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...