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Download the KB with kb-download.sh

kb-download.sh is the supported way to download the KB and its updates. It connects to the SCANOSS SFTP server, lists the available versions, lets you pick one, checks you have enough free disk space, and downloads it. It can fetch the full KB, a KB update, the test KB, a SQLite KB snapshot, or an HFH KB snapshot.

Prerequisites

  • lftp (recommended): provides parallel, resumable downloads. Install with apt install lftp. If lftp is not installed, the script offers to fall back to the standard sftp client.
  • sshpass (only needed for the sftp fallback): install with apt install sshpass. Not required when using lftp.
  • SFTP credentials: host, port, username, and password, provided by the SCANOSS team by email.

Get the script

The script lives in the SCANOSS on-premise repository. Clone it (or pull the latest changes if you already have it) and make the scripts executable:
The script is also documented in the on-premise install README.

Run it interactively

Run the script with no arguments for a fully guided session. It prompts for your connection details, the download mode, and the version:
You will be asked what to download, then shown the available versions with the latest marked, for example:
For long-running downloads (such as the full KB), we recommend running the script inside a tmux session so the transfer survives a dropped connection. Start one with tmux new-session -s scanoss, run the script, then detach with Ctrl+B d and reattach later with tmux attach -t scanoss.

Run it non-interactively

Any prompt can be skipped by passing the matching flag. Add -y to accept defaults and run without prompts (the connection flags -m, -h, -P, -u, -p are then required):
Commonly used options: Run ./kb-download.sh -? for the complete set of flags (thread count, connection timeout, compression, disk-space override, and path overrides). The full option reference and more example sessions are in the install README.

After downloading an update

A KB update download includes an ldb-import.sh helper. After the download finishes, run that script from inside the downloaded folder to import the update into your local database (LDB):
The script prints the exact path to ldb-import.sh when it finishes.
Do not interrupt the import. An interrupted import can corrupt the existing LDB.

Verify the update

Each update ships with test WFP files. After importing, confirm the update worked by scanning them:
If both scans return matches, the update imported successfully.