OpenVAS
OpenVAS Open-Source Vulnerability Scanner
Last updated
OpenVAS Open-Source Vulnerability Scanner
Last updated
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR OPENVAS
=====================================
Please note: The reference system used by most of the developers is Debian
Stable. The build might fail on any other system. Also, it is
necessary to install dependent development packages.
Prerequisites for openvas
-------------------------
Prerequisites:
* a C compiler (e.g. gcc)
* cmake >= 3.0
* libgvm_base, libgvm_util >= 22.4
* glib-2.0 >= 2.42
* gio-2.0
* json-glib-1.0 >= 1.4.4
* bison
* flex
* libgcrypt >= 1.6
* pkg-config
* libpcap
* libgpgme >= 1.1.2
* redis >= 5.0.3
* libssh >= 0.6.0
* libksba >= 1.0.7
* libgnutls >= 3.6.4
* libcurl4-gnutls-dev
* libbsd
Prerequisites for building documentation:
* Doxygen
* pandoc (optional, for building manual and man pages for NASL built-in functions)
Prerequisites for building tests:
* Cgreen (optional, for building tests)
Recommended to have WMI support:
* openvas-smb >= 1.0.1
Recommended for extended Windows support (e.g. automatically start the remote registry service):
* impacket-wmiexec of python-impacket >= 0.9.15 found within your PATH
Recommended to have improved SNMP support:
* netsnmp libraries or alternatively the snmpget binary.
* snmp client
Recommended for port scanning and service detection based on nmap.
* nmap
Recommended for port scanning based on pnscan.
* pnscan
Install prerequisites on Debian GNU/Linux 'Bullseye' 11:
apt-get install gcc pkg-config libssh-gcrypt-dev libgnutls28-dev \
libglib2.0-dev libjson-glib-dev libpcap-dev libgpgme-dev bison libksba-dev \
libsnmp-dev libgcrypt20-dev redis-server libbsd-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev
Compiling openvas
-----------------
If you have installed required libraries to a non-standard location, remember to
set the `PKG_CONFIG_PATH` environment variable to the location of you pkg-config
files before configuring:
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/your/location/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH
Create a build directory and change into it with:
mkdir build
cd build
Then configure the build with:
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/your/installation ..
Or (if you want to use the default installation path /usr/local):
cmake ..
This only needs to be done once.
Other cmake variables need to be adjusted as well if you want to have all files in CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX or in the default installation path `/usr/local`. They can be added to the `cmake` call with `-D<var_name>=<install_prefix><default_value>`.
| Variable | Default |
| ---------------------- | :---------------------------------- |
| SYSCONFDIR | `/etc` |
| LOCALSTATEDIR | `/var` |
| OPENVAS_FEED_LOCK_PATH | `/var/lib/openvas/feed-update.lock` |
| OPENVAS_RUN_DIR | `/run/ospd` |
Thereafter, the following commands are useful:
make # build the scanner
make doxygen # build the documentation
make doxygen-full # build more developer-oriented documentation
make doxygen-xml # build the documentation (XML)
make manual # build a HTML manual
make nasl-man # build man pages for NASL built-in functions
make tests # build tests
make install # install the build
make rebuild_cache # rebuild the cmake cache
Please note that you may have to execute `make install` as root, especially if
you have specified a prefix for which your user does not have full permissions.
To clean up the build environment, simply remove the contents of the `build`
directory you created above.
Configuration Options
---------------------
During compilation, the build process uses a set of compiler options which
enable very strict error checking and asks the compiler to abort should it detect
any errors in the code. This is to ensure a maximum of code quality and
security.
Some (especially newer) compilers can be stricter than others when it comes
to error checking. While this is a good thing and the developers aim to address
all compiler warnings, it may lead the build process to abort on your system.
Should you notice error messages causing your build process to abort, do not
hesitate to contact the developers by creating a
[new issue report](https://github.com/greenbone/openvas/issues/new).
Don't forget to include the name and version of your compiler and distribution in your
message.
Setting up openvas
------------------
Setting up an openvas requires the following steps:
1. (optional) You may decide to change the default scanner preferences
by setting them in the file `/etc/openvas/openvas.conf` or `<SYSCONFDIR>/openvas/openvas.conf`
when `SYSCONFDIR` was set via the `cmake` call. If that file does
not exist (default), then the default settings are used. You can view
them with `openvas -s`. The output of that command is a valid configuration
file. The man page (`man openvas`) provides details about the available
settings, among these opportunities to restrict access of scanner regarding
scan targets and interfaces.
2. In order to run vulnerability scans, you will need a collection of Network
Vulnerability Tests (NVTs) that can be run by openvas. Initially,
your NVT collection will be empty. It is recommended that you synchronize
with an NVT feed service before starting openvas for the first time.
Use [greenbone-feed-sync](https://github.com/greenbone/greenbone-feed-sync/)
to synchronize the feed. It can be used to synchronize with the community feed,
as well as with the enterprise feed. Look into it for more information.
NVT feeds are updated on a regular basis. Be sure to update your NVT collection
regularly to detect the latest threats.
3. The scanner needs a running Redis server to temporarily store information
gathered on the scanned hosts. Redis 3.2 and newer are supported.
See `doc/redis_config.txt` to see how to set up and run a Redis server.
The easiest and most reliable way to start redis under Ubuntu and Debian is
to use systemd.
```bash
sudo cp config/redis-openvas.conf /etc/redis/
sudo chown redis:redis /etc/redis/redis-openvas.conf
sudo echo "db_address = /run/redis-openvas/redis.sock" > /etc/openvas/openvas.conf # Or append to <SYSCONFDIR>/openvas/openvas.conf when SYSCONFDIR was set via the cmake call.
sudo systemctl start redis-server@openvas.service
```
4. The Greenbone Vulnerability Management service (`gvmd`) acts as OSP client
to connect to and control scanners. openvas does not act as a OSP service -
you need the `OSPD-OpenVAS` module for this. The actual user interfaces (for
example GSA or GVM-Tools) will only interact with `gvmd` and/or
`ospd-openvas`, not the scanner. You can launch openvas to upload the
plugins in redis using the following command:
openvas -u
but `ospd-openvas` will do the update automatically.
5. Please note that although you can run `openvas` as a user without elevated
privileges, it is recommended that you start `openvas` as `root` since a
number of Network Vulnerability Tests (NVTs) require root privileges to
perform certain operations like packet forgery. If you run `openvas` as
a user without permission to perform these operations, your scan results
are likely to be incomplete.
As `openvas` will be launched from an `ospd-openvas` process with sudo,
the next configuration is required in the sudoers file:
sudo visudo
add this line to allow the user running `ospd-openvas`, to launch `openvas`
with root permissions
<user> ALL = NOPASSWD: <install prefix>/sbin/openvas
If you set an install prefix, you have to update the path in the sudoers
file too:
Defaults secure_path=<existing paths...>:<install prefix>/sbin
Logging Configuration
---------------------
If you encounter problems, by default the scanner writes logs to the file
/var/log/gvm/openvas.log
When `LOCALSTATEDIR` was set via the `cmake` call the scanner writes logs to the file
<LOCALSTATEDIR>/log/gvm/openvas.log
It may contain useful information.The exact location of this file may differ
depending on your distribution and installation method. Please have this file
ready when contacting the GVM developers via the Greenbone Community Portal
or submitting bug reports at <https://github.com/greenbone/openvas/issues> as
they may help to pinpoint the source of your issue.
Logging is configured via the file at default location
/etc/openvas/openvas_log.conf
When `SYSCONFDIR` was set via the `cmake` call the file is located at
<SYSCONFDIR>/openvas/openvas_log.conf
The configuration is divided into domains like this one
[sd main]
prepend=%t %p
prepend_time_format=%Y-%m-%d %Hh%M.%S %Z
file=/var/log/gvm/openvas.log
level=128
The `level` field controls the amount of logging that is written.
The value of `level` can be
4 Errors.
8 Critical situation.
16 Warnings.
32 Messages.
64 Information.
128 Debug. (Lots of output.)
Enabling any level includes all the levels above it. So enabling Information
will include Warnings, Critical situations and Errors.
To get absolutely all logging, set the level to 128 for all domains in the
configuration file.
Logging to `syslog` can be enabled in each domain like:
[sd main]
prepend=%t %p
prepend_time_format=%Y-%m-%d %Hh%M.%S %Z
file=syslog
syslog_facility=daemon
level=128
Static code analysis with the Clang Static Analyzer
---------------------------------------------------
If you want to use the Clang Static Analyzer (https://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/)
to do a static code analysis, you can do so by prefixing the configuration and
build commands with `scan-build`:
scan-build cmake ..
scan-build make
The tool will provide a hint on how to launch a web browser with the results.
It is recommended to do this analysis in a separate, empty build directory and
to empty the build directory before `scan-build` call.