README.md

CheckEngine

CheckEngine was developed as part of our research on the security of integrated browsers. This work is published as Shiny Shells, Rusty Cores: A Crowdsourced Security Evaluation of Integrated Web Browsers at SOUPS 2025. Our instance of CheckEngine remains online to support the ongoing continuation of this study.

CheckEngine relies on a modified version of BrowserAudit.

🚀 Setup

1. Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/DistriNet/checkengine.git ./checkengine

2. Clone our browseraudit fork to ./browseraudit

git clone https://github.com/DistriNet/browseraudit.git ./checkengine/browseraudit

This fork is tailored for seamless integration with CheckEngine.

3. Fill in all required environment variables:

• Laravel: Edit ./laravel/.env:

  • APP_URL — Public URL of your CheckEngine instance
  • DB_* — PostgreSQL credentials
  • TINI_URL_TOKEN — API token for tini.fyi URL shortener

• Let's Encrypt Certbot: Edit ./certbot/letsencrypt/certbot.conf:

  • domains: List all domains/subdomains you control that point to this server

• BrowserAudit Go Server: Edit ./browseraudit/server.cfg

  • [database] — PostgreSQL credentials (must match Laravel)
  • [domain] — List all domains/subdomains you control that point to this server
  • geoip2database— Path to your GeoLite2 database (see BrowserAudit README)

4. Build and launch the BrowserAudit server

cd ./checkengine/browseraudit
go build
./browseraudit

The Go server should now be listening on the configured port.

5. Start the framework with docker compose

cd ./checkengine
docker compose up -d nginx

This launches the nginx, php-fpm and memcache.

🤝 Credits

CheckEngine was mainly developed by Pieter Claeys, with additional contributions from Gertjan Franken.

Many thanks to the creators of BrowserAudit.