---
name: "oscap-ssh"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "openscap"
version: "1.4.5-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/oscap-ssh"
---

# oscap-ssh(8)

Tool for running oscap over SSH and collecting results.

## NAME

oscap-ssh - Tool for running oscap over SSH and collecting results.

## DESCRIPTION

oscap-ssh runs oscap tool on a remote system through SSH connection. The input files are transferred to the target system and after the scan finishes result files are transferred back. No temporary data remains on the remote machine.

The tool requires bash, ssh, scp and mktemp to perform OVAL and XCCDF evaluation of remote machines. The remote machine also has to have oscap installed and in $PATH. This can be accomplished by installing openscap-scanner.

Usage of the tool mimics usage and options of [oscap(8)](/oscap/8.md) tool.

## USAGE

### Evaluation of XCCDF content

$ oscap-ssh user@host 22 xccdf eval \[options\] INPUT\_CONTENT

Only source data streams are supported as INPUT\_CONTENT!

Supported options are:\
   \--profile\
   \--tailoring-file\
   \--tailoring-id\
   \--cpe\
   \--results\
   \--results-arf\
   \--report\
   \--skip-validation\
   \--fetch-remote-resources\
   \--local-files\
   \--progress\
   \--datastream-id\
   \--xccdf-id\
   \--benchmark-id\
   \--remediate

### Evaluation of OVAL content

$ oscap-ssh user@host 22 oval eval \[options\] INPUT\_CONTENT

Supported options are:\
   \--id\
   \--variables\
   \--directives\
   \--results\
   \--report\
   \--skip-validation\
   \--datastream-id\
   \--oval-id

### Collection of OVAL System Characteristic

$ oscap-ssh user@host 22 oval collect \[options\] INPUT\_CONTENT

Supported options are:\
   \--id\
   \--syschar\
   \--variables\
   \--skip-validation

Specific option for oscap-ssh (must be first argument):\
   \--sudo

### Environment variables

oscap-ssh checks out the SSH\_ADDITIONAL\_OPTIONS environment variable, and pastes its contents into the command-line of ssh to the location where options are expected. Supply the variable in form of a string that corresponds to a section of the ssh command-line and that consists of options you want to pass.

### Using --local-files option

The oscap-ssh command supports the --local-files option, but it isn't possible to pass './' and '../' as an argument. Use a full directory path instead.

## EXAMPLE USAGE

### Simple XCCDF evaluation

The following command evaluates a remote Fedora machine as root. HTML report is written out as report.html on the local machine. Can be executed from any machine that has ssh, scp and bash. The local machine does not need to have openscap installed. It also uses the SSH\_ADDITIONAL\_OPTIONS variable to configure ssh in such way that contents of the known\_hosts file are ignored.

$ export SSH\_ADDITIONAL\_OPTIONS="-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null" $ oscap-ssh root@192.168.1.13 22 xccdf eval --profile xccdf\_org.ssgproject.content\_profile\_common --report report.html /usr/share/xml/scap/ssg/content/ssg-fedora-ds.xml

### XCCDF Evaluation with tailoring file

The following command uses a tailoring file and also copies back ARF and XCCDF results. The tailoring file is automatically copied from local machine to remote.

$ oscap-ssh --sudo oscap-user@192.168.1.13 22 xccdf eval --profile xccdf\_org.ssgproject.content\_profile\_common --report report.html --results results.xml --results-arf arf.xml --tailoring-file ssg-fedora-ds-tailoring.xml /usr/share/xml/scap/ssg/content/ssg-fedora-ds.xml

### Running remotely as root

Note that the openscap scanner is best run by the 'root' user as in the first example above. To do this, the "PermitRootLogin" directive must be enabled in /etc/ssh/sshd\_config, which is itself a security violation. A safer approach is to enable a non-privileged user ('oscap-user' in the second example above) to run only the oscap binary as root (with the '--sudo' flag) by updating the remote machine's 'sudoers' file or adding a file like /etc/sudoers.d/99-oscap-user:\
   \# allow oscap-user to run openscap scanner\
   Defaults!/usr/bin/oscap !requiretty\
   oscap-user ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/oscap

## REPORTING BUGS

```
Please report bugs using https://github.com/OpenSCAP/openscap/issues
```

## AUTHORS

```
Martin Preisler <mpreisle@redhat.com>
Šimon Lukašík <slukasik@redhat.com>
```