Hi, all.<br><br> I'm sorry I did not send this message earlier, but i was to busy with moving to new town, new work and serious illness, and i can't back to project until last week.<br clear="all"><br>
My task for GSoC 2007 was further integration of OVAL language and
infrastructure with Debian project. OVAL language already include
scheme for support Debian package system (dpkg), but this functionality
was don't implemented in referenced OVAL interpretator. Therefore my
first task was implement this support, create Debian package for
referenced OVAL interpretator, and submit resulted patches to upstream
for inclusion in next official release.
<br><br> My second task was improve script that convert DSA to OVAL
definitions. This script was initially developed by my mentor Javier
Fernandez-Sanguino, but was based on old OVAL version and generate only
simple OVAL definition that not pass validation by OVAL definition
scheme.
<br> <br> Implementing of this two task will allow to use OVAl
interpretator to evaluate security status of Debian hosts according to
issued DSA. Both of this task is finished now.<br> During work on
implementing DPKG support in referenced OVAL interpretator i was
implement DPKGInfoProbe and TextFileContentProbe classes. This patches
was included in ovaldi Debian package (
<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/o/oval-interpreter.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://packages.qa.debian.org/o/oval-interpreter.html</a>)
and sent to upstream. Currently this patches not fully applied to upstream
source, but i will continue interaction with OVAL developers to include
this feature in next release.
<br> DSA to OVAL definitions converter was fully rewrite on python
language and now produce valid OVAL definitions for most of DSA in
Debian repository (some old DSA is ignored because have different
naming scheme). We plan to use this script as part of oval-server
package for in-place conversion of DSA and on <a href="http://debian.org/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">debian.org</a>
web-site to provide Debian OVAL definitions feed corresponding to
issued DSA. This converter require some updates to reduce memory usage
on handling large DSA repository (like full DSA repository).
<br> <br> Second and very important task was implementing
agent-server architecture over the OVAL interpretator to centralized
handle security status of whole Debian networks. This task include
development of oval-server program that must generate OVAL definitions
repository (generate from DSA or download from official <a href="http://debian.org/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">debian.org</a>
feed), generate per-client definitions to evaluate security status of
Debian client hosts and generate security status reports for visual
presentation of security status.
<br> Oval-agent tools was developed to work on client side and it
purpose include receive OVAL definitions from server, evaluate them
with OVAL interpretator and send results back to server.
<br><br> At the first stage of project i will plan implement both
tools in C++, but during work on this task i change my choice to python
language due to time constraint and better integration with DSA2OVAL
converter. Oval-server use SQLite as database engine to store
information about clients and definitions, HTTP protocol to interact
with oval-agents and currently support synchronization DSA repository
over http, ftp, local fs (in plan mail and rss support, and support
fetch prepared OVAL definitions from <a href="http://debian.org/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">debian.org</a> website).<br> <br>
Both, oval-agent and oval-server in working prototype stage. They
implements most of required functional, but have some important issues
which must be fixed before inclusion in Debian repository. I plan to
keep list of this issues on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianOval" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianOval</a> page.<br><br> I plan to continue working and prepare oval-agent and oval-server packages to the end of this year or early.
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Pavel Vinogradov<br>NixDev.Net, Linux Developer