk.
     • You will need to open the selected virtualization platform, create a new VM, and attach the downloaded virtual hard disk.
     • Supported platforms include:
       • VMWare Fusion/Player/Workstation 14+ (VMDK and OVA)
       • Windows Hyper-V (VHD and full VM)
       • QEMU (qcow2)
     • The approximate size of each download is 8GB.
     • Recommended specs will depend on the size of the scan surface, but a minimum of 4GB of RAM is recommended, with higher amounts needed for environments with a larger scan surface/number of scan targets.
     • See this article for detailed setup instructions, or continue below to see an example.
2. After you pick an option to setup or download a VM, the trial onboarding will advance to the Let's configure the scanner page, which will display your credentials, including the Hostname, Detect Agent Management URL, and Internal Scanner Token.
   
   You will need these three items to configure your scanner VM.
   
3. In your chosen virtualization platform, power on your VM. After the Linux-based VM loads, you will see a screen that looks like this:
   
4. On any other computer on the same network as your Internal Scanner VM, open a web browser, and navigate to the (IP address) URL that appears here, followed by a colon, and port 8080.
   
   The Internal scanner control panel page will appear.
5. In the Internal Scanner control panel on the left side, click the Configure button, and enter the Hostname, Detect Agent Management URL (https://detect.pdq.com), and Internal Scanner Token, and then click Save.
   
   
   
6. The trial onboarding flow will wait for your scanner VM to start and connect to the PDQ Detect platform.
   
   
   
7. Once your Internal Scanner VM has connected to the Detect platform, the guided setup will notify you that your scan has started. It will take at least 5-10 minutes.
8. On the Your initial scan data has been processed page, choose what you'd like to do next!
   
   Your options include:
   • Elements
   • Executive Report
   • Remediations
   • Vulnerabilities
   • Risks

Your trial signup and Agentless setup is now complete!

Everything you see on this page will open within the Detect platform, so you can see where you'll find each item during normal operations. And each option will open in a new browser tab, so feel free to come back and try them all, or feel free to click through the platform and explore on your own.

If you'd like to try the guided setup for Agent-based mode, visit the Getting Started guide and follow the steps there.