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reNgine Cloud > Setup

Getting Started with reNgine Cloud After Deployment

Last updated April 7, 2026

You’ve deployed reNgine Cloud from the AWS or Azure Marketplace. This guide walks you through your first login, setting up a project, adding targets, and running your first reconnaissance scan.

1. Finding Your Initial Login Credentials

reNgine Cloud generates a unique admin password during first boot. The credentials are printed to the VM’s console output.

AWS: In the EC2 Console, select your instance and go to Actions > Monitor and troubleshoot > Get system log. Scroll to find the username and password near the end of the boot output.

Azure: In the Azure Portal, navigate to your VM and select Help > Boot diagnostics > Serial log. Search for the login credentials in the output.

Tip: Copy the credentials exactly as shown. They are case-sensitive and may include special characters.

2. Accessing the Web UI

reNgine Cloud serves its web interface over HTTPS on port 443.

  1. Open your browser and go to https://<your-vm-public-ip>.
  2. You will see a certificate warning because the instance uses a self-signed TLS certificate. This is expected. Accept the warning to proceed.
  3. You should see the reNgine login page.

If the login page doesn’t load, see the Troubleshooting section below.

3. First Login and Password Change

  1. Enter the username and password from the console output.
  2. On first login, you will be prompted to change your password. Choose a strong password and store it in a password manager.
  3. After changing your password, you’ll be redirected to the reNgine dashboard.

4. Creating Your First Project

Projects in reNgine are organizational containers that group related targets and their scan results. Use them to separate work by client, environment, or business unit.

  1. From the dashboard, click Add New Project (or navigate to Projects in the sidebar).
  2. Enter a project name and optional description.
  3. Click Create.

5. Adding Targets

Targets define what reNgine will scan. Inside your project, click Add Target and enter the primary domain (e.g., example.com).

reNgine supports several target types:

Type Example Notes
Root domain example.com Discovers subdomains automatically
Subdomain app.example.com Scans a specific subdomain
IP address 203.0.113.10 Direct host scanning
CIDR range 203.0.113.0/24 Scans an entire network block

You can also add out-of-scope entries to exclude specific hosts or paths.

6. Running Your First Scan

  1. Navigate to your target and click Start Scan.
  2. Select a scan engine. For your first run, choose Initial Scan - reNgine recommended. This engine runs subdomain discovery, HTTP crawling, OSINT gathering, WAF detection, URL extraction, and screenshots – a solid balance of coverage and speed.
  3. Click Start to begin the scan.

What to Expect

  • Duration depends on target size. A single domain with a handful of subdomains may complete in 10-20 minutes. Large organizations with hundreds of subdomains can take an hour or more.
  • The scan progress page auto-refreshes so you can monitor each phase in real time.
  • reNgine runs multiple reconnaissance tools under the hood, including subfinder, httpx, nuclei, naabu, and others. Each phase feeds results into the next.

Other built-in engines include Initial Scan - Passive (fast, no port scanning), Passive with screenshots, and Scan - Active (full scan with port scanning, vulnerability detection, and directory fuzzing). You can also create custom engines under Scan Engines in the sidebar.

7. Understanding Your Results

Once the scan completes, reNgine presents results across several categories:

  • Subdomains Discovered – All subdomains found via DNS, certificate transparency, and web scraping.
  • Endpoints / URLs – Live URLs discovered through crawling, Wayback Machine, and other sources.
  • Technologies Detected – Web servers, frameworks, CMS platforms, and JavaScript libraries identified on each host.
  • Vulnerabilities – Issues detected by Nuclei and other tools, categorized by severity (critical, high, medium, low, info).
  • Screenshots – Visual captures of discovered web pages for quickly spotting interesting or unexpected services.

All results are filterable, searchable, and exportable as reports.

Troubleshooting

Can’t reach the login page

Your VM’s firewall rules may be blocking inbound traffic on port 443.

  • AWS: Check the EC2 Security Group attached to your instance. Ensure it allows inbound TCP on port 443 from your IP.
  • Azure: Check the Network Security Group (NSG) associated with your VM’s network interface or subnet. Add an inbound rule for TCP port 443.

Login credentials not working

Re-check the console output (EC2 system log or Azure serial console). Copy credentials carefully – they are case-sensitive and may contain characters that look similar (e.g., 0 vs O, 1 vs l). If you’ve forgotten a changed password, reset it via the Django admin shell on the VM.

Scan won’t start

Docker containers may not be fully initialized yet. SSH into the VM and run docker ps to verify all containers (web, celery, celery-beat, postgres, redis, nginx) show healthy or Up. If any are still starting, wait 2-3 minutes and check again before retrying the scan.

Next Steps

Explore more tutorials and advanced configuration guides at https://hailbytes.com/tutorials/.

Still need help? Open a ticket at support.hailbytes.com.

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