Troubleshooting¶
Troubleshooting A Kali Linux Installation¶
Here are some common issues encountered during installation and steps to fix them.
Upgrading The Default PostgreSQL Version¶
If you encounter an error regarding the PostgreSQL version when running sudo gvm-setup, you must upgrade the installed version of PostgreSQL to the newest version required by the Kali native gvm package. In the example below shows the upgrade from PostgreSQL version 15 to version 16, but these steps will work to upgrade between any versions.
┌──(dev㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ sudo gvm-setup
[>] Starting PostgreSQL service
[-] ERROR: The default PostgreSQL version (15) is not 16 that is required by libgvmd
[-] ERROR: libgvmd needs PostgreSQL 16 to use the port 5432
[-] ERROR: Use pg_upgradecluster to update your PostgreSQL cluster
To complete the Greenbone Community Edition setup you must:
Migrate PostgreSQL settings and data to a new upgraded cluster
Configure the new cluster to use port
5432Install the newest pg-gvm extension
Fix the gmvd database COLLATION mismatch
Resolve Any Outstanding Dependencies
Complete the Greenbone Community Edition Setup
1. Upgrade PostgreSQL Cluster¶
Warning
You should consider the contents of your existing PostgreSQL database and complete any backups of that data before you complete the following steps. It’s also important to consider that upgrading Kali Linux packages could disrupt the functionality of your system.
You can list all existing PostgreSQL clusters using the command pg_lsclusters.
┌──(dev㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ pg_lsclusters
Ver Cluster Port Status Owner Data directory Log file
15 main 5432 online postgres /var/lib/postgresql/15/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-15-main.log
16 main 5433 online postgres /var/lib/postgresql/16/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-16-main.log
The output above shows two online clusters listening on ports 5432 and 5433. Since the target cluster 16/main already exists, it must be temporarily deleted to avoid the error Error: target cluster 16/main already exists. The existence of the 16/main cluster does not necessarily mean that the old cluster has already been upgraded; it simply means that a cluster for that version is present.
┌──(dev㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ sudo pg_upgradecluster 15 main 16
Error: target cluster 16/main already exists
To complete the upgrade, the 16/main cluster must first be stopped and deleted.
sudo pg_ctlcluster 16 main stop
sudo pg_dropcluster 16 main
Now upgrade the old cluster to a new one. The pg_upgradecluster command migrates databases from the old cluster to the new cluster.
pg_upgradecluster [options] oldversion oldclustername [newversion]
To upgrade your PostgreSQL cluster, you should use the following command:
sudo pg_upgradecluster 15 main
If you do not need the older PostgreSQL cluster, you should delete it.
sudo pg_dropcluster 15 main
And remove the PostgreSQL 15 packages
sudo apt autoremove
Now only the new PostgreSQL cluster exists.
┌──(dev㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ pg_lsclusters
Ver Cluster Port Status Owner Data directory Log file
16 main 5433 online postgres /var/lib/postgresql/16/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-16-main.log
2. Configure The PostgreSQL Port¶
Typically, the pg_upgradecluster will also configure the new version of PostgreSQL to use the standard port 5432, which is required by Greenbone Community Edition. However, if the port is not automatically changed, you must change it manually by editing the postgresql.conf configuration file and restarting the PostgreSQL systemd service. On Kali the postgresql.conf configuration file is located in the /etc/postgresql/<version>/main directory, but to be sure you can issue a command to locate the configuration file.
sudo -u postgres psql -c 'SHOW config_file'
┌──(dev㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ sudo -u postgres psql -c 'SHOW config_file'
config_file
-----------------------------------------
/etc/postgresql/16/main/postgresql.conf
(1 row)
Edit the configuration file and change the connection settings port to 5432 and restart the PostgreSQL port.
sudo nano /etc/postgresql/16/main/postgresql.conf
# - Connection Settings -
#listen_addresses = 'localhost' # what IP address(es) to listen on;
# comma-separated list of addresses;
# defaults to 'localhost'; use '*' for all
# (change requires restart)
-port = 5433 # (change requires restart)
+port = 5432 # (change requires restart)
max_connections = 100 # (change requires restart)
#reserved_connections = 0 # (change requires restart)
#superuser_reserved_connections = 3 # (change requires restart)
sudo systemctl restart postgresql
3. Install The Newest pg-gvm Extension For PostgreSQL¶
When upgrading PostgreSQL cluster to a newer version, the pg-gvm package must also be updated. If you do not update this package before running sudo gvm-check-setup, you will encounter the following error when rebuilding the gvmd database:
[*] Creating extension pg-gvm
ERROR: extension "pg-gvm" is not available
DETAIL: Could not open extension control file "/usr/share/postgresql/16/extension/pg-gvm.control": No such file or directory.
HINT: The extension must first be installed on the system where PostgreSQL is running.
You can find all available versions of pg-gvm using the apt-cache search command:
┌──(dev㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ apt-cache search pg-gvm
postgresql-16-pg-gvm - PostgreSQL extension for ical object manipulation
After updating the aptitude package repository is postgresql-16-pg-gvm which matches the new PostgreSQL version. So, you need to install that package:
sudo apt install postgresql-16-pg-gvm -y
4. Fixing The gvmd COLLATION Version Mismatch¶
During a PostgreSQL cluster upgrade you may encounter a COLLATION mismatch warning. This warning must be resolved before gvm-setup can be completed.
WARNING: database "gvmd" has a collation version mismatch
DETAIL: The database was created using collation version 2.36, but the operating system provides version 2.37.
HINT: Rebuild all objects in this database that use the default collation and run ALTER DATABASE gvmd REFRESH COLLATION VERSION, or build PostgreSQL with the right library version.
To fix the collation mismatch, login to the psql command line and execute the suggested commands to update all databases in the cluster. This will at least include the gvmd and postgres databases.
sudo su postgres
psql
postgres=# ALTER DATABASE postgres REFRESH COLLATION VERSION;
NOTICE: changing version from 2.36 to 2.37
ALTER DATABASE
postgres=# ALTER DATABASE gvmd REFRESH COLLATION VERSION;
NOTICE: changing version from 2.36 to 2.37
ALTER DATABASE
postgres-# \q
postgres@kali:/home/dev$ exit
5. Resolve Any Outstanding Dependencies¶
In order to complete the database cluster migration, you may also need to update various outdated extensions depending on the particular changes between PostgreSQL versions. For example, when migrating between PostgreSQL 15 and 16, the pgcrypto module must be updated. To update any unresolved dependencies…
sudo apt install pgcrypto
6. Complete The Greenbone Community Edition Setup¶
You can now run the gvm-setup command to complete the setup.
sudo gvm-setup
Note
During setup it’s important to note and record the default password created for the GVM admin user.
[+] Done
[*] Please note the password for the admin user
[*] User created with password 'ff006a29-8977-4ffa-882c-cd430fdc9bb8'.
[>] You can now run gvm-check-setup to make sure everything is correctly configured
Other Common Setup Errors¶
Note
Here are some other common setup errors you may encounter when installing Greenbone Community Edition from the native Kali Linux package. In most cases, hints are available in the gvm-setup and gvm-check-setup command output.
ERROR: extention “pg-gvm” is not available¶
See the instructions here to find and install the latest version of pg-gvm.
ERROR: No users found¶
If you encounter the error ERROR: No users found. when running sudo gvm-check-setup, you will need to create at least one an admin user. Replace <your-password> with your own password.
sudo runuser -u _gvm -- gvmd --create-user=admin --password='<your-password>'
ERROR: The Postgresql DB does not exist¶
If the PostgreSQL database was not created during initial setup of Greenbone Community Edition, or not transferred when migrating to a new cluster, you must manually create the database with the following command:
sudo runuser -u postgres -- /usr/share/gvm/create-postgresql-database
ERROR: Required systemd service did not start¶
If the ospd-openvas service or any other required Greenbone systemd services did not start during the setup or initialization, you can attempt to manually start the process. Here is an example for troubleshooting the ospd-openvas systemd service, but you can use this process for other services as well:
sudo systemctl start ospd-openvas
If the service still fails to start properly, you can check for errors using the following methods:
sudo systemctl status ospd-openvas | less
journalctl -xe
tail -20 /var/log/gvm/ospd-openvas.log
Note
You can find all the Greenbone Community Edition log files in the /var/log/gvm directory.
ERROR: The client certificate file of gsad is not valid¶
If the required SSL/TLS certificates failed to generate during the standard setup process, or if the existing certificates are not valid any longer, you must generate the necessary SSL/TLS certificate files. The script gvm-manage-certs is used for managing the certificates required by Greenbone Community Edition.
sudo runuser -u _gvm -- gvm-manage-certs -a -f
ERROR: Database is wrong version. You have installed a new gvmd version¶
When upgrading Greenbone Community Edition, you may need to also update the gvmd PostgreSQL database schema. You can update the gvmd database to the with the following command:
sudo runuser -u _gvm -- gvmd --migrate
ERROR: No postgresql version uses the port 5432.¶
Greenbone Community Edition requires a PostgreSQL connection on port 5432. See instructions here to change the PostgreSQL port.