WARNING: BETA VERSION This script has been updated for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu Budgie 24.04 LTS. It is under active testing. Always run it on a clean VM before using it in production. Report any problems by opening an issue.

Argos automatically configures an open-source OSINT workstation from a clean Ubuntu 24.04 LTS virtual machine.

Best practice recommends using a dedicated VM for each OSINT investigation. This script follows the methods described by Michael Bazzell in Open Source Intelligence Techniques.

• Requirements
• Tools
• Installation
• Installation Log
• To Do
• Resources
• Credits
• Licences
• Version History
• OSINT Analysis Guidelines
• FAQ

• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or Ubuntu Budgie 24.04 LTS (VM or workstation)
• Any Linux username (the previous requirement to use osint has been removed)
• System language: English
• Active internet connection during installation
• VirtualBox Guest Additions already installed — the script does not install them. Install Guest Additions before running setup.sh to enable clipboard sharing, drag-and-drop, and fullscreen support.

The script is optimised for VirtualBox. Code for VMware Tools is available in the comments.

Tested on:

• Ubuntu Budgie 24.04 LTS (VM)
• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (VM)

No longer supported:

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (some dependencies are incompatible)
• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Removed tools (abandoned or discontinued):

• Instalooter: use Instaloader
• Sublist3r: use Amass
• Photon: use Katana or GoSpider
• youtube-dl: replaced by yt-dlp
• Moriarty-Project: replaced by PhoneInfoga
• Elasticsearch-Crawler: use Shodan CLI
• Atom Editor (discontinued December 2022): replaced by VSCodium
• holehe: abandoned, replaced by user-scanner

1. Open a terminal.

2. Install Git if it is not already present:

   sudo apt install -y git

3. Clone the repository into the Downloads directory:

   git clone https://github.com/SOsintOps/Argos ~/Downloads/Argos

4. Make the script executable:

   chmod +x ~/Downloads/Argos/setup.sh

5. Run the script:

   ~/Downloads/Argos/setup.sh

   Firefox does not need to be closed or opened manually. The script deploys an enterprise policies.json (privacy hardening, OSINT extensions, managed bookmarks) to the Firefox distribution directory; it is applied automatically on the next Firefox launch. Firefox opens the local Exploratores toolkit as its homepage.

The script automatically generates a log file in the Downloads directory:

~/Downloads/argos_install_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.log

The log contains the full installation output with timestamps. If an error occurs, the exact line number is recorded in the log.

• Add Katana or GoSpider as a replacement for Photon
• Update LibreOffice report templates for OSINT investigations
• Complete end-to-end testing on Ubuntu Budgie 24.04 LTS VM
• Add shortcuts for maigret standalone and blackbird standalone

• OSIntOps website
• The Argos Project: an OSINT-ready VM in minutes
• Argos is back, and it's not alone!
• OSInt Daily News
• Open Source Intelligence Techniques by Michael Bazzell
• Deep Dive: Exploring the Real-world Value of Open Source Intelligence by Rae Baker

• Skykn0t for the original OSINT_VM_Setup script
• oh6hay for the script name
• pinkevilpimp for the wallpaper script

See the licence files included in the repository.