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.

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.

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. 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 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.

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 security.debian.org 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).

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 debian.org feed), generate per-client definitions to evaluate security status of Debian client hosts and generate security status reports for visual presentation of security status. 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.

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 debian.org website).

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 DebianOval wiki page.

I plan to continue working and prepare oval-agent and oval-server packages to the end of this year or early.