I wanted to try SpiderFoot – an OSINT tool. Thought it would be a simple pip install.
Nope.
It crashed on lxml. Something about headers and versions. Classic dependency hell on Arch.
I didn't want to mess up my main system. So I gave up on virtual environments and used Docker instead.
Here's what worked.
Set this up so you don't need sudo for every command.
1. Docker permissions
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker
sudo systemctl restart docker
2. Clone and build
Grab the source and build the image locally.
git clone https://github.com/smicallef/spiderfoot.git
cd spiderfoot
docker build -t spiderfoot .
3. Run it (the easy way)
I used the VS Code Docker extension. Built the image, then ran the container from the UI. The extension shows all running containers on my system, so I could start/stop it with one click.
If you prefer the command line, this works too:
docker run -d -p 5001:5001 --name spiderfoot-app spiderfoot
Either way, open http://localhost:5001 and SpiderFoot is there.
Why I'm doing this
I'm a beginner in cybersecurity. I don't want to install random tools directly on my laptop. With Docker, I can try anything and delete it later without breaking stuff.
This worked for me. Might work for you too.
