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On-prem: Initial docs for embedded cluster install#288

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On-prem: Initial docs for embedded cluster install#288
jeff-matthews wants to merge 16 commits into
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on-prem-install

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@jeff-matthews jeff-matthews commented May 15, 2026

Purpose

This pull request (PR) adds the first round of customer-facing docs for on-premises BloodHound Enterprise deployments.

Note

You may need to scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar on staging to see it.

Screenshot 2026-05-26 at 8 30 01 AM

Staging

https://specterops-on-prem-install.mintlify.app/on-premises/overview

Scope

It focuses exclusively on the embedded cluster deployment/install option.

Summary by CodeRabbit

  • Documentation

    • Added comprehensive on-premises BloodHound Enterprise deployment documentation including deployment overview, system architecture details, infrastructure and network requirements, collector configuration guidance, and complete step-by-step installation guide for self-hosted deployments using embedded cluster technology.
  • New Features

    • Introduced interactive checklist component for documentation pages with persistent state tracking across sessions and visual progress indicators.

Review Change Stack

@jeff-matthews jeff-matthews self-assigned this May 15, 2026
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mintlify Bot commented May 15, 2026

Preview deployment for your docs. Learn more about Mintlify Previews.

Project Status Preview Updated (UTC)
bloodhound 🟢 Ready View Preview May 15, 2026, 9:20 PM

💡 Tip: Enable Workflows to automatically generate PRs for you.

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Configuration used: Organization UI

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Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 1de99a4 and d7e88e0.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)
  • docs/on-premises/install.mdx

Walkthrough

This PR adds comprehensive on-premises deployment documentation for BloodHound Enterprise, including an overview, architecture guide, system requirements, and step-by-step installation instructions. It also introduces a reusable interactive Checklist React component for client-side state persistence.

Changes

On-Premises Deployment Documentation

Layer / File(s) Summary
Interactive Checklist Component
docs/snippets/components/checklist.jsx
Client-side Checklist React component with localStorage persistence: initializes from saved state or DOM element count, toggles items immutably, renders ul/li as checkboxes, and includes styled-jsx styling with dark-mode support and checked-label strike-through.
Navigation & Deployment Overview
docs/docs.json, docs/on-premises/overview.mdx
Adds On-premises BloodHound Enterprise navigation tab group and overview page explaining control areas (residency, infrastructure, updates, isolation), SaaS comparison, embedded cluster model, installation steps table, and links to related documentation.
Deployment Architecture & Data Flow
docs/on-premises/architecture.mdx
Documents the two-part deployment model (BloodHound Enterprise host and collector hosts), core components (API, PostgreSQL 18.x), deployment-specific components (k0s, Installation Wizard, SpecterOps Portal), supported collectors and their targets, and complete data flow from collection through encrypted transmission to storage and visualization.
System & Infrastructure Requirements
docs/on-premises/system-requirements.mdx
System requirements page covering host sizing and preflight checks, PostgreSQL 18 prerequisites, reverse proxy and TLS setup, DNS and firewall configuration, collector host requirements, and deployment-specific guidance.
Embedded Cluster Installation Guide
docs/on-premises/install.mdx
Step-by-step installation guide: pre-install checklist, web installer workflow with proxy and registry options, Linux host setup, Installation Wizard configuration (domain, certificates, database, networking, preflight), post-install admin password retrieval via kubectl, and troubleshooting commands.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~12 minutes

Poem

🐰 A checklist learns to tick and tock,
While on-premises docs unlock the lock,
From overview to architecture's tale,
System needs and install without fail,
BloodHound's home now documented with care! 📋✨

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5
✅ Passed checks (5 passed)
Check name Status Explanation
Description Check ✅ Passed Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check ✅ Passed The title 'On-prem: Initial docs for embedded cluster install' directly and specifically summarizes the main change: adding initial documentation for on-premises BloodHound Enterprise with focus on embedded cluster installation.
Docstring Coverage ✅ Passed No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check ✅ Passed Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check ✅ Passed Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.

✨ Finishing Touches
🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)
  • Create PR with unit tests
  • Commit unit tests in branch on-prem-install

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@jeff-matthews jeff-matthews added the on-prem Docs related to managing self-hosted BloodHound Enterprise deployments (on-premises) label May 15, 2026
@jeff-matthews jeff-matthews marked this pull request as ready for review May 21, 2026 22:39
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Actionable comments posted: 5

🧹 Nitpick comments (1)
docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/install.mdx (1)

271-271: TODO: Expand preflight check failure guidance.

This comment indicates missing documentation for common preflight check failures and resolutions. Addressing this would improve the user experience for troubleshooting blocked installations.

Would you like me to draft content covering common preflight failures (disk latency, missing ports, connectivity issues) and their resolutions?

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents
Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/install.mdx` at line 271, Expand the TODO
in the preflight checks section of docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/install.mdx
by replacing the placeholder comment with concrete guidance: add a short list of
common failures (high disk latency, insufficient disk space, blocked/missing
ports, DNS/resolver failures, time skew, node resource constraints, and network
connectivity issues), for each include a brief cause, specific diagnostic
commands (e.g., iostat/lsblk/df for disk, ss/netstat for ports, dig/host/ping
for DNS/connectivity, ntp/chrony checks for time), and concise remediation steps
(tuning IO, freeing space, opening ports, fixing DNS, syncing time, increasing
resources), plus links or notes about log locations and where to find additional
troubleshooting help; update the surrounding paragraph headings to ensure the
new content is discoverable in the preflight checks section.
🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents
Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/install.mdx`:
- Line 333: Update the sentence that reads "kubectl command line tool" to use
the compound adjective form "kubectl command-line tool" so the phrase is
hyphenated correctly; locate the sentence containing the string "kubectl command
line tool" in the install.mdx content and replace it with "kubectl command-line
tool".

In `@docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/overview.mdx`:
- Around line 45-47: Fix the two typos in the installation steps table: change
the phrase "Use the a web-based installer." (step 2) to "Use the web-based
installer." and change "Install SharpHound and or AzureHound as Windows
services." (step 4) to "Install SharpHound and/or AzureHound as Windows
services." so wording is correct and consistent.

In `@docs/on-premises/overview.mdx`:
- Around line 41-48: Update the "KOTS" row in the Deployment options table to
indicate it's not covered in this docs set by appending a short note such as
"coming soon / not covered in this guide" to the Best fit or Key tradeoffs cell
for the KOTS row (the row containing the symbol "KOTS"); keep the rest of the
table unchanged so readers know the guide only provides embedded-cluster
instructions and won't find KOTS installation details here.

In `@docs/snippets/components/checklist.jsx`:
- Around line 1-4: The Checklist component is missing React imports causing
runtime ReferenceErrors; import React plus the hooks and utilities used
(specifically bring in React and named imports useState and useEffect) and
ensure you reference React.Children and React.isValidElement (or import
isValidElement directly) so the Checklist function, which uses useState,
useEffect, React.Children and React.isValidElement, has the required imports at
the top of the file.
- Around line 9-11: Wrap the JSON.parse call inside a try/catch so malformed
localStorage data won’t crash the component: when handling the saved variable in
the conditional that currently does const parsed = JSON.parse(saved);
setItems(parsed); catch JSON.parse errors and fallback to a safe default (e.g.,
[] or existing initial items) and optionally clear the corrupted localStorage
key or log a warning; update the branch in the component where saved is read and
setItems is called to use this guarded parse logic.

---

Nitpick comments:
In `@docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/install.mdx`:
- Line 271: Expand the TODO in the preflight checks section of
docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/install.mdx by replacing the placeholder
comment with concrete guidance: add a short list of common failures (high disk
latency, insufficient disk space, blocked/missing ports, DNS/resolver failures,
time skew, node resource constraints, and network connectivity issues), for each
include a brief cause, specific diagnostic commands (e.g., iostat/lsblk/df for
disk, ss/netstat for ports, dig/host/ping for DNS/connectivity, ntp/chrony
checks for time), and concise remediation steps (tuning IO, freeing space,
opening ports, fixing DNS, syncing time, increasing resources), plus links or
notes about log locations and where to find additional troubleshooting help;
update the surrounding paragraph headings to ensure the new content is
discoverable in the preflight checks section.
🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

  • Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
  • Create a new PR with the fixes

ℹ️ Review info
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Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: a9b7acce-09e3-4299-b70a-34954f7d7cf4

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 64f5cb6 and 61c4cbc.

⛔ Files ignored due to path filters (10)
  • docs/images/on-premises/install-instructions.png is excluded by !**/*.png
  • docs/images/on-premises/install-options.png is excluded by !**/*.png
  • docs/images/on-premises/installer-app-access.png is excluded by !**/*.png
  • docs/images/on-premises/installer-certificates.png is excluded by !**/*.png
  • docs/images/on-premises/installer-database-config.png is excluded by !**/*.png
  • docs/images/on-premises/installer-domain-config.png is excluded by !**/*.png
  • docs/images/on-premises/installer-preflight-checks.png is excluded by !**/*.png
  • docs/images/on-premises/installer-setup.png is excluded by !**/*.png
  • docs/images/on-premises/installer-success.png is excluded by !**/*.png
  • docs/images/on-premises/online-instances.png is excluded by !**/*.png
📒 Files selected for processing (7)
  • docs/docs.json
  • docs/on-premises/architecture.mdx
  • docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/install.mdx
  • docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/overview.mdx
  • docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/system-requirements.mdx
  • docs/on-premises/overview.mdx
  • docs/snippets/components/checklist.jsx

Comment thread docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/install.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/overview.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/overview.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/snippets/components/checklist.jsx
Comment thread docs/snippets/components/checklist.jsx Outdated
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Lots of comments, but I haven't run through the steps to confirm accuracy.

Comment thread docs/docs.json Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/overview.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/overview.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/overview.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/overview.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/system-requirements.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/system-requirements.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/system-requirements.mdx Outdated
Comment thread docs/on-premises/embedded-cluster/system-requirements.mdx Outdated
sudo ./bloodhound-enterprise shell
```

1. Print the initial admin password from the `bloodhound` deployment's logs:
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We could also show customers how to set this default password from the config to make this step simpler.

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I didn't know that was an option. I don't see anything on the portal or in the archive of installation assets that points to a config for the web-based installation method.

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🧹 Nitpick comments (1)
docs/on-premises/install.mdx (1)

27-27: ⚡ Quick win

Restrict Installation Wizard ingress scope in the checklist item.

Line 27 should explicitly say to limit TCP 30080 to admin source IPs/subnets, not broadly open it, to avoid unnecessary exposure of the setup interface.

Suggested doc tweak
-- Open inbound TCP `443` (users and collectors) and `30080` (Installation Wizard)
+- Open inbound TCP `443` (users and collectors) and `30080` (Installation Wizard, restricted to admin source IPs/subnets)
🤖 Prompt for AI Agents
Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@docs/on-premises/install.mdx` at line 27, Update the checklist line that
currently reads "Open inbound TCP `443` (users and collectors) and `30080`
(Installation Wizard)" to explicitly restrict TCP `30080` to only admin source
IPs/subnets (not broadly open); mention the Installation Wizard and port `30080`
by name and instruct readers to limit ingress to specific admin CIDRs or VPN/
bastion hosts for secure access while keeping TCP `443` open for users and
collectors.
🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents
Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Nitpick comments:
In `@docs/on-premises/install.mdx`:
- Line 27: Update the checklist line that currently reads "Open inbound TCP
`443` (users and collectors) and `30080` (Installation Wizard)" to explicitly
restrict TCP `30080` to only admin source IPs/subnets (not broadly open);
mention the Installation Wizard and port `30080` by name and instruct readers to
limit ingress to specific admin CIDRs or VPN/ bastion hosts for secure access
while keeping TCP `443` open for users and collectors.

ℹ️ Review info
⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: 26b50ca1-8c1b-4f39-a1ea-7f5e4d791ce3

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 0be3d18 and 1de99a4.

📒 Files selected for processing (5)
  • docs/docs.json
  • docs/on-premises/architecture.mdx
  • docs/on-premises/install.mdx
  • docs/on-premises/overview.mdx
  • docs/on-premises/system-requirements.mdx
✅ Files skipped from review due to trivial changes (1)
  • docs/on-premises/architecture.mdx

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