Mastering Linux Security and Hardening

Installing and updating Nikto on Linux

Nikto is in the EPEL repository for Red Hat/CentOS, and it's in the normal repository for Ubuntu. Along with the Nikto package itself, you'll also want to install a package that allows Nikto to scan web servers that are set up with SSL/TLS encryption.

To install on Red Hat/CentOS:

sudo yum install nikto perl-Net-SSLeay

To install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt install nikto libnet-ssleay-perl

The next thing you'll want to do is to update the database of vulnerability signatures. But, at the time of writing this, there's a slight bug in the Red Hat/CentOS implementation. For some reason, the docs directory is missing, which means that the update functions won't be able to download the CHANGES.txt file to show you ...