Extensions Configuration

Threats Manager Studio (TMS) is a container of modules called Extensions. Some Extensions are provided out of the box as part of the standard distribution, within TMPlatformSetup.exe. Other Extensions, like the one for Auto Threat Generation or the one for Quality, are provided as separate installations. For more information about the Extensions, please refer to the training page Extensions and Extensibility.

To configure Extensions, you can use the Options dialog, which is available from File menu.

Extensions configuration is possible from a page of the Options, aptly called Extensions.

The page shows three different sections:

• Folders containing the additional Extensions.
• Validation Rules.
• Execution Mode.

ATTENTION
All configurations in this page are applied only after a restart of TMS. Some of those configurations, like the Execution Mode, are partially effective immediately. For this reason, it is highly recommended to restart TMS immediately after any change to the Extensions page of the Options dialog.

Folders containing the additional Extensions

The first section allows to specify in which folder the Extension libraries are to be searched. It is important to note that the list includes the locations where additional and custom Extensions are to be installed: in fact, the standard Extensions installed with TMS will continue to be loaded even if this list is empty.

The list typically contains only a path, under the user’s AppData. This path is included automatically by the Initialization Wizard, or by clicking the button Add Default for the section.

It is also possible to include other folders with button Add. This is typically useful to include additional folders for custom Extensions.

Button Remove allows to remove currently selected folders from the list.

Validation Rules

The Validation Rules section contains two different sub-sections:

• The first one to identify the prefixes for the names of the libraries containing Extensions.
• The second to indicate the certificates used to sign the Extension libraries.

It is important to specify prefixes for the names of the libraries, because it allows to minimize the startup time, by focusing the inspection to identify which contain Extensions for TMS to be loaded. In fact, only libraries having name starting with any text listed in the list will be considered. Therefore, it is important to specify prefixes that are as selective as possible. For this reason, the comparison is case sensitive.

All standard Extension libraries have ‘ThreatsManager’ as prefix. This value can be added automatically using the Initialization Wizard, or by clicking button Add Default for the section.

Again, it is possible to specify additional prefixes, for example to load custom Extensions, using button Add.

Button Remove allows to remove currently selected prefixes from the list.

The second type of Validation Rules is related to the signature of the Extension libraries. In fact, it allows to specify the certificates used to sign the Extension libraries themselves. If you have multiple certificates included here, all of them are considered valid. Therefore, Extension libraries not signed with any of those certificates would be loaded.

IMPORTANT
If the list of certificates is empty, then all identified Extension libraries are loaded, regardless their signature. Even unsigned Extension libraries will be loaded. This may be ok for development purposes, but not for Production environments.

The list typically contains only a certificate, which is the one used to sign TMS itself. This certificate is included automatically by the Initialization Wizard, or by clicking the button Add Default for the section.

It is also possible to include other certificates with button Add. This is typically useful to include the certificate used to sign custom Extensions.

Button Remove allows to remove currently selected certificates from the list.

Execution Mode

The Execution Mode allows specifying what features are visible to you. It also changes the behavior of some Extensions. Please refer to page Execution Mode for details on this configuration.