Network Security Tools

Knowledge Base

Quite often, plug-ins need to communicate with each other and with the Nessus engine. The two functions presented here allow for plug-ins to define items in a shared memory space that is referred to as the Knowledge Base .

The set_kb_item( ) function expects two parameters as input: name and value. For example:

set_kb_item(name:"SSL-Enabled",value:TRUE);

The get_kb_item( ) function expects one parameter as input: name. For example:

value = get_kb_item(name:"SSL-Enabled");

If set_kb_item( ) is called repeatedly with the same name, a list is created in the Knowledge Base memory. Note that if get_kb_item( ) is called to retrieve such a list, the plug-in process spawns a new child process for every item that is retrieved. The get_kb_item( ) function will return a single value to each spawned plug-in process. In this way, each plug-in process can deal with each element of the list in parallel. This behavior is by design and might change in the future.

It is not possible to call get_kb_item( ) to retrieve an item set by set_kb_item( ) in the same plug-in process. This is because NASL forks a new process to set the item in the Knowledge Base. This behavior is by design and might change in the future. Plug-in authors should not be affected by this because if a plug-in sets a particular item in the Knowledge Base, it is assumed that the plug-in is already aware of the particular item.

You can use the get_kb_list( ) function to retrieve multiple entries from the Knowledge Base. ...