Computer profiles

When working in both large and smaller-sized networks, you will inevitably have to log in with different sets of credentials on different computers. Systems such as Linux-based systems often make use of special authentication methods such as public key authentication. Such authentication methods generally require special/custom logon credentials such as private key files instead of the conventional password strings.

Through computer profiles, you can specify a different set of logon credentials for every target computer. The scanning engine can then refer to the logon credentials stored in these computer profiles when authenticating to target computers. This way you will not need to specify a default set of logon credentials prior to starting a network scan. It also makes it possible to scan target computers that require different logon credentials and authentication methods in the same (single) session. For example, you can run vulnerability checks on Windows targets which require username/password credential strings and Linux based targets which require username/SSH private key files, in a single scanning session.

About SSH private key authentication

GFI LANguard N.S.S. connects to Linux-based target computers through SSH connections. In public key cryptography, two keys (in the form of text files) are used to verify the authenticity of an SSH connection request. These keys are identified as the ‘SSH private key’ and ‘SSH public key’.

The SSH key pair (i.e. public and private Keys) are manually generated using a third party tool such as SSH-KeyGen (generally included by default in the Linux SSH package).

The SSH private key is the half of the key pair that the scanning engine will use to authenticate to a remote Linux based target. This means that the SSH private key is used instead of the conventional password string and hence must be stored on the computer which is running GFI LANguard N.S.S.

The SSH public key is the part which the remote target computer will use to challenge the authentication of GFI LANguard N.S.S. and is stored on the remote target computer(s).

Creating a new computer profile

Screenshot 69 - Computer profile properties dialog

To create a new computer profile:

1. Click on the Configuration button and expand the Configuration > Settings sub-node

2. Right-click the Computer Profiles sub-node and select New > Computer(s) Profile… This will bring up the Computer Profile properties dialog.

3. In the General tab which opens by default specify the target computer name.

3. Click on the Logon Credentials tab, select the required authentication method and specify the respective logon credentials.

4. Click OK to finalize your settings.

NOTE: In GFI LANguard N.S.S. 8, newly created computer profiles are disabled by default. For information on how to enable newly created computer profiles, refer to the ‘Enabling/Disabling computer profiles’ section in this chapter.

Configuring computer profile parameters

Screenshot 70 - List of existing computer profiles

To configure/change the parameters of an existing computer profile:

1. Click on the Configuration button and expand the Configuration > Settings > Computer Profiles sub-node

2. Right-click the computer profile to configure and select Properties.

3. Configure the required parameters and click OK to finalize your settings.