Re: Proposed schema for the backend database for Nessus

fbr wrote:

>Javier,
>
>Couldn't the Plugin-CVE and Plugin-BID be merged into just an Plugin reference 
>table?  This would allow you to link in information from other sources 
>besides the two already listed.  Maybe the table should be called 
>plugin_reference, and have the columns Plugin-id, Type, and Value.
>
I believe this is the same idea behind the OSVDB. However, I don't like 
for several reasons:

- you cannot impose syntax restrictions based on the table. Example: 
Plugin-CVE.Value has to be "CVE|CAN-\d+-\d+" while Plugin-BID.Value is 
just "\d+". So you have to define them as text or character(255). 
Imposing syntax restrictions provides a mechanism, in the long run, to 
avoid database corruption due to improper information being entered. 
That's just IMHO.

- if you want to do a union between, say, CVE and the Nessus-plugins 
there is going to be a lot of overhead due to the other references. I.e.:
SELECT * from Plugin-CVE, CVE where Plugin-CVE.Value = CVE.ID
is going to be less overhead than
SELECT * from Plugin_reference, CVE where Plugin_reference.Type='CVE' 
and Plugin_reference.Value = CVE.ID

I'm not sure if there are valid reasons, however, feel free to discuss 
them. I'm open to suggestions ...

>
>You could also normalize out many other things in this schema such as 
>Nessus-plugin.category,type, etc...
>
Yes, that can be done. Thanks for pointing it out.

Javi