Can Run Scans but Results Return as Empty

Archive Greenbone Community Edition
1

Not sure if this is the right place to put this, so please correct me if it’s not.

I’m running Kali 2020 and have installed GVM-11. When I run gvm-start, it returns a few errors that the gsad failed to start. If I run another gvm-start or a gvm-check-setup everything starts up correctly.

When using the web GUI, I can do everything I would expect to as far as setting up targets/scans and changing configs, but any scan I run finishes immediately and returns no results and no hosts are scanned. I’ve checked the database is running and NVT/SCAP data is synced, but I’m at a loss why none of the scans are showing results.

Here is the output when starting the service. Any guidance into what I’m doing wrong would be appreciated.

peterborg@kali:~$ sudo gvm-start
[] Please wait for the GVM / OpenVAS services to start.
[]
[] You might need to refresh your browser once it opens.
[]
[*] Web UI (Greenbone Security Assistant):

  • greenbone-security-assistant.service - Greenbone Security Assistant (gsad)
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/greenbone-security-assistant.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2020-07-31 13:06:14 MDT; 17s ago
    Docs: man:gsad(8)

    Process: 1179 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/gsad --listen=127.0.0.1 --port=9392 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Main PID: 1180 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Jul 31 13:06:14 kali systemd[1]: greenbone-security-assistant.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Jul 31 13:06:14 kali systemd[1]: Stopped Greenbone Security Assistant (gsad).
Jul 31 13:06:14 kali systemd[1]: greenbone-security-assistant.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jul 31 13:06:14 kali systemd[1]: greenbone-security-assistant.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
Jul 31 13:06:14 kali systemd[1]: Failed to start Greenbone Security Assistant (gsad).

  • gvmd.service - Open Vulnerability Assessment System Manager Daemon
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/gvmd.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-07-31 13:06:26 MDT; 5s ago
    Docs: man:gvmd(8)

    Process: 1192 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/gvmd --osp-vt-update=/run/ospd/ospd.sock (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Main PID: 1193 (gvmd)
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 2203)
    Memory: 206.8M
    CGroup: /system.slice/gvmd.service
    `-1193 gvmd: Waiting for incoming connections

Jul 31 13:06:15 kali systemd[1]: Starting Open Vulnerability Assessment System Manager Daemon…
Jul 31 13:06:16 kali systemd[1]: gvmd.service: Can’t open PID file /run/gvm/gvmd.pid (yet?) after start: Operation not permitted
Jul 31 13:06:26 kali systemd[1]: Started Open Vulnerability Assessment System Manager Daemon.

  • ospd-openvas.service - OSPD OpenVAS
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/ospd-openvas.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-07-31 13:06:27 MDT; 5s ago
    Process: 1214 ExecStart=/usr/bin/ospd-openvas --unix-socket=/run/ospd/ospd.sock --pid-file=/run/ospd/ospd-openvas.pid (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Main PID: 1223 (ospd-openvas)
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 2203)
    Memory: 52.4M
    CGroup: /system.slice/ospd-openvas.service
    `-1223 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/ospd-openvas --unix-socket=/run/ospd/ospd.sock --pid-file=/run/ospd/ospd-openvas.pid

Jul 31 13:06:26 kali systemd[1]: Starting OSPD OpenVAS…
Jul 31 13:06:27 kali systemd[1]: Started OSPD OpenVAS.
peterborg@kali:~$ sudo gvm-start
[] Please wait for the GVM / OpenVAS services to start.
[]
[] You might need to refresh your browser once it opens.
[]
[*] Web UI (Greenbone Security Assistant):

  • greenbone-security-assistant.service - Greenbone Security Assistant (gsad)
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/greenbone-security-assistant.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-07-31 13:06:44 MDT; 5s ago
    Docs: man:gsad(8)

    Process: 1245 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/gsad --listen=127.0.0.1 --port=9392 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Main PID: 1246 (gsad)
    Tasks: 2 (limit: 2203)
    Memory: 2.8M
    CGroup: /system.slice/greenbone-security-assistant.service
    `-1246 /usr/sbin/gsad --listen=127.0.0.1 --port=9392

Jul 31 13:06:44 kali systemd[1]: Starting Greenbone Security Assistant (gsad)…
Jul 31 13:06:44 kali gsad[1245]: Oops, secure memory pool already initialized
Jul 31 13:06:44 kali systemd[1]: Started Greenbone Security Assistant (gsad).

  • gvmd.service - Open Vulnerability Assessment System Manager Daemon
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/gvmd.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-07-31 13:06:26 MDT; 23s ago
    Docs: man:gvmd(8)

    Process: 1192 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/gvmd --osp-vt-update=/run/ospd/ospd.sock (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Main PID: 1193 (gvmd)
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 2203)
    Memory: 206.9M
    CGroup: /system.slice/gvmd.service
    `-1193 gvmd: Waiting for incoming connections

Jul 31 13:06:15 kali systemd[1]: Starting Open Vulnerability Assessment System Manager Daemon…
Jul 31 13:06:16 kali systemd[1]: gvmd.service: Can’t open PID file /run/gvm/gvmd.pid (yet?) after start: Operation not permitted
Jul 31 13:06:26 kali systemd[1]: Started Open Vulnerability Assessment System Manager Daemon.

  • ospd-openvas.service - OSPD OpenVAS
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/ospd-openvas.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-07-31 13:06:27 MDT; 22s ago
    Process: 1214 ExecStart=/usr/bin/ospd-openvas --unix-socket=/run/ospd/ospd.sock --pid-file=/run/ospd/ospd-openvas.pid (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Main PID: 1223 (ospd-openvas)
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 2203)
    Memory: 103.5M
    CGroup: /system.slice/ospd-openvas.service
    `-1223 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/ospd-openvas --unix-socket=/run/ospd/ospd.sock --pid-file=/run/ospd/ospd-openvas.pid

Jul 31 13:06:26 kali systemd[1]: Starting OSPD OpenVAS…
Jul 31 13:06:27 kali systemd[1]: Started OSPD OpenVAS.

[*] Opening Web UI () in: 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

2

Plase check the Category before posting in a wrong one.
This is related to the Greeenbone Source Edition.

I would read the Error Message and might correct the permissions :wink:

Then i would look into the log of the Scanner.

3

Please note that the GVM-11 packages in Kali are (AFAIK) currently the ones of Debian “unstable” which are only a few days old. These packages probably received not much (user-)testing yet and have still a few issues which needs to be sorted out by the Debian / Kali maintainers (Greenbone isn’t involved in providing and maintaining these packages):

https://bugs.kali.org/view.php?id=6615
https://bugs.kali.org/view.php?id=6618
https://bugs.kali.org/view.php?id=6619
https://bugs.kali.org/view.php?id=6624
https://bugs.kali.org/view.php?id=6625
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=966632
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=966641
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=966715
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=967046

I would suggest to do a little bit more testing / debugging (e.g. by checking /var/log/gvm/*) and give as much feedback as possible back to the Debian / Kali maintainers to get the packages into a stable state.

3 Likes
4

Thank you for correcting the category. First post, so I figured I might get it wrong. I compared this to my other VM running openvas7 and it actually has the same ‘gvmd.service: Can’t open PID’ message, but that one works with no issues.

Checking the logs in /var/log/gvm didn’t yield anything for me, either. I might try pulling from a different repo to see if that changes anything.

5

Thanks for the insight. I’ll see about doing some more debugging and possibly submitting a bug report if I discover that I’m not just doing something incorrectly.

6

Thanks cfi, your links saved my day. I can confirm that OpenVAS is running well on a KALI Linux 2020-KW46 machine:

gvmd --version 1 ⨯

Greenbone Vulnerability Manager 9.0.1
Manager DB revision 221
Copyright © 2010-2017 Greenbone Networks GmbH
License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

uname -a 130 ⨯

Linux gedu-kali2 5.9.0-kali1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.9.1-1kali2 (2020-10-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux

gvm-check-setup

gvm-check-setup 1.0.0
Test completeness and readiness of GVM-11
Step 1: Checking OpenVAS (Scanner)…
OK: OpenVAS Scanner is present in version 7.0.1.
OK: Server CA Certificate is present as /var/lib/gvm/CA/servercert.pem.
Checking permissions of /var/lib/openvas/gnupg/*
OK: _gvm owns all files in /var/lib/openvas/gnupg
OK: redis-server is present.
OK: scanner (db_address setting) is configured properly using the redis-server socket: /var/run/redis-openvas/redis-server.sock
OK: redis-server is running and listening on socket: /var/run/redis-openvas/redis-server.sock.
OK: redis-server configuration is OK and redis-server is running.
OK: _gvm owns all files in /var/lib/openvas/plugins
OK: NVT collection in /var/lib/openvas/plugins contains 63526 NVTs.
Checking that the obsolete redis database has been removed
OK: No old Redis DB
OK: OpenVAS Scanner is present in version 1.0.1.
Step 2: Checking GVMD Manager …
OK: GVM Manager (gvmd) is present in version 9.0.1.
Step 3: Checking Certificates …
OK: GVM client certificate is valid and present as /var/lib/gvm/CA/clientcert.pem.
OK: Your GVM certificate infrastructure passed validation.
Step 4: Checking data …
OK: SCAP data found in /var/lib/gvm/scap-data.
OK: CERT data found in /var/lib/gvm/cert-data.
Step 5: Checking Postgresql DB and user …
OK: Postgresql version and default port are OK.
gvmd | _gvm | UTF8 | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 |
OK: At least one user exists.
Step 6: Checking Greenbone Security Assistant (GSA) …
Oops, secure memory pool already initialized
OK: Greenbone Security Assistant is present in version 9.0.1.
Step 7: Checking if GVM services are up and running …
OK: ospd-openvas service is active.
OK: gvmd service is active.
OK: greenbone-security-assistant service is active.
Step 8: Checking GVM database …
OK: portnames are in database.
Step 9: Checking few other requirements…
OK: nmap is present in version 9.0.1.
OK: ssh-keygen found, LSC credential generation for GNU/Linux targets is likely to work.
OK: nsis found, LSC credential package generation for Microsoft Windows targets is likely to work.
OK: xsltproc found.
OK: The password policy file at /etc/gvm/pwpolicy.conf contains entries.

It seems like your GVM-11 installation is OK.

Pretty cool scanner I use often, thanks for it @Lukas and team

1 Like