Prey

Prey is a set of bash scripts that helps you track your computer when it is stolen.

This guide shows you how to install Prey.

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This article or section needs expansion.

Reason: This article only describes the outdated package prey-tracker. It should contain a section for the new package, prey-node-client, that replaces the old one. (Discuss)

Installation

Install prey-tracker from the AUR.

Configuration

Note: It is no longer possible to add new devices using the control panel on Prey's website. Use the Node.js client or the GUI.

Edit /usr/share/prey/config and add your device key and API key, both of which are listed in Prey's control panel.

Run /usr/share/prey/prey.sh as root to ensure that the configuration is correct.

Note: The old version of prey-tracker ( < 0.5.9-3) was in /usr/share/prey-tracker/ folder, now (>0.5.10-2) it is in /usr/share/prey/.

Enable systemd service prey-tracker to automatically start Prey at boot # systemctl enable prey-tracker.timer

Modules

To enable/disable modules, you must change the executable permissions for the the "run" files in prey's respective modules/core subdirectories. Adding executable permissions to a module will enable it, while removing permissions will disable the module.

GUI config

You can use a GUI to configure prey using the prey-config script:

# /usr/share/prey/platform/linux/prey-config.py

Note that if this doesn't work call it by using python2 specifically:

# python2 /usr/share/prey/platform/linux/prey-config.py

Standalone Mode

The GUI can be used to configure standalone mode.

Alternatively, /usr/share/prey/config can be edited to change post_method to email and edit the SMTP settings.

Note that in Standalone Mode, all modules in /usr/share/prey/modules run by default. To disable them, remove executable permissions on the module's run file (located within the module's core subdirectory). For example, the following command disables the alarm module:

# chmod -x /usr/share/prey/modules/alarm/core/run

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot, run

# /usr/share/prey/prey.sh --check

Ensure you have enabled systemd service prey-tracker.service and prey-tracker.timer to start Prey at boot.

If you're not receiving webcam images in you reports, install xawtv from the official repositories.

Beeping

If scrot is installed, prey will use it to take a screenshot if the session module is enabled. Unfortunately, scrot emits an annoying beep everytime it is run. To disable beeping, append xset -b to the beginning of /usr/share/prey/modules/session/core/run.

Bugs

There seems to be a bug in version 0.5.3 which gives an error if the SMTP password is set when using "email" post_method, which returns an error, but works fine when executed normally without the --check option.