No SCAP database found - impossible to update feeds

Getting Started
1

Hello everyone, I am stuck with the installation of gvm on Kali 2025.2.
I have followed the instruction linked to Kali Linux Install Guide - Greenbone Community Documentation
Everything seems to be ok, and in particular the reult of gvm-check-setup but I have noticed that it is impossibile to update the feed and indeed I have no Scanners/ Scan config ready in the web panel.
From /var/log/gvm/gvmd.log I see that the gmvd daemon is looping trying to rebuild the database from scratch.

md manage:MESSAGE:2025-06-02 12h34.01 utc:10720: No SCAP database found
md main: INFO:2025-06-02 12h34.01 utc:10720: gvmd is ready to accept GMP connections
md manage:WARNING:2025-06-02 12h34.01 utc:10740: update_scap: No SCAP db present, rebuilding SCAP db from scratch
md manage: INFO:2025-06-02 12h34.01 utc:10741: OSP service has different VT status (version 202506020642) from database (version (null), 0 VTs). Starting update …
md manage: INFO:2025-06-02 12h34.02 utc:10740: update_scap: Updating data from feed
md manage: INFO:2025-06-02 12h34.02 utc:10740: Updating CPEs
md manage: INFO:2025-06-02 12h34.02 utc:10740: Updating /var/lib/gvm/scap-data/nvd-cpes.json.gz
md manage: INFO:2025-06-02 12h35.17 utc:10740: Updating CPE refs…
md manage: INFO:2025-06-02 12h35.40 utc:10740: Updating CPE match strings from /var/lib/gvm/scap-data/nvd-cpe-matches.json.gz
md main:MESSAGE:2025-06-02 12h36.59 utc:10771: Greenbone Vulnerability Manager version 26.0.0 (DB revision 259)
md manage:MESSAGE:2025-06-02 12h37.00 utc:10773: No SCAP database found

Just to advise of the many tries I have already done:

  1. Yes, I have enough space on disk
  2. The feed owner in the settings table is already and correctly set:

gvmd=# select * from settings where id=18;
-[ RECORD 1 ]----------------------------------------------------
id | 18
uuid | 78eceaec-3385-11ea-b237-28d24461215b
owner |
name | Feed Import Owner
comment | User who is given ownership of new resources from feed.
value | fef0fe3b-8917-4a2b-b162-e246a5195dbe <— YEs, this is the corect uuid for the admin user
3) I have re-updated the feeds thought the greenbone-feed-sync command (many time)
4) The /var/log/gvm/ospd-openvas.log displays no errors
last line is: OSPD[4477] 2025-06-02 11:50:45,605: INFO: (ospd_openvas.daemon) Finished loading VTs. The VT cache has been updated from version 0 to 202506020642.
5) I have already checked all the permissions of the plugins dir, and so on and they are all ok.
6) I have gone throught Troubleshooting FAQ listed here: Troubleshooting - Greenbone Community Documentation (no result)
6) Of course I have stopped/restarted/rebooted everything more than once.

it really looks there is an issue.
Do anyonw know any other detail on this? It looks a recurrent problem as I have already read (almost) all the past forum threads without any real clue on how to solve the problem
Any idea? help?

Thank you in advance.

A.

2

@sicktoy do you have at least 8G ram?

What if you reinstall the system, update it, and then try installing the software?

Eero

Eero

3

@Eero now that you make me notice I have only 2GB. I didn’t see any particular problem during the install / configure procedure but it might be good suggestion to increase the resources.
I dind’t notice anything wrong with the machine, which is always responsive, not I saw fatail errors from postgres or other programs, but I’ll give a try.

I will also try to reinstall the OS from scratch if adding RAM doesn’t work.
I will let you know the results.

Thanks a lot for now

A.

4

@sicktoy

I’m quite sure that your issue is due to having less than 8GB of memory. Feedsync is probably failing to write to the database because of this.

Eero

5

You were SO right!
You’ve just saved me days of work and struggling.
I wonder why I didn’t see any warning in postgres logs, or in gvmd logs regarding low memory or database errors. It was silently failing.
I also check the build from source documentations where it says that minimal requirements are:

  • CPU Cores: 2
  • Random-Access Memory: 4GB
  • Hard Disk: 20GB free
    But I thought they were requirements for building not for running.
    Again ,thanks !

A.

6

Compiling a program is different from using it in real-world operation. Nowadays, the NVT feed consumes significantly more memory, and during the phase when data is transferred from files to the database, the kernel’s OOM (Out of Memory) killer may terminate the process. This leaves no trace in the logs. 8 GB is really the bare minimum—more is recommended if possible. My own scanner has 48 GB of memory.

Eero

7

Yes I understand. Just it isn’t mentioned anywhere in the documentation, and I guess it would be a useful piece of information.
Now I have 16GB. I hope it’s enough.

A.

8

16GB is sufficient for basic use, as long as there aren’t many IP addresses being scanned simultaneously.

Eero

1 Like