How I installed Prey on Fedora 26 without NPM

#1

should probably work with Fedora 27 (or 25) as well. Tested on my laptop running Fedora 26 x64 GNOME

Download the latest version for Linux - i used the 64bit version
https://downloads.preyproject.com/prey-client-releases/node-client/1.7.4/prey-linux-1.7.4-x64.zip
Install dependencies in terminal according to the README file

sudo dnf install xawtv scrot mpg123 dmidecode unzip

unzip the downloaded prey zip file to your preferred directory . I decided to leave it under my downloads directory, where the downloaded zip should be

cd Downloads
unzip prey-linux-1.7.4-x64.zip

Test if Prey binary can actually run

cd prey-1.7.4
./bin/prey

CTRL-C to exit
if it’s good, time to sign in using the GUI:

sudo ./bin/prey config gui

now it gets a bit tricky - it asks to run prey config activate but not as root (without sudo) so you’ll need to change ownership of the prey config directory under /etc -

sudo chown your-username:your-username /etc/prey

now run the activation command

./bin/prey config activate

does it give “positive reinforcements”…? if so, test prey again

./bin/prey

test Prey functionality from the web dashboard, everything should be working fine - check the on screen log.
if everything’s swell, CTRL-C to exit prey on the terminal.

tricky part #2: make Prey run on startup using systemd :
again, i’m using the prey binary I left on my downloads directory

cd /etc/systemd/system
sudo gedit prey.service (*or use any other text editor that works for you)

insert the following text


[Unit]
Description=Prey Service
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/home/your-username/Downloads/prey-1.7.4/bin/prey -l /var/log/prey.log &

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

exit & save file , make service file executable

sudo chmod +x prey.service

start the new service & check if it’s running

sudo systemctl start prey
systemctl status prey

if everything look’s good up to this point, time to enable the service to actually start on system startup

sudo systemctl enable prey

Time to reboot. once Fedora starts, don’t log on the user prompt, find another machine or use your cellphone for logging on Prey dashboard to check whether you can actually track the laptop.
all set:)
also, prey creates a log file under /var/log/prey.log (as root). familiarize yourself with that nice log

Trying to run Prey on Fedora 36, getting stuck on gui 'Saving...' button
#2

I’m currently on Fedora 28 & Prey 1.8.2 - all above still works fine

#3

Hey, tomer!
First, thanks for sharing your knowledge with us!
Well… maybe I’m too juvenile on this [probably], but I can’t configure the thing at all on my Fedora 34!
Did you just unzipped the content and ran ./bin/prey, the one which came inside the zipped folder?
If so, do you have any ideas why mine isn’t running?
When I try to do this at the Terminal, I get the following message:
“Looks like there’s no config file yet. Glad to see you’re getting started. :slight_smile:
To finish setting up Prey, please run prey config hooks post_install as root.”
Do I have to run exactly what’s written between the ‘…’ ?
'Cause when I do it, I get the message ‘prey: command not found’.
What am I doing wrong? :frowning:
I never had trouble with .deb distributions, but I’d like to remain using Fedora and without Prey is a concern for me.
Thanks in advance for any help, best regards! :slight_smile:

#4

Did you just unzipped the content and ran ./bin/prey, the one which came inside the zipped folder?

no, I did a couple of things more - I detailed every step I took above. make sure you didn’t skip anything.
the first Prey run i mentioned above was just for testing that the binary can actually run.

I’m currently on Fedora 33 and on Prey 1.8.2 - still works

#5

Ok, so I did > sudo ./bin/prey config gui
several times, in many ways, and I always get the same message:
“Error! Oops. Seems you don’t have write permissions. Try running with sudo.”
:frowning:
[Thanks again for the patience.]

#6

do you have prey directory on /etc ?
ls -lad /etc/prey
if it doesn’t exist, run
sudo ./bin/prey config hooks post_install
that would create the directory and then you should be able to run
sudo ./bin/prey config gui
to get the GUI config started

just tested this on my laptop, I think my original instructions don’t work properly anymore :-/

#7

i can’t figure out how to send PM on the forum…anyhow, you can find me on FB if you need more ideas how to get it working. www . facebook. com / notavailble