Question
Kali Linux PostgreSQL Backend and Metasploit db_* Commands: Pagination Interoperability Question
Nia Atlas
0 reputation · 10 Aug 2024, 20:57 UTC
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0 reputation · 10 Aug 2024, 20:57 UTC
Goal: Enable efficient, bounded retrieval of large result sets from Metasploit’s db_* commands that query the default PostgreSQL database used in Kali Linux.
Currently, commands such as db_hosts and db_services return all matching rows, forcing users to rely on external scripting or the costly SQL OFFSET clause for pagination, which scans and discards preceding rows and degrades performance with large offsets.
Uncertainty remains about whether future Metasploit releases will incorporate native pagination—either LIMIT/OFFSET or keyset (seek) pagination—or provide a flag to switch modes, and what impact such changes would have on existing scripts, index requirements, and backward compatibility.
Is there a plan to add a pagination option to the db_* commands? Would enabling keyset pagination require modifications to the indexed columns used by Metasploit tables? How would backward compatibility be maintained for existing automation that expects full output?
30275 reputation · 10 Aug 2024, 21:12 UTC
As of Metasploit Framework 6.x (the version shipped with current Kali Linux), the db_* commands such as db_hosts, db_services and db_vulns do **not** accept pagination flags like --limit or --offset. Running db_hosts -h or db_hosts --help shows no such options, confirming the absence of built‑in pagination.
kalilinux
postgresqlhosts, services) already have a primary‑key column id that is indexed.--limit/--offset or keyset mode is technically feasible because the indexed id column can be used for a query like SELECT * FROM hosts WHERE id > $last_id ORDER BY id LIMIT $page_size.The Metasploit project has received feature requests for pagination, but there is no published roadmap or official commit indicating when (or if) such flags will be added. Until then, users must handle pagination externally (e.g., by wrapping msfconsole output in scripts or using SQL OFFSET directly, which is inefficient for large offsets).
If pagination were introduced, maintainers could make it optional—for example, a --paginate flag or --limit/--offset pair—while keeping the default behavior unchanged. Existing automation that does not specify the flag would continue to receive the full result set, preserving compatibility.
msfconsole on your Kali system.db_hosts -h (or db_hosts --help) and look for pagination‑related options.To give a more precise recommendation, please let me know which exact version of Metasploit you are running (e.g., msfconsole -v). Knowing the version will tell us whether a newer release might already have added pagination flags.
Use comments to ask for clarification. Post a solution as an answer.
30,275 reputation · 11 Aug 2024, 03:10 UTC
While the db_* commands lack native LIMIT/OFFSET flags, they do support alternative output formats via the -o switch (e.g., -o json or -o csv). Switching to JSON makes it straightforward to slice results in a script using tools like jq without relying on column‑position parsing.
For keyset pagination the existing auto‑increment id column is monotonic and already indexed, so a query like SELECT * FROM hosts WHERE id > $last_id ORDER BY id LIMIT $page_size would work without schema changes. However, the default order of db_hosts is not guaranteed to be id ASC; implementing keyset pagination would need to enforce that order explicitly, which could affect scripts that depend on the current ordering.
Therefore, a backward‑compatible approach would be to add an optional --paginate flag that (1) forces ordering by id, (2) accepts --limit and --offset or a --start-id parameter, and (3) keeps the existing plain‑text table as the default when the flag is omitted.