Provided by: openvas-client_2.0.5-1.1_amd64 
NAME
OpenVAS-Client - The client part of the OpenVAS Security Scanner
SYNOPSIS
OpenVAS-Client [-v] [-h] [-n] [-T <type>] [-q [-pPS] host port user password targets results]
OpenVAS-Client -i in.nbe -o out.[html|xml|nbe]
DESCRIPTION
The OpenVAS Security Scanner is a security auditing tool made up of two parts: a server, and a client.
The server, openvasd is in charge of the attacks, whereas the client OpenVAS-Client provides an interface
to the user.
OpenVAS-Client is an X11 client based on GTK+2.
This man page explains how to use the client.
OPTIONS
-c <config-file>, --config-file=<config-file>
use another configuration file.
-n, --no-pixmaps
no pixmaps. This is handy if you are running OpenVAS-Client on a remote computer.
-q, --batch-mode
quiet mode or batch mode. Setting this option makes OpenVAS-Client expect all of the following
settings.
-p
obtain list of plugins installed on the server.
-P
obtain list of server and plugin preferences.
-S
issue SQL output for -p and -P (experimental).
• host
is the openvasd host to whom you will connect.
• port
is the port to which you will connect on the remote openvasd host.
• user
is the user name to use to connect to openvasd.
• password
is the password associated with this user name.
• targets
is the name of a file containing the target machines.
• results
is the name of the file where the results will be stored at the end of the test.
-T <type>, --output-type=<type>"
Save the data as <type>, where <type> can be “nbe”, “html”, “html_graph”, “text”, “xml”, “tex”
-V, --verbose
make the batch mode display status messages to the screen.
-x, --dont-check-ssl-cert
do not check SSL certificates.
-v, --version
shows version number and quits
-h, --help
lists the available options
The X11 interface
The OpenVAS-Client interface is divided in several panels:
• The “Openvasd host” section:
In this section, you must enter the openvasd host to whom you will connect, as well as the port.
You must also enter your openvasd user name and your password (not the one of the system). Once
you are done, you must click on the “Log in” button, which will establish the connection to the
openvasd host.
Once the connection is established, openvasd sends to the client the list of attacks it will
perform, as well as the default preferences to use.
• The “Target Selection” section:
• In this section, you are required to enter the primary target. A primary target may be a single
host (e.g. x.y.test), an IP (e.g. 192.168.1.1), a subnet (e.g. 192.168.1.1/24 or x.y.test), or a
list of hosts, separated by commas (e.g. 192.168.1.1, 192.168.2.1/24, x.y.test, a.b.test).
• You can restrict the maximum number of hosts to test using the “Max Hosts” entry. This is a
feature that prevents you from scanning too many machines; or accidentally scanning other
machines. (For instance, if you only plan to test x.y.info and a.b.info, you can safely set this
entry to “2”).
• This panel also allows you to enable the “Perform a DNS zone transfer” option. This option is
dangerous and should be enabled with caution. For instance, if you want to test www.x.test, then
if this option is set, openvasd will attempt to get the list of the hosts in the “x.test” domain.
This option may be dangerous. For instance, if you enable it and you ask to test 192.168.1.1/24,
then openvasd will do a reverse lookup on every IP, and will attempt a DNS zone transfer on every
domain. That is, if 192.168.1.1 is www.x.test, and 192.168.1.10 is mail.x.test, then a DNS zone
transfer will be made on the domains “x.test” and “test.x”.
• The “Plugins” section
Once you have successfully logged into the remote openvasd server, this section is filed with the
list of the attacks that the server will perform. This panel is divided in two parts: the plugins
families, and the plugins themselves. If you click on the name of a plugin, then a dialog will
appear, showing you which will be the error message sent by the plugin if the attack is
successful.
Report conversion
You can use OpenVAS-Client to do conversion between formats used for reports. OpenVAS can take any NBE
reports and change them into HTML, XML or NBE reports.
Please note that the XML report provides usually more information about the scan itself NBE format do not
include in the report.
Basically, XML is a merge between the .nbe reports and the .openvasrc configuration file. You won't get
extra verbosity or diagnosis info in the XML report, but you'll know which plugins (and which version of
these plugins) have been enabled during the scan.
For more information on the report formats please read the file nbe_file_format.txt provided along with
the documentation.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
HOME The path to the user's home directory which will hold the client configuration cache .openvasrc.
The path is refered to as ~/, below.
OPENVASHOME
If this environment variable is set, this path is used instead of the path defined by the HOME
variable. This path is referred to as ~/, below.
% More examples should be included here (jfs)
EXAMPLES
To run a batch scan from a cron job and publish it in a given web space ( /var/www/html/openvas/ ) try
the following:
OpenVAS-Client -c /root/openvas/openvas.rc -T html -qx localhost 9390 batch batch1 /root/openvas/target
/var/www/html/openvas/results.html
Make sure that paranoia level is not set in your openvas.rc configuration file, otherwise the scan will
not work
FILES
~/.openvasrc
is the client configuration file, which contains the options about which openvasd server to
connect to, which plugins to activate, and so on. The file is created automatically if it does
not exist.
SEE ALSO
openvasclient-mkcert(1)
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE OPENVAS PROJECT
The canonical places where you will find more information about the OpenVAS project are: