Nikto

Nikto 2.6.0 is now available on GitHub.

This is a major release with significant internal improvements, new capabilities, and long-term architectural upgrades.

⚠️ Important Note

This release introduces format changes to JSON and XML reports that may impact

existing parsers and integrations. Also the primary branch has been set to main.

🔧 What’s New in 2.6.0

Nikto 2.6.0 includes hundreds of improvements, with highlights below:

• ~10% faster scans through core engine optimizations
• New Domain Specific Language (DSL) for more expressive, accurate tests
• Rewritten JSON, XML, and SQL report plugins
• Multiple report formats per scan (generate several outputs at once)
• All-new cross-platform LFI testing with platform detection
• Cookies enabled by default for more realistic scanning
• Randomized User-Agent selection per request
• Bulk scanner script for running multiple Nikto instances using screen
• Legacy plugin and dead-code removal (no test coverage lost)
• Reference cleanup (OSVDB, Securiteam, SecurityFocus removed)
• License update: Nikto code is now GPLv3
• New and more accurate tests added
• Improved config loading to reduce distro-specific issues (including Kali)
• Bash wrapper util to execute multiple scans in screen

…and many additional fixes and refinements.

Getting Started

You can start using Nikto 2.6.0 by updating an existing installation from GitHub or by downloading a release archive from the repository.

Feedback & Issues

As always, if you encounter bugs or problems, please open an issue on GitHub.

nikto

=====

alt text

Nikto web server scanner - https://cirt.net/Nikto2

Full documentation - https://github.com/sullo/nikto/wiki

Run normally:

~~~

git clone https://github.com/sullo/nikto

Main script is in program/

cd nikto/program

Run using the shebang interpreter

./nikto.pl -h http://www.example.com

Run using perl (if you forget to chmod)

perl nikto.pl -h http://www.example.com

~~~

Run as a Docker container from ghcr.io:

docker pull ghcr.io/sullo/nikto:latest

Run as a Docker container from Dockerfile:

~~~bash

git clone https://github.com/sullo/nikto.git

cd nikto

docker build -t sullo/nikto .

Call it without arguments to display the full help

docker run --rm sullo/nikto

Basic usage

docker run --rm sullo/nikto -h http://www.example.com

To save the report in a specific format, mount /tmp as a volume:

docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/tmp sullo/nikto -h http://www.example.com -o /tmp/out.json

~~~

Basic usage:

   Options:
       -Add-header         Add HTTP headers (can be used multiple times, one per header pair)
       -ask+               Whether to ask about submitting updates
                               yes   Ask about each (default)
                               no    Don't ask, don't send
                               auto  Don't ask, just send
       -check6             Check if IPv6 is working (connects to ipv6.google.com or value set in nikto.conf)
       -Cgidirs+           Scan these CGI dirs: "none", "all", or values like "/cgi/ /cgi-a/"
       -config+            Use this config file
       -Display+           Turn on/off display outputs:
                               1     Show redirects
                               2     Show cookies received
                               3     Show all 200/OK responses
                               4     Show URLs which require authentication
                               D     Debug output
                               E     Display all HTTP errors
                               P     Print progress to STDOUT
                               S     Scrub output of IPs and hostnames
                               V     Verbose output
       -dbcheck           Check database and other key files for syntax errors
       -evasion+          Encoding technique:
                               1     Random URI encoding (non-UTF8)
                               2     Directory self-reference (/./)
                               3     Premature URL ending
                               4     Prepend long random string
                               5     Fake parameter
                               6     TAB as request spacer
                               7     Change the case of the URL
                               8     Use Windows directory separator (\)
                               A     Use a carriage return (0x0d) as a request spacer
                               B     Use binary value 0x0b as a request spacer
        -followredirects   Follow 3xx redirects to new location
        -Format+           Save file (-o) format. Can specify multiple formats separated by commas (e.g., htm,sql,txt,json,xml):
                               csv   Comma-separated-value
                               json  JSON Format
                               htm   HTML Format
                               sql   Generic SQL (see docs for schema)
                               sqld  SQL Direct (directly inserts into MySQL/PostgreSQL database)
                               txt   Plain text
                               xml   XML Format
                               (if not specified the format will be taken from the file extension passed to -output)
                               Note: sqld format requires DB_TYPE, DB_HOST, DB_PORT, DB_NAME in nikto.conf
                                     and NIKTO_DB_USER, NIKTO_DB_PASS environment variables
       -Help              This help information
       -host+             Target host/URL
       -id+               Host authentication to use, format is id:pass or id:pass:realm
       -ipv4              IPv4 Only
       -ipv6              IPv6 Only
       -key+              Client certificate key file
       -list-plugins      List all available plugins, perform no testing
       -maxtime+          Maximum testing time per host (e.g., 1h, 60m, 3600s)
       -mutate+           Guess additional file names:
                               1     Test all files with all root directories
                               2     Guess for password file names
                               3     Enumerate user names via Apache (/~user type requests)
                               4     Enumerate user names via cgiwrap (/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~user type requests)
                               5     Attempt to brute force sub-domain names, assume that the host name is the parent domain
                               6     Attempt to guess directory names from the supplied dictionary file
       -mutate-options    Provide information for mutates
       -nocheck           Don't check for updates on startup
       -nocookies         Do not use cookies from responses in requests (cookies are stored and sent by default)
       -nointeractive     Disables interactive features
       -nolookup          Disables DNS lookups
       -noslash           Strip trailing slash from URL (e.g., '/admin/' to '/admin')
       -nossl             Disables the use of SSL
       -no404             Disables nikto attempting to guess a 404 page
       -Option            Over-ride an option in nikto.conf, can be issued multiple times
       -output+           Write output to this file ('.' for auto-name)
       -Pause+            Pause between tests (seconds)
       -Platform+         Platform of target (nix, win, all)
       -Plugins+          List of plugins to run (default: ALL)
       -port+             Port to use (default 80)
       -RSAcert+          Client certificate file
       -root+             Prepend root value to all requests, format is /directory
       -Save              Save positive responses to this directory ('.' for auto-name)
       -ssl               Force ssl mode on port
       -Tuning+           Scan tuning:
                               1     Interesting File / Seen in logs
                               2     Misconfiguration / Default File
                               3     Information Disclosure
                               4     Injection (XSS/Script/HTML)
                               5     Remote File Retrieval - Inside Web Root
                               6     Denial of Service
                               7     Remote File Retrieval - Server Wide
                               8     Command Execution / Remote Shell
                               9     SQL Injection
                               0     File Upload
                               a     Authentication Bypass
                               b     Software Identification
                               c     Remote Source Inclusion
                               d     WebService
                               e     Administrative Console
                               x     Reverse Tuning Options (i.e., include all except specified)
       -timeout+          Timeout for requests (default 10 seconds)
       -Userdbs           Load only user databases, not the standard databases
                               all   Disable standard dbs and load only user dbs
                               tests Disable only db_tests and load udb_tests
       -useragent         Force User-Agent instead of pulling from database
       -url+              Target host/URL (alias of -host)
       -useproxy          Use the proxy defined in nikto.conf, or argument http://server:port
       -Version           Print plugin and database versions
       -vhost+            Virtual host (for Host header)
       -404code           Ignore these HTTP codes as negative responses (always). Format is "302,301".
       -404string         Ignore this string in response body content as negative response (always). Can be a regular expression.
            + requires a value

Nikto DSL Matchers

Nikto's test database supports a mini-DSL for matching responses. The following matchers are supported:

• BODY: and !BODY: — Match or exclude content in the response body.
• HEADER: and !HEADER: — Match or exclude content in HTTP headers.
• COOKIE: and !COOKIE: — Match or exclude content in HTTP cookies. (NEW)
• CODE: and !CODE: — Match or exclude HTTP status codes.

You can combine multiple matchers with && (AND). Example:

BODY:login&&!BODY:logout&&HEADER:X-Powered-By&&COOKIE:sessionid

This will match if the response body contains "login", does not contain "logout", the headers include "X-Powered-By", and a cookie named "sessionid" is present.

License

=======

Copyright (C) 2001–2026 Chris Sullo. All rights reserved.

This license notice applies to: Nikto's code only

See COPYING.LibWhisker for LibWhisker licensing information.

Database files are NOT licensed under the GPL and may only be distributed as part of the official Nikto package or installer, for use exclusively with Nikto.

For full licensing terms and commercial use policies, visit:

https://cirt.net/Nikto-Licensing

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3, as published by the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

The full license text is available at: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt

See COPYING for the complete license notice.