NTIA Conformance Checker

This tool determines whether a SPDX software bill of materials (SBOM) document contains the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) "minimum elements." The mapping of the NTIA elements required data fields to the SPDX specification can be found here.

The minimum elements include:

• Supplier Name
• Component Name
• Version of the Component
• Other Unique Identifiers
• Dependency Relationship
• Author of SBOM Data
• Timestamp

As defined by the NTIA, the minimum elements are "the essential pieces that support basic SBOM functionality and will serve as the foundation for an evolving approach to software transparency."

Installation

Installation Method #1: Install from the Python Package Index (PyPI) with pip.

pip install ntia-conformance-checker

Installation Method #2: Install locally. Clone the repo and install dependencies using the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/spdx/ntia-conformance-checker.git
cd ntia-conformance-checker
pip install .

The tool requires Python 3 (3.8+). It is recommended to use a virtual python environment especially if you are using different versions of python. virtualenv is a tool for setting up virtual python environments which allows you to have all the dependencies for the tool set up in a single environment, or have different environments set up for testing using different versions of Python.

CLI Usage

Usage: ntia-checker [OPTIONS]

Options:
  --file TEXT            The file to be parsed
  --output [print|json]  Output format  [default: print]
  -v, --verbose          Use verbose printing
  --output_path TEXT     Filepath for optionally storing output.
  -h, --help             Show this message and exit.

The user can then analyze a particular file:

ntia-checker --file sbom.json

To generate the output in machine-readable JSON, run:

ntia-checker --file sbom.spdx --output json

Usage as a Library

ntia-conformance-checker can also be imported as a library. For example:

import ntia_conformance_checker as ntia

sbom = ntia.SbomChecker("SBOM_filepath")

print(sbom.ntia_minimum_elements_compliant)

Additional properties and methods associated with SbomChecker() can be found in sbom_checker.py.

History

This is the result of an initial Google Summer of Code (GSoC) contribution in 2022 by @linynjosh and is maintained by a community of SPDX adopters and enthusiasts.

License

Apache-2.0

Dependencies

• spdx-tools used for parsing the SPDX SBOM.

Support

• Submit issues, questions or feedback at https://github.com/spdx/ntia-conformance-checker/issues
• Join the discussion on https://lists.spdx.org/g/spdx-tech and https://spdx.dev/participate/tech/

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for instructions on how to contribute to the codebase.

Further help

Check out the frequently asked questions document.