We are living in difficult times and the cyber attacks are on the rise with that said I think it is better to be pro-active rather than kicking back and waiting for disasters to happen. In this Article I will show you how easily you can install and run an Security and Vulnerability Scanner by utilizing Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS and Greenbone Security Assistant 11 for free. Greenbone Security Assistant was previously known as OpenVAS. I expect that you already have Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS installed and running if that is not the case read here.
Content
Updating Operating System
Installation of Database
Adding Repository for GSA & Installation
Updating NVT/SCAP/CERT Data
Changing IP Address
Accessing GSA for the first time
Periodically checking for updates
Checking the GSA Status
Updating Operating System
Lets get started by running a system update to ensure we are on the latest. Run the following commands:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt dist-upgrade
Reboot the Server if required.
Installation of Database
Now lets add our database that GSA (Greenbone Security Assistant) is going to use.
sudo apt install postgresql
Adding Repository for GSA & Installation
In the next step we are going to add another repository that includes Greenbones Security Assistant.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mrazavi/gvm
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gvm
Updating NVT/SCAP/CERT Data
If the installation went through without any errors we can step ahead and download NVT/Cert & Scap Data. Be aware the the following commands take some time. Let it completely finish up.
sudo greenbone-nvt-sync
sudo greenbone-scapdata-sync
sudo greenbone-certdata-sync
Changing IP Address
One last thing we need to adjust to complete this install is to configure the IP Address that our Greenbone Security Assistant should listen on. Edit the file /etc/default/gsad file and replace:
GSA_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1
to the address of your system you installed Greenbone Security Assistant on. You can check the systems IP address by issuing the following command (ip addr):
GSA_ADDRESS=192.168.1.11
and that should be it in order to start using GSA.
Accessing GSA for the first time
Start up your browser and enter:
https://192.168.1.11:9392
login with the default credentials of:
Username: admin
Password: admin
Periodically checking for updates
I recommend that you periodically check for updates on your NVT/Cert & Scap Data by running the following commands:
sudo greenbone-nvt-sync
sudo greenbone-scapdata-sync
sudo greenbone-certdata-sync
Checking the GSA Status
One last item on my list is how to check your GSA Services. You can use the following commands to check on it:
sudo systemctl status ospd-openvas
sudo systemctl status gvmd
sudo systemctl status gsad
Thank you for reading. This concludes this article on how to install Greenbone Security Scanner.