Vulnerability Analysis
nikto
nikto is the veteran web-server scanner. Point it at a host and it runs
thousands of checks: dangerous or default files, outdated server software, risky
HTTP methods, revealing headers, and a long list of known-problematic paths. It’s
noisy by design — it is not trying to be stealthy — but for a fast, broad “what’s
obviously wrong with this web server” pass, it’s still hard to beat.
Installed from the AUR and set up with the Perl dependency it needs to run at all; Security → Vulnerability Analysis → nikto.
The help it prints
Unknown option: help
Options:
-Add-header Add HTTP headers (can be used multiple times, one per header pair)
-ask+ Whether to ask about submitting updates
yes Ask about each (default)
no Don't ask, don't send
auto Don't ask, just send
-check6 Check if IPv6 is working (connects to ipv6.google.com or value set in nikto.conf)
-Cgidirs+ Scan these CGI dirs: "none", "all", or values like "/cgi/ /cgi-a/"
-config+ Use this config file
-Display+ Turn on/off display outputs:
1 Show redirects
2 Show cookies received
3 Show all 200/OK responses
4 Show URLs which require authentication
D Debug output
E Display all HTTP errors
P Print progress to STDOUT
S Scrub output of IPs and hostnames
V Verbose output
-dbcheck Check database and other key files for syntax errors
-evasion+ Encoding technique:
1 Random URI encoding (non-UTF8)
2 Directory self-reference (/./)
3 Premature URL ending
4 Prepend long random string
5 Fake parameter
6 TAB as request spacer
7 Change the case of the URL
8 Use Windows directory separator (\)
A Use a carriage return (0x0d) as a request spacer
B Use binary value 0x0b as a request spacer
-followredirects Follow 3xx redirects to new location
-Format+ Save file (-o) format:
csv Comma-separated-value
json JSON Format
htm HTML Format
sql Generic SQL (see docs for schema)
txt Plain text
xml XML Format
(if not specified the format will be taken from the file extension passed to -output)
-Help This help information
-host+ Target host/URL
-id+ Host authentication to use, format is id:pass or id:pass:realm
-ipv4 IPv4 Only
-ipv6 IPv6 Only
-key+ Client certificate key file
-list-plugins List all available plugins, perform no testing
-maxtime+ Maximum testing time per host (e.g., 1h, 60m, 3600s)
-mutate+ Guess additional file names:
1 Test all files with all root directories
2 Guess for password file names
3 Enumerate user names via Apache (/~user type requests)
4 Enumerate user names via cgiwrap (/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~user type requests)
6 Attempt to guess directory names from the supplied dictionary file
-mutate-options Provide information for mutates
-nocheck Don't check for updates on startup
-nocookies Do not use cookies from responses in requests
-nointeractive Disables interactive features
-nolookup Disables DNS lookups
-nossl Disables the use of SSL
-noslash Strip trailing slash from URL (e.g., '/admin/' to '/admin')
-no404 Disables nikto attempting to guess a 404 page
-Option Over-ride an option in nikto.conf, can be issued multiple times
-output+ Write output to this file ('.' for auto-name)
-Pause+ Pause between tests (seconds)
-Platform+ Platform of target (nix, win, all)
-Plugins+ List of plugins to run (default: ALL)
-port+ Port to use (default 80)
-RSAcert+ Client certificate file
-root+ Prepend root value to all requests, format is /directory
-Save Save positive responses to this directory ('.' for auto-name)
-ssl Force ssl mode on port
-Tuning+ Scan tuning:
1 Interesting File / Seen in logs
2 Misconfiguration / Default File
3 Information Disclosure
4 Injection (XSS/Script/HTML)
5 Remote File Retrieval - Inside Web Root
6 Denial of Service
7 Remote File Retrieval - Server Wide
8 Command Execution / Remote Shell
9 SQL Injection
0 File Upload
a Authentication Bypass
b Software Identification
c Remote Source Inclusion
d WebService
e Administrative Console
x Reverse Tuning Options (i.e., include all except specified)
-timeout+ Timeout for requests (default 10 seconds)
-Userdbs Load only user databases, not the standard databases
all Disable standard dbs and load only user dbs
tests Disable only db_tests and load udb_tests
-useragent Force User-Agent instead of pulling from database
-url+ Target host/URL (alias of -host)
-useproxy Use the proxy defined in nikto.conf, or argument http://server:port
-Version Print plugin and database versions
-vhost+ Virtual host (for Host header)
-404code Ignore these HTTP codes as negative responses (always). Format is "302,301".
-404string Ignore this string in response body content as negative response (always). Can be a regular expression.
+ requires a valueExamples
# Scan a single host
nikto -h http://10.0.0.5
# HTTPS on a non-standard port
nikto -h 10.0.0.5 -p 8443 -ssl
# Save an HTML report
nikto -h http://10.0.0.5 -o nikto-report.html -Format htm
# Tune which checks run (e.g. only injection + misconfig checks)
nikto -h http://10.0.0.5 -Tuning 14