NAME

       openvas-nvt-sync - updates the OpenVAS security checks

SYNOPSIS

       openvas-nvt-sync

DESCRIPTION

       The OpenVAS Security Scanner performs several security checks, each of them being coded as
       an external plugin coded in NASL. As new security  holes  are  published  every  day,  new
       plugins appear on the OpenVAS site (www.openvas.org)
       The  script openvas-nvt-sync will fetch all the newest security checks for you and install
       them at the proper location. Once this is done you will need to restart  openvas-server(8)
       s so that it loads them and uses them for new security scans.

       openvas-nvt-sync  uses rsync(1) and  md5sum(1) to do its job. In order to download the new
       plugins the machine where the script runs needs to have access to rsync.openvas.org  using
       the rsync protocol (TCP/UDP port 873).

       If  you  are  behind  a web proxy you can configure rsync to use it through the use of the
       RSYNC_PROXY environment variable. For more information see rsync(1).

SECURITY NOTES

       openvas-nvt-sync uses rsync(1) to retrieve the archive of the  new  plugins.  The  scripts
       provided  by the OpenVAS project might not be signed.  Consequently, if somewhere where to
       poison your DNS server and force this script to retrieve NASL plugins on another  site  he
       would force your OpenVAS server to execute NASL scripts when running security tests.  Even
       if this might not do much harm (see the NASL reference guide for more information on  that
       subject) you should be very careful when doing this.

SEE ALSO

       For more information see: rsync(1), openvasd(8) openvas-client(1).
       There is more information available at /usr/share/doc/openvas-plugins on Debian systems.

       You  can  find  additional information about the OpenVAS project in http://www.openvas.org

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña  <jfs@debian.org>  for  the
       Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used on other systems).

       The openvas-nvt-sync script was written by DN-Systems Enterprise Internet Solutions GmbH.