Note

This documentation applies to Legacy BloodHound and is no longer maintained.

See up-to-date documentation for BloodHound CE here: Install BloodHound Community Edition with Docker Compose

Windows

Walkthrough Video

Install Java

  1. Download the Windows installer for Oracle JDK 11 from https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase-jdk11-downloads.html (needs an Oracle account).

    Alternatively download and install the Microsoft build of OpenJDK 11 without any registration or login: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/java/openjdk/download#openjdk-11

  2. Use the according installer to setup JDK. The default options work fine. You want to make sure though that the JAVA_HOME System variable is set correctly. In the Microsoft setup this is an option during installation:

    JAVA_HOME variable

    Note

    You want to make sure that the System variable JAVA_HOME is set correctly, pointing to you OpenJDK 11 by running the following command:

    rundll32.exe sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables
    
    JAVA_HOME variable

Install neo4j

Warning

Neo4j 5 suffers from severe performance regression issues. Until further notice, please use the latest Neo4j 4.4.x version

  1. Download the latest neo4j 4.x Community Server Edition zip from https://neo4j.com/download-center/#community
  2. Unzip the neo4j zip file.
  3. Open a command prompt, running as administrator. Change directory to the unzipped neo4j folder.
  4. Change directory to the bin directory in the Neo4j folder.
  5. Run the following command:
C:\> neo4j.bat install-service

Note

At this point you may see an error about Java not being found, or the wrong version of Java running. Make sure you followed the JAVA installation steps correctly.

Note

You might run into an error Couldn’t find prunsrv file for interacting with the windows service subsystem …. This happens if the System variables NEO4J_CONF and NEO4J_HOME are not set (correctly). Both need to point to the root of the neo4j folder.

JAVA_HOME variable

Note

You might run into an error Could not find or load main class org.neo4j.server.startup.Neo4jCommand. This happens if the System variables NEO4J_CONF and NEO4J_HOME are not set (correctly). Both need to point to the root of the neo4j folder.

JAVA_HOME variable neo4j variables
  1. neo4j is now installed as a Windows service. Run this command:
C:\> net start neo4j

You should see the message, “The neo4j Graph Database - neo4j service was started successfully.”

  1. Open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:7474/. You should see the neo4j web console.
  2. Authenticate to neo4j in the web console with username neo4j, password neo4j. You’ll be prompted to change this password.

Download the BloodHound GUI

  1. Download the latest version of the BloodHound GUI from https://github.com/BloodHoundAD/BloodHound/releases
  2. Unzip the folder and double click BloodHound.exe
  3. Authenticate with the credentials you set up for neo4j

Alternative: Build the BloodHound GUI

  1. Install NodeJS from https://nodejs.org/en/download/
  2. Install electron-packager
C:\> npm install -g electron-packager
  1. Clone the BloodHound GitHub repo:
C:\> git clone https://github.com/BloodHoundAD/BloodHound
  1. From the root BloodHound directory, run npm install
C:\> npm install
  1. Build BloodHound with npm run build:win32
C:\> npm run build:win32