Quick Start

You can run QScanner using its Binary. This topic explains running a QScanner scan, and generating their respective outputs.

Using QScanner Binary

To run a vulnerability scan using QScanner Binary, follow the steps mentioned below.

  1. Download the latest QScanner Shell script from www.qualys.com/downloads/qscanner
  2. Login to Qualys Cloud Platform and get the access token from CONFIGURATIONSAccess Token.
  3. To communicate with the Cloud Platform using QScanner, run 
    $ export QUALYS_ACCESS_TOKEN=<your-access-token>
  4. Run the following command to collect vulnerabilities.
    $ ./qscanner --pod <POD name> image <Image name>


- A list of supported pods can be found in Appendix: POD Identifiers.
- You might need to provide --skip-verify-tls=true flag if you are running in a proxy environment.
- For faster data collection you can make use of:
   - Caching
   - Storage Drivers
- Once data is collected, QScanner communicates (polls) with Qualys backend to fetch the vulnerability report. By default, this polling happens every 60 seconds, but it is configurable using the --poll-wait-interval flag.

Sample Output

$ ./qscanner --pod US3 image centos
   ____    _____
  / __ \  / ___/  _____  ____ _   ____    ____   ___    _____
 / / / /  \__ \  / ___/ / __ `/  / __ \  / __ \ / _ \  / ___/
/ /_/ /  ___/ / / /__  / /_/ /  / / / / / / / //  __/ / /
\___\_\ /____/  \___/  \__,_/  /_/ /_/ /_/ /_/ \___/ /_/

By Qualys | version: 4.2.0-1

2024-08-26T11:57:54.034+0530    INFO    New instance of qscanner-4.2.0-1 started with invocation ID fc90dc02-6d29-4642-96d0-5090fa5fb467
2024-08-26T11:57:54.034+0530    INFO    Fetching image details
2024-08-26T11:57:57.278+0530    INFO    Image source: remote
2024-08-26T11:57:58.830+0530    INFO    Starting Metadata scan
2024-08-26T11:57:58.830+0530    INFO    Metadata scan completed in 304.397µs
2024-08-26T11:57:58.830+0530    INFO    Starting [os sca] scan
2024-08-26T11:58:02.784+0530    INFO    [os sca] scan completed in 3.953913365s
2024-08-26T11:58:02.785+0530    INFO    OS detected: CentOS Linux 8.4.2105
2024-08-26T11:58:02.785+0530    INFO    OS package(s) detected: 180
2024-08-26T11:58:02.785+0530    INFO    Technologies detected: 0
2024-08-26T11:58:02.785+0530    INFO    Language package(s) detected: 0
2024-08-26T11:58:02.785+0530    INFO    All scans completed in 3.954812719s
2024-08-26T11:58:02.787+0530    INFO    Scan Result JSON created at /root/qualys/qscanner/data/5d0da3dc976460b72c77d94c8a1ad043720b0416bfc16c52c45d4847e53fadb6-ScanResult.json
2024-08-26T11:58:02.787+0530    INFO    Creating changelist
2024-08-26T11:58:02.892+0530    INFO    Compressed Changelist DB created at /root/qualys/qscanner/data/5d0da3dc976460b72c77d94c8a1ad043720b0416bfc16c52c45d4847e53fadb6-ChangeList.db.xz
2024-08-26T11:58:02.892+0530    INFO    Uploading changelist /root/qualys/qscanner/data/5d0da3dc976460b72c77d94c8a1ad043720b0416bfc16c52c45d4847e53fadb6-ChangeList.db.xz
2024-08-26T11:58:04.338+0530    INFO    Changelist uploaded successfully
2024-08-26T11:58:04.339+0530    INFO    Skip fetching of policy evaluation result
2024-08-26T11:58:04.339+0530    INFO    Fetching vulnerability report
2024-08-26T11:59:05.582+0530    INFO    Vulnerability report received
2024-08-26T11:59:05.582+0530    INFO    1 vulnerability found!
2024-08-26T11:59:05.582+0530    INFO      Severity 5: 1
2024-08-26T11:59:05.582+0530    INFO      Severity 4: 0
2024-08-26T11:59:05.582+0530    INFO      Severity 3: 0
2024-08-26T11:59:05.582+0530    INFO      Severity 2: 0
2024-08-26T11:59:05.582+0530    INFO      Severity 1: 0
Vulnerabilities:

2024-08-26T11:59:05.585+0530    INFO    For more details refer /root/qualys/qscanner/data/5d0da3dc976460b72c77d94c8a1ad043720b0416bfc16c52c45d4847e53fadb6-Report.sarif.json
2024-08-26T11:59:05.585+0530    INFO    Skipping policy evaluation