---
title: About InSpec Profiles
---

# InSpec Profiles

InSpec supports the creation of complex test and compliance profiles, which organize controls to support dependency management and code reuse. Each profile is a standalone structure with its own distribution and execution flow.

# Profile Structure

A profile should have the following structure::

    examples/profile
    ├── README.md
    ├── controls
    │   ├── example.rb
    │   └── control_etc.rb
    ├── libraries
    │   └── extension.rb
    |── files
    │   └── extras.conf
    └── inspec.yml

where:

* `inspec.yml` includes the profile description (required)
* `controls` is the directory in which all tests are located (required)
* `libraries` is the directory in which all InSpec resource extensions are located (optional)
* `files` is the directory with additional files that a profile can access (optional)
* `README.md` should be used to explain the profile, its scope, and usage

See a complete example profile in the InSpec open source repository: [https://github.com/chef/inspec/tree/master/examples/profile](https://github.com/chef/inspec/tree/master/examples/profile)

Also check out [Explore InSpec resources](https://learn.chef.io/modules/explore-inspec-resources#/) on Learn Chef Rally to learn more about how profiles are structured with hands-on examples.

## inspec.yml

Each profile must have an `inspec.yml` file that defines the following information:

 * Use `name` to specify a unique name for the profile. Required.
 * Use `title` to specify a human-readable name for the profile.
 * Use `maintainer` to specify the profile maintainer.
 * Use `copyright` to specify the copyright holder.
 * Use `copyright_email` to specify support contact information for the profile, typically an email address.
 * Use `license` to specify the license for the profile.
 * Use `summary` to specify a one line summary for the profile.
 * Use `description` to specify a multiple line description of the profile.
 * Use `version` to specify the profile version.
 * Use `inspec_version` to place SemVer constraints on the version of InSpec that the profile can run under.
 * Use `supports` to specify a list of supported platform targets.
 * Use `depends` to define a list of profiles on which this profile depends.

`name` is required; all other profile settings are optional. For example:

    name: ssh
    title: Basic SSH
    maintainer: Chef Software, Inc.
    copyright: Chef Software, Inc.
    copyright_email: support@chef.io
    license: Proprietary, All rights reserved
    summary: Verify that SSH Server and SSH Client are configured securely
    version: 1.0.0
    supports:
      - os-family: linux
    depends:
      - name: profile
        path: ../path/to/profile
    inspec_version: "~> 2.1"

## Verify Profiles

Use the `inspec check` command to verify the implementation of a profile:

    $ inspec check examples/profile

# Platform Support

Use the `supports` setting in the `inspec.yml` file to specify one (or more) platforms for which a profile is targeting. The list of supported platforms may contain simple names, names and versions, or detailed flags, and may be combined arbitrarily. For example, to target anything running Debian Linux:

    name: ssh
    supports:
      - os-name: debian

and to target only Ubuntu version 14.04

    name: ssh
    supports:
      - os-name: ubuntu
        release: 14.04

and to target the entire RedHat platform (including CentOS and Oracle Linux):

    name: ssh
    supports:
      - os-family: redhat

and to target anything running on Amazon AWS:

    name: ssh
    supports:
      - platform: aws

and to target all of these examples in a single `inspec.yml` file:

    name: ssh
    supports:
      - os-name: debian
      - os-name: ubuntu
        release: 14.04
      - os-family: redhat
      - platform: aws


# Profile Dependencies

An InSpec profile can bring in the controls and custom resources from another InSpec profile. Additionally, when inheriting the controls of another profile, a profile can skip or even modify those included controls.

For hands-on examples, check out [Create a custom InSpec profile](https://learn.chef.io/modules/create-a-custom-profile#/) on Learn Chef Rally.

## Defining the Dependencies

Before a profile can use controls from another profile, the to-be-included profile needs to be specified in the including profile’s `inspec.yml` file in the `depends` section. For each profile to be included, a location for the profile from where to be fetched and a name for the profile should be included. For example:

    depends:
    - name: linux-baseline
      url: https://github.com/dev-sec/linux-baseline/archive/master.tar.gz
    - name: ssh-baseline
      url: https://github.com/dev-sec/ssh-baseline/archive/master.tar.gz

InSpec supports a number of dependency sources.

### path

The `path` setting defines a profile that is located on disk. This setting is typically used during development of profiles and when debugging profiles.

    depends:
    - name: my-profile
      path: /absolute/path
    - name: another
      path: ../relative/path

### url

The `url` setting specifies a profile that is located at an HTTP- or HTTPS-based URL. The profile must be accessible via a HTTP GET operation and must be a valid profile archive (zip, tar, or tar.gz format).

    depends:
    - name: my-profile
      url: https://my.domain/path/to/profile.tgz
    - name: profile-via-git
      url: https://github.com/myusername/myprofile-repo/archive/master.tar.gz

### git

A `git` setting specifies a profile that is located in a git repository, with optional settings for branch, tag, commit, and version. The source location is translated into a URL upon resolution. This type of dependency supports version constraints via semantic versioning as git tags.

For example:

    depends:
    - name: git-profile
      git: http://url/to/repo
      branch:  desired_branch
      tag:     desired_version
      commit:  pinned_commit
      version: semver_via_tags

### supermarket

A `supermarket` setting specifies a profile that is located in a cookbook hosted on Chef Supermarket. The source location is translated into a URL upon resolution.

For example:

    depends:
    - name: supermarket-profile
      supermarket: supermarket-username/supermarket-profile

Available Supermarket profiles can be listed with `inspec supermarket profiles`.

### compliance

A `compliance` setting specifies a profile that is located on the Chef Automate or Chef Compliance server.

For example:

    depends:
      - name: linux
        compliance: base/linux

## Vendoring Dependencies

When you execute a local profile, the `inspec.yml` file will be read in order to source any profile dependencies. It will then cache the dependencies locally and generate an `inspec.lock` file.

If you add or update dependencies in `inspec.yml`, dependencies may be re-vendored and the lockfile updated with `inspec vendor --overwrite`

## Using Controls from an Included Profile

Once defined in the `inspec.yml`, controls from the included profiles can be used! Let’s look at some examples.

### Including All Controls from a Profile

With the `include_controls` command in a profile, all controls from the named profile will be executed every time the including profile is executed.

![Include Controls](/images/profile_inheritance/include_controls.png)

In the example above, every time `my-app-profile` is executed, all the controls from `my-baseline` are also executed. Therefore, the following controls would be executed:

 * myapp-1
 * myapp-2
 * myapp-3
 * baseline-1
 * baseline-2

This is a great reminder that having a good naming convention for your controls is helpful to avoid confusion when
including controls from other profiles!

### Skipping a Control from a Profile

What if one of the controls from the included profile does not apply to your environment? Luckily, it is not necessary to maintain a slightly-modified copy of the included profile just to delete a control. The `skip_control` command tells InSpec to not run a particular control.

![Include Controls with Skip](/images/profile_inheritance/include_controls_with_skip.png)

In the above example, all controls from `my-app-profile` and `my-baseline` profile will be executed every time `my-app-profile` is executed **except** for control `baseline-2` from the `my-baseline` profile.

### Modifying a Control

Let's say a particular control from an included profile should still be run, but the impact isn't appropriate? Perhaps the test should still run, but if it fails, it should be treated as low severity instead of high severity?

When a control is included, it can also be modified!

![Include Controls with Modification](/images/profile_inheritance/include_controls_with_mod.png)

In the above example, all controls from `my-baseline` are executed along with all the controls from the including profile, `my-app-profile`. However, should control `baseline-1` fail, it will be raised with an impact of `0.5` instead of the originally-intended impact of `1.0`.

### Selectively Including Controls from a Profile

If there are only a handful of controls that should be executed from an included profile, it's not necessarily to skip all the unneeded controls, or worse, copy/paste those controls bit-for-bit into your profile. Instead, use the `require_controls` command.

![Require Controls](/images/profile_inheritance/require_controls.png)

Whenever `my-app-profile` is executed, in addition to its own controls, it will run only the controls specified in the `require_controls` block. In the case, the following controls would be executed:

 * myapp-1
 * myapp-2
 * myapp-3
 * baseline-2
 * baseline-4

Controls `baseline-1`, `baseline-3`, and `baseline-5` would not be run, just as if they were manually skipped. This method of including specific controls ensures only the controls specified are executed; if new controls are added to a later version of `my-baseline`, they would not be run.

And, just the way its possible to modify controls when using `include_controls`, controls can be modified as well.

![Require Controls with Modification](/images/profile_inheritance/require_controls_with_mod.png)

As with the prior example, only `baseline-2` and `baseline-4` are executed, but if `baseline-2` fails, it will report with an impact of `0.5` instead of the originally-intended `1.0` impact.

## Using Resources from an Included Profile

By default, all of the custom resources from a listed dependency are available
for use in your profile. If two of your dependencies provide a resource with
the same name, you can use the `require_resource` DSL function to
disambiguate the two:

    require_resource(profile: 'my_dep', resource: 'my_res',
                     as: 'my_res2')

This will allow you to reference the resource `my_res` from the
profile `my_dep` using the name `my_res2`.

# Profile Attributes

Attributes may be used in profiles to define secrets, such as user names and passwords, that should not otherwise be stored in plain-text in a cookbook. First specify a variable in the control for each secret, then add the secret to a Yaml file located on the local machine, and then run `inspec exec` and specify the path to that Yaml file using the `--attrs` attribute.

For example, a control:

    # define these attributes on the top-level of your file and re-use them across all tests!
    val_user = attribute('user', default: 'alice', description: 'An identification for the user')
    val_password = attribute('password', description: 'A value for the password')

    control 'system-users' do
      impact 0.8
      desc '
        This test assures that the user "Bob" has a user installed on the system, along with a
        specified password.
      '

      describe val_user do
        it { should eq 'bob' }
      end

      describe val_password do
        it { should eq 'secret' }
      end
    end

And a Yaml file named `profile-attribute.yml`:

    user: bob
    password: secret

The following command runs the tests and applies the secrets specified in `profile-attribute.yml`:

    $ inspec exec examples/profile-attribute --attrs examples/profile-attribute.yml

See the full example in the InSpec open source repository: https://github.com/chef/inspec/tree/master/examples/profile-attribute

# Profile files

An InSpec profile may contain additional files that can be accessed during tests. A profile file enables you to separate the logic of your tests from the data your tests check for, for example, the list of ports you require to be open.

To access these files, they must be stored in the `files` directory at the root of a profile. They are accessed by their name relative to this folder with `inspec.profile.file(...)`.

Here is an example for reading and testing a list of ports. The folder structure is:

    examples/profile
    ├── controls
    │   ├── example.rb
    |── files
    │   └── services.yml
    └── inspec.yml

With `services.yml` containing:

    - service_name: httpd-alpha
      port: 80
    - service_name: httpd-beta
      port: 8080

The tests in `example.rb` can now access this file:

    my_services = yaml(content: inspec.profile.file('services.yml')).params

    my_services.each do |s|
      describe service(s['service_name']) do
        it { should be_running }
      end

      describe port(s['port']) do
        it { should be_listening }
      end
    end

For a more complete example that uses a profile file, see [Explore InSpec resources](https://learn.chef.io/modules/explore-inspec-resources#/) on Learn Chef Rally.

# "should" vs. "expect" syntax

Users familiar with the RSpec testing framework may know that there are two ways to write test statements: `should` and `expect`. The RSpec community decided that `expect` is the preferred syntax. However, InSpec recommends the `should` syntax as it tends to read more easily to those users who are not as technical.

InSpec will continue to support both methods of writing tests. Consider this `file` test:

    describe file('/tmp/test.txt') do
      it { should be_file }
    end

This can be re-written with `expect` syntax

    describe file('/tmp/test.txt') do
      it 'should be a file' do
        expect(subject).to(be_file)
      end
    end

The output of both of the above examples looks like this:

    File /tmp/test.txt
       ✔  should be a file

In addition, you can make use of the `subject` keyword to further control your output if you choose:

    describe 'test file' do
      subject { file('/tmp/test.txt') }
      it 'should be a file' do
        expect(subject).to(be_file)
      end
    end

... which will render the following output:

    test file
      ✔  should be a file