OpenVAS Change Request #37: Make openvas-client depend on openvas-libraries

Status: Voted +6. Done. Released with openvas-client and openvas-libraries 3.0.0.

Purpose

To avoid comprehensive code duplicates and associated maintenance work.

To allow code cleanup and removal of code redundancy.

References

Rationale

Currently openvas-client is independent of any other OpenVAS module. Since it shares some code base with the other modules, copies of various files from openvas-libraries are inside the openvas-client module.

As openvas-client deals with similar 'entities' (e.g. NVTs, reported issues) as openvas-server and openvas-libraries, there exist

• exact code duplicates (same files, e.g. every file in src/openvas-lib),
• nearly exact code duplicates or extracts (e.g. arglists, network related functions) and
• secondary, separate implementations of functionality (e.g. file- related functions, parsing),

which makes maintenance harder and can require double debugging efforts.

Current developments (e.g. openvas-manager, logging facility) in the 2.1 series will likely introduce more general code that could and should be used by openvas-client.

Effects

For compilation or installation of OpenVAS-Client, presence of openvas-libraries will be a strict requirement.

Design and Implementation

Changes to openvas-client

• Change autoconf to strictly require openvas-libraries.
• Identify and remove affected files and code parts (see preliminary list below).

Changes to openvas-libraries

• For nearly exact code duplicates and separate implementations, changes from openvas-client have to be merged in and tested carefully.

Incomplete list of affected files in openvas-client

The files counterparts in libopenvas are given in braces.

• openvas-client/libnessus/addslashes.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/plugutils.*)
• openvas-client/libnessus/arglists.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/arglists.*)
• openvas-client/libnessus/harglists.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/harglists.*)
• openvas-client/libnessus/hlst.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/hlst.*)
• openvas-client/libnessus/network.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/network.*)
• openvas-client/libnessus/rand.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/rand.*)
• openvas-client/libnessus/resolve.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/resolve.*)
• openvas-client/libnessus/system.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/system.*)
• openvas-client/include/libnessus.h
• openvas-client/src/hash_table_file.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/hash_table_file.*)
• openvas-client/src/openvas_certificates.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/openvas_certificates.*)
• openvas-client/src/openvas_certificate_file.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/openvas_certificate_file.*)
• openvas-client/src/openvas_ssh_login.* (openvas-libraries/libopenvas/openvas_ssh_login.*)

History

• 2010-01-06 Felix Wolfsteller <felix.wolfsteller@intevation.de>:
  Updated status as done.
• 2009-07-12 Felix Wolfsteller <felix.wolfsteller@intevation.de>:
  Corrected typos found by Jan-Oliver Wagner and Matthew Mundell.
• 2009-07-02 Felix Wolfsteller <felix.wolfsteller@intevation.de> and Jan-Oliver Wagner <jan-oliver.wagner@intevation.de>:
  Enhanced structure and readability.
• 2009-06-29 Felix Wolfsteller <felix.wolfsteller@intevation.de>:
  Initial text.