How to Solve PostgreSQL Error During GVM (Greenbone Vulnerability Management) Installation
GVM is a popular choice for vulnerability scans. It’s a essential tool for security experts because it has a large database, scanning infrastructure, and is open-source.
However, there have been some reports of errors in certain systems, especially older ones with version mismatches. Today, I’ll share the solution to one of these errors. I encountered the same error and figured out the solution through some steps. Let’s quickly go through the solution.
GVM Setup
At this point, I will assume you are running apt install gvm directly:
apt install gvm
To avoid permission errors after installation, go to the following location and run the setup command from there
cd /usr/bin/
gvm-setup
After this step, if you do not have the minimum version of PostgreSQL supported by GVM installed on your system, or if it is installed but not the default, you are likely to get the following PostgreSQL error.
└─# gvm-setup [>] Starting PostgreSQL service [-] ERROR: The default PostgreSQL version (15) is not 17 that is required by libgvmd [-] ERROR: libgvmd needs PostgreSQL 17 to use the port 5432 [-] ERROR: Use pg_upgradecluster to update your PostgreSQL cluster
To avoid this situation, do the following in order.
Check the available versions of PostgreSQL:
pg_lsclusters
See if the version you need is in the list. If it is not available
sudo apt update
sudo apt install postgresql-17
to install the latest version (17 is the latest available version, after this tutorial find the latest version on the Internet).
Stop the old PostgreSQL service after the installation.
sudo systemctl stop postgresql
We need to point the new PostgreSQL 17 to the correct port;
sudo nano /etc/postgresql/17/main/postgresql.conf
Open the file postgresql.conf with the command nano, then find the line with the defined port number and change it as follows
port = 5432
Save and close.
Enable the service of the new version:
sudo systemctl start postgresql
At the end of the process, check the versions again to make sure it is the default:
pg_lsclusters
If 17 is the default and active in this list, your problem is solved.
Uninstall the old version if the upgrade was successful:
sudo pg_dropcluster 15 main — stop
sudo apt remove postgresql-15
Proceed with the GVM installation again:
gvm-setup
After the installation, reboot the system, log in again, and check the installation:
gvm-check-setup
The GVM installation finishes successfully.
So why did we install manually instead of using pg_upgradecluster?
The pg_upgradecluster command would upgrade the existing package, but would still leave PostgreSQL 15 on port 5432, which is required for GVM. We had to redirect 17 to this port and delete 15 to avoid conflicts. Also, a direct upgrade could have caused conflicts with the services opened at the beginning, if any, making the GVM database unusable/inaccessible. So we fixed it manually.
Safe days, so long…
