OpenVAS

The Open Vulnerability Assessment System (OpenVAS) is a framework of several services and tools offering a comprehensive and powerful vulnerability scanning and vulnerability management solution.

The actual security scanner is accompanied with a daily updated feed of Network Vulnerability Tests (NVTs), over 20,000 in total (as of January 2011).

All OpenVAS products are Free Software. Most components are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL).


Starting OpenVAS with greenbone security desktop as the scanning interface

From the menu select

Openvas NVT sync

Start Openvas scanner

then in a terminal window

openvasmd --rebuild
openvasmd -p 9390 -a 127.0.0.1
openvasad -a 127.0.0.1 -p 9393
gsad --http-only --listen=127.0.0.1 -p 9392

Then from the menu

Start Greenbone Security Desktop

and login

You are now ready to setup your scanning tasks.
Starting OpenVAS with a web browser as the scanning interface

From the menu select

Openvas NVT sync

Start Openvas scanner

then in a terminal window

openvasmd --rebuild
openvasmd -p 9390 -a 127.0.0.1
openvasad -a 127.0.0.1 -p 9393
gsad --http-only --listen=127.0.0.1 -p 9392

Then open your browser to the address

http://127.0.0.1:9392