Tools to install w3af as a Python module.

The setup.py file is only useful if you're trying to create some type of wrapper around w3af and use it as a module. The file is not included into the main w3af distribution because regular users don't need it.

To install w3af as a module you'll have to follow these steps:

git clone git@github.com:andresriancho/w3af-module.git
# optional: git checkout develop
sudo python setup.py install

After some seconds you should be able to move to any directory and from a python interpreter run import w3af.

andres@box:~$ python
Python 2.7.3 (default, Aug  1 2012, 05:14:39) 
[GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import w3af
>>>

It is important to note that this script does install any pip dependencies required by w3af, but this process might fail if the operating system packages (such as the python development headers) are not installed. Please read the official w3af documentation to learn more about the installation process.

Advanced users will notice that the w3af-repo directory is a copy of the w3af repository that lives in git@github.com:andresriancho/w3af.git. This is the source which will be used to build the module and was merged into this repository using git subtree.

To update the code that lives in this directory you'll have to run:

cd w3af-repo/
git pull -s subtree w3af develop # or master if you want the stable release
git push

Testing the setup.py file is easy:

virtualenv venv
. venv/bin/activate
rm -rf build/ dist/ w3af.egg-info/
python setup.py install --dry-run --record record.txt
# inspect the record.txt file