Prey
Prey is a set of scripts that helps you track your computer when it is stolen.
This guide shows you how to install Prey.
Contents
Installation
Install prey-node-clientAUR from the AUR.
Configuration
First you must to have a Prey's account, if you don't have it, you can create it on the website.
To add your device, run prey_project config account setup and type your email account and password. Or use the the GUI to set your account.
Run prey_project config activate as prey user to ensure that the configuration is correct. One way to accomplish this is with sudo -u prey prey_project config activate.
The installer enable automatically the systemd service prey-agent to start Prey at boot. You can check if it's loaded and running with systemctl status prey-agent
Plugins
To enable/disable plugins, you must run prey_project config plugins and read the usage to enable/disable and list the available plugins.
GUI config
You can use a GUI to configure prey using the prey_project config gui command:
# prey_project config gui
Standalone Mode
By enabling url-trigger and report-to-inbox plugins you can set a standalone prey client, triggering emailed reports whenever a URL returns a specific status code.
Troubleshooting
To troubleshoot, run
$ prey_project config check
Ensure you have enabled systemd service prey-agent.service 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.