Hint: Redis setup / configuration for GSE/GVM/OpenVAS

Redis Setup

Note: If you have any questions on this topic please start a new thread for each question and link back to this topic so that it can be updated accordingly.

When running a GSE/GVM/OpenVAS setup build from source please pay special attention on the setup / configuration of Redis for a smooth operation of your whole setup. If you’re facing issues with your scans please see the “Common issues” section below.

The following documentation is guiding you through this setup:

Common issues

Scanning larger target ranges causing the scan to stuck at 1% for longer time

Note: There was a bug in the openvassd causing the same impact. Please make sure that you’re using the latest components announced in GVM-10 (stable, initial release 2019-04-05) and GVM-9 (old stable, initial release 2017-03-07).

This issue might show up if your databases number in your redis.conf is configured with a too low number. Please see the previously linked redis_config.txt how to calculate the database number.

Scanner / openvassd startup is timing out

If your scanner startup (example of systemd) is timing out with one of the following messages:

Redirecting to /bin/systemctl start  openvas-scanner.service.service
Job for openvas-scanner.service failed because a timeout was exceeded.
See "systemctl status openvas-scanner.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
systemd[1]: openvas-scanner.service: Start operation timed out. Terminating.
systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: remote network security auditor - scanner.
systemd[1]: openvas-scanner.service: Unit entered failed state.
systemd[1]: openvas-scanner.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.

revisit your Redis setup with the resources mentioned above. The following steps are known to work and to solve this issue:

  1. Delete the file dump.rdb (Located in e.g. /var/run/redis depending on your setup)
  2. Comment out/remove all save xy z (e.g. save 900 1) from your redis.conf (Located in e.g. /etc/redis depending on your setup)
  3. Optional: Flush your redis database (Depending on your setup, e.g. redis-cli -s /var/run/redis/redis.sock flushall)
  4. Restart redis (Depending on your setup, e.g. service redis-server restart)
  5. Restart the Scanner (openvassd) and try again
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