infinite installation dependencies

gsrichmo · 04-13-2009, 11:01 AM

Sometimes I really hate linux. If one could easily install software, perhaps it would surpass Windows one day. I am trying to install a program which requires dependencies. Those dependencies have dependencies and those dependencies have dependencies, etc, etc, etc.

Am I missing something? Is there an easy way to resolve dependencies?

hurry_hui · 04-13-2009, 11:07 AM

Ok. Tell us what distro you are working on?

hurry_hui · 04-13-2009, 11:08 AM

And what programs you are trying to install?

gsrichmo · 04-13-2009, 11:08 AM

I am on Fedora 7.

gsrichmo · 04-13-2009, 11:09 AM

I am trying to install Nessus 4.0.0

hurry_hui · 04-13-2009, 11:14 AM

FYI, Fedora 7 is no longer supported. You need to move to current Fedora 10 or upcoming Fedora 11.

I think Fedora applications are easy to install, provided you have net connection and repos are set.

gsrichmo · 04-13-2009, 11:16 AM

Regardless, I have used other linux distributions like red hat and slackware. They all are a pain in the butt to install software. Can you please give me a tip on how to resolve dependencies?

hurry_hui · 04-13-2009, 11:23 AM

I used Sabayon that is based on Gentoo. I sometimes view/edit ebuild that is on Gentoo package management to see how packages are dependent each other. It is not so difficult.

Sometimes you got trouble when packages are masked. This means it is not usable.

But resolving dependencies when you are using different version of compilers against various kernels is not easy task. You need to install everything from package. If you install from source, here comes the trouble.

---edited---

I hear that LFS is free from dependencies.

farslayer · 04-13-2009, 11:44 AM

Maybe you would be interested in a Distro with simpler/better package management ? Say a Debian based distro, like Debian or Ubuntu ?

Code:

it-lenny:~# aptitude search nessus 
p   libnessus-dev             - Nessus static libraries and headers                                  
p   libnessus2                - Nessus shared libraries                                              
p   nessus                    - Remote network security auditor, the client                          
p   nessus-dev                - Nessus development header files                                      
p   nessus-plugins            - Nessus plugins                                                       
p   nessusclient              - Transitional package to openvas-client                               
p   nessusd                   - Remote network security auditor, the server   
                       
it-lenny:~# aptitude install nessusd nessus nessus-plugins

Everything, INCLUDING Dependencies is downloaded and installed automatically, you may have to do some manual configuration after install, although the default config will allow most programs to have basic functionality at install time.

I left Redhat years ago because of RPM Dependency Hell. That was before they were using Yum by default. YUM should do halfway decent dependency resolution these days in Redhat/Fedora, although their default package repository is nowhere near the size of the Debian repositories.

Since it's security tools you appear to be currently interested in..Theres always Backtrack 3 as well.

hurry_hui · 04-13-2009, 11:56 AM

Or from Sabayon

Code:

sabayon ~ # emerge --search nessus
Searching...
[ Results for search key : nessus ]
[ Applications found : 7 ]

*  net-analyzer/nessus
      Latest version available: 2.2.9
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Size of files: 0 kB
      Homepage:      http://www.nessus.org/
      Description:   A remote security scanner for Linux
      License:       GPL-2

*  net-analyzer/nessus-bin
      Latest version available: 3.2.0
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Size of files: 23,845 kB
      Homepage:      http://www.nessus.org
      Description:   A remote security scanner for Linux
      License:       Nessus-EULA

*  net-analyzer/nessus-client
      Latest version available: 1.0.2
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Size of files: 2,019 kB
      Homepage:      http://www.nessus.org/
      Description:   A client for the Nessus vulnerability scanner
      License:       GPL-2

*  net-analyzer/nessus-core
      Latest version available: 2.2.9
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Size of files: 658 kB
      Homepage:      http://www.nessus.org/
      Description:   A remote security scanner for Linux (nessus-core)
      License:       GPL-2

*  net-analyzer/nessus-libraries
      Latest version available: 2.2.9
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Size of files: 416 kB
      Homepage:      http://www.nessus.org/
      Description:   A remote security scanner for Linux (nessus-libraries)
      License:       GPL-2

*  net-analyzer/nessus-plugins
      Latest version available: 2.2.9
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Size of files: 1,039 kB
      Homepage:      http://www.nessus.org/
      Description:   A remote security scanner for Linux (nessus-plugins)
      License:       GPL-2

*  net-analyzer/prelude-nessus
      Latest version available: 20021107
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Size of files: 7 kB
      Homepage:      http://www.rstack.org/oudot/prelude/correlation/
      Description:   Nessus Correlation support for Prelude-IDS
      License:       GPL-2

gsrichmo · 04-13-2009, 12:58 PM

Thanks all. I may try Ubunto or Debian one day, but no time for it now. I do have Backtrack which doesn't come with Nessus...thats why I was trying to install it. I may try to install on Backtrack too.

John VV · 04-13-2009, 01:18 PM

gsrichmo

fedora 7 MIGHT BE A BIG PROBLEM it is unsupported and past it's End of Life
but yum MIGHT still work ( even with dead repos maybe

Code:

yum search nessus

that gave me this

Code:

Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
=============================== Matched: Nessus ================================
libnasl.i386 : Nessus Attack Scripting Language
libnasl-devel.i386 : Nessus Attack Scripting Language header files
libnasl-doc.i386 : Nessus Attack Scripting Language documentation
nessus-client.i386 : Text client interface for nessusd
nessus-core.i386 : Network vulnerability scanner
nessus-core-devel.i386 : Header files for plugin development
nessus-gui.i386 : GTK client interface for nessusd
nessus-libraries.i386 : Support libraries for nessus
nessus-libraries-devel.i386 : Development package for nessus-libraries
nessus-server.i386 : nessusd is the server part of the nessus client-server
                   : model

so for fedora all you need to do is

Code:

yum install  nessus-client nessus-gui

and you are done
BUT as i stated some of the fedora 7 repos NOLONGER exist

farslayer · 04-13-2009, 02:39 PM

Nessus on Backtrack 3 How-to EWWW, although I guess the important part is it will work..