Using Qualys Virtual Scanner Appliance

In a previous post about Qualys VM I mentioned Qualys Scanner Appliances, which you can use to scan hosts inside your network. Let’s see how to configure and use them.

Qualys Virtual Scanner Appliance

To add new Appliance go to https://qualysguard.qualys.eu/fo/tools/scannerAppliances.php and press “New”. You can choose a Scanner Appliance (Hardware) or Virtual Scanner Appliance. For testing I would like to have an appliance in form of VirtualBox virtual machine, so I choose “Virtual Scanner Appliance”.

Setup wizard appeared:

Qualys virtual appliance wizard

I clicked on Download Image Only.

Qualys Virtual Scanner Appliance supports variety of virtualization platforms:

  • Standard (OVA)
  • OpenStack
  • VMware vApp
  • Microsoft Hyper-V
  • Amazon HVM Machine Image (Pre-Authorized Scanning)
  • Amazon HVM Machine Image
  • Microsoft Azure Marketplace Image
  • Google Compute Cloud Image

I choose standard distribution package for this target platforms:

  • VMware vSphere: vCenter Server, ESXi
  • VMware Workstation, Player, Workstation Player, Fusion
  • Oracle VM VirtualBox
  • Citrix XenServer

I imported this package without any problems.

Appliance VM Settings

The only thing I changed was network adapter settings. I didn’t want to to deal with the network settings, so I just changed them to “Attached to: NAT”.

Appliance Network Interface

Back in Wizard. Click on “I Have My Image”.

Qualys virtual appliance wizard

Setting the name of the Scanner. Wizard won’t allow you to use the blanks (” “).

Qualys new scanner

And here is what we need to activate our new virtual appliance – Personalization Code.

Person code

I boot my virtual machine in VirtualBox.

Appliance booting

Personalize this scanner -> Enter personalization code

Appliance Personalization

Virtual appliance connects to remote Qualys Servers and starts updating process.

Appliance Update

Some minutes later it will show “Welcome to the Qualys Virtual Scanner Console” screen.

Appliance is ready

You can see the status of new scanner in the web interface:

Verifying activation

New Appliance

And how to scan something with it? Actually, it is completely the same, as with an external scanner. Just select the right appliance in scan settings.

Qualys new appliance scan

6 thoughts on “Using Qualys Virtual Scanner Appliance

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