ness6rest.py - a REST interface to Nessus 6

Dependencies:

• Nessus 6.4.x
• Python 2.7+ or 3.3+
• requests module (install via pip)
• The dependencies can be satisfied via pip install -r requirements.txt

Quick Install

pip install nessrest

Features:

• Logins

  scan = ness6rest.Scanner(url="https://nessusscanner:8834", login="username", password="password")
  
  creds = [credentials.WindowsPassword(username="administrator", password="foobar"),
           credentials.WindowsPassword(username="administrator", password="barfoo"),
           credentials.SshPassword(username="nessususer", password="foobar")]
  
  scan.policy_add_creds(credentials=creds)
  

• Build policies

  scan.upload(upload_file="file.audit")
  scan._policy_add_audit(category="Windows", filename="file.audit")
  scan.policy_add(name="Scripted Scan", plugins="21156")
  

• Launch scans

  scan.scan_add(targets="192.168.0.1")
  scan.scan_run()
  

• Schedule scans

  scan.scan_add(targets="192.168.0.1", start="YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS")
  

• Parse scan results

  scan.scan_results()
  

• Download KB for target

  kbs = scan.download_kbs()
  
  for hostname in kbs.keys():
      f = open(hostname, "w")
      f.write(kbs[hostname])
      f.close()
  

• Output for ticketing/wiki format

Feature Requests:

• Deleting of a schedule
• Ability to change "tag" from CLI via config/CLI arg
• Enforce supported versions of Nessus

Notes:

• Proxies are not supported, although transparent proxies should work... transparently

nessrest - an example client

Suggested installation:

• Find the path to your "site-packages" with: python -c "import sys; print(sys.path)"
• Symlink ness6rest.py in the Git repo in the "site-packages" or "dist-packages" directory.
• Test by issuing import ness6rest inside the Python interactive interpreter.

Specifying a ca_bundle

If you are using a corporate or self-signed SSL certificate, you can specify the path to a ca_bundle to use for verification by passing it to the Scanner initializer:

scan = ness6rest.Scanner(url="https://nessusscanner:8834", login="username", password="password", ca_bundle="/path/to/ca_bundle.pem")

If you are using the ness_rest client, you can pass this path on the command line using the --ca_bundle option.

Self-signed certificates

If you're running Nessus with a self-signed certificate, and you wish to disable SSL certificate checking, you can pass insecure=True to the Scanner initializer:

scan = ness6rest.Scanner(url="https://nessusscanner:8834", login="username", password="password", insecure=True)

If you're using the nessrest example client, it has an --insecure option that will do this.

Note that this will disable invalid SSL cerficate errors and should be used with caution.

Configuration file:

• Copy ness_rest.conf.example to ness_rest.conf and configure for your scanner.
• There are several valid paths for the location of the config file(in order):
• The path passed from the CLI with --config
• A permanent config file is searched for in the following locations:
  • $HOME/.ness_rest.conf
  • $HOME/.ness_rest/ness_rest.conf
  • /etc/ness_rest.conf
  • /etc/ness_rest/ness_rest.conf
  • $PWD/ness_rest.conf

Building modules:

• To build a package to install via pip or easy_install, execute:
  • python setup.py sdist
• The resulting build will be in $PWD/dist/nessrest-<version>.tar.gz