Nucleus - Vulnerability Scan Orchestrator

Nucleus is a single, self-contained Go binary that acts as an orchestration manager for scheduled Nuclei vulnerability scans.

It serves an embedded Vue 3 SPA web dashboard, reads/writes scan states to a local SQLite database, and automatically dispatches beautifully formatted HTML email reports via SMTP when scans discover vulnerabilities.

Prerequisites

• Go 1.22+
• Node.js & npm (for building the frontend)
• Nuclei: Ensure the nuclei CLI is installed and available in the system $PATH.

Building the Application

Nucleus bundles the Vue 3 frontend directly into the Go binary using the //go:embed directive.

1. Build the Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run build

(This places the static assets in the dist/ directory).

2. Compile the Go Binary

# From the root directory
go mod tidy
go build -o nucleus ./cmd/nucleus

Download

The binary is availble for download from here:

https://apps.jdbnet.co.uk/nucleus

Running as a Systemd Service

To keep Nucleus running continuously in the background on your VM, it is recommended to create a systemd service.

1. Create a service file:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/nucleus.service

2. Add the following configuration (adjust the User, Group, WorkingDirectory, and ExecStart paths to match your environment):

[Unit]
Description=Nucleus Vulnerability Scan Orchestrator
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/opt/nucleus
ExecStart=/opt/nucleus/nucleus

# SMTP Configuration
Environment="SMTP_HOST=localhost"
Environment="SMTP_PORT=25"
Environment="SMTP_FROM=nucleus@example.com"
Environment="SMTP_TO=admin@example.com"

# Optional: Add authentication if your SMTP server requires it
# Environment="SMTP_USER=username"
# Environment="SMTP_PASS=password"

# Optional: Add basic authentication to protect the web dashboard
# Environment="WEB_USER=admin"
# Environment="WEB_PASS=supersecret"

# Optional: Number of days to retain scan history in the database (Default: 30)
# Environment="RETENTION_DAYS=30"

Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

3. Enable and start the service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable nucleus
sudo systemctl start nucleus
sudo systemctl status nucleus

Dashboard

By default, the web dashboard will be available on http://<your-vm-ip>:8080.