I can't start Openvas

Linux Distribution and External Repo Discussion
1

My name is Marcílio Rolemberg, and I’m a beginner with OpenVAS. I managed to complete the entire installation, but I couldn’t finish the synchronizations of NVT, Scap, Cert, and GVMD_DATA. Today I have another problem; I can no longer start GVM. This message appears:

$ sudo gvm-start
[sudo] password for kali:
[>] Please wait for the GVM services to start.
[>]
[>] You might need to refresh your browser once it opens.
[>]
[>] Web UI (Greenbone Security Assistant): https://127.0.0.1:9392

Job for gvmd.service failed because a timeout was exceeded.
See “systemctl status gvmd.service” and “journalctl -xeu gvmd.service” for details.
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
I checked the status: systemctl status gvmd.service

(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ systemctl status gvmd.service
● gvmd.service - Greenbone Vulnerability Manager daemon (gvmd)
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/gvmd.service; disabled; preset:>
Active: activating (start) since Sat 2025-11-22 17:16:56 EST; 27s ago
Job: 13400
Invocation: 2d5f1fe75b254330bc6de308b7d48a9b
Docs: man:gvmd(8)
Process: 83761 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/gvmd --osp-vt-update=/run/ospd/ospd.s>
Tasks: 1 (limit: 7583)
Memory: 113.8M (peak: 113.8M)
CPU: 2.969s
CGroup: /system.slice/gvmd.service
└─83763 “gvmd: Initiali” --osp-vt-update=/run/ospd/ospd.sock →

Nov 22 17:16:56 kali systemd[1]: gvmd.service: Failed with result ‘timeout’.
Nov 22 17:16:56 kali systemd[1]: Failed to start gvmd.service - Greenbone Vu>
Nov 22 17:16:56 kali systemd[1]: gvmd.service: Consumed 59.494s CPU time, 38>
Nov 22 17:16:56 kali systemd[1]: gvmd.service: Scheduled restart job, restar>
Nov 22 17:16:56 kali systemd[1]: Starting gvmd.service - Greenbone Vulnerabi>
Nov 22 17:16:56 kali systemd[1]: gvmd.service: Can’t open PID file '/run/gvm>
lines 1-19/19 (END)

Could someone help me solve this problem?

Marcilio Rolemberg
e-mail: rolembergmarcilio@gmail.com

2

@rolemberg check out /var/log/gvm/* logs

Eero

4

Good evening Eero,

I typed the indicated command and it said I didn’t have permission.

zsh: corrupt history file /root/.zsh_history
┌──(root㉿kali)-[~]
└─# /var/log/gvm/*
zsh: permission denied: /var/log/gvm/gvmd.log
What now??

5

For Kali Linux support and Linux basics, how to gather log files i would suggest to head over to their support forums at https://forums.kali.org/

Nonetheless a short hint: You can’t just paste the /var/log/gvm/* string into a terminal, this will never work. Instead you need to use either an editor or e.g. cat to inspect the log files.

A “corrupt” history file also indicates issues on the underlying operating system independent from / unrelated to the Greenbone software.

6

Given the gvmd.service is timing out, the contents of the log file (gvmd.log) are essential for debugging Access it using a file viewing command with sudo