$Id: README_BSD,v 1.4 2000/04/10 16:21:30 renaud Exp $

Note to the *BSD users. 


1. pcap

 Nessus integrates the pcap library, which uses the
 berkeley packet filter (bpf) to do its job.

 Since Nessus is multithreaded, several pcap-aware plugins will
 need to access the the bpf at the same time. 


 This means that you need to recompile your kernel with the
 following option :

 pseudo-device   bpfilter NUM

 Where 'NUM' is the number of bpf you want -- it should be equal to
 the 'max threads number' option you enter in nessusd x the number of
 network interfaces you have. 
 
 If for instance you want to have 10 nessusd running at the same time,
 and you have two network cards and one loopback interface, then you
 should create 30 (10 * 3) bpfs

 Once your kernel has been rebuilt, get root, cd to /dev
 and do  :

 ./MAKEDEV bpf0
 ./MAKEDEV bpf1
 ./MAKEDEV bpf2
 ./MAKEDEV bpf3
 ./MAKEDEV bpf4
 ./MAKEDEV bpf5
 ....
 ./MAKEDEV bpfN

 (where N = NUM)
 (and yes, N can be greater than 9)


2. Speed 

 Linux has a nice way to handle the ICMP unreach errors regarding the UDP
 socket, FreeBSD (and all the others I guess) do not. So, you may find
 this version of Nessus somewhat slow. If it is the case, you should
 tune the option 'checks_read_timeout' in nessusd.conf. The default
 timeout value is set to 15. You can safely lower it to 5 if you are
 testing a local network.
