After upgrading greenbone-security-assistant from 26.17.0-0kali1 to 28.3.0-0kali1 on Kali Rolling, authentication through the web interface stopped working.

The login page loads correctly, but submitting credentials produces:

“Could not connect to server”

Downgrading only greenbone-security-assistant to 26.17.0-0kali1 restored successful login and normal operation, without changes to the database or user credentials.

Affected versions

greenbone-security-assistant: 28.3.0-0kali1

gsad: 24.16.0-1

gvmd: 26.24.0-1

Architecture: amd64

Repository: kali-rolling

After running apt update, these were the installed and candidate versions. No newer gsad version was available from the configured repository.

Diagnostic findings

gvm-check-setup reports gsad and gvmd as active.

An HTTPS GET request to the login page returns HTTP 200.

gvmd logs report: “gvmd is ready to accept GMP connections”.

/run/gvmd/gvmd.sock exists and is owned by _gvm:_gvm with mode 0660.

Both services run as _gvm.

The installed frontend package declares no Depends or Recommends:

Package: greenbone-security-assistant
Version: 28.3.0-0kali1
Depends:
Recommends:

Upstream release notes for GSA 28.0.0 state “Requires gsad >= 27.0.0”:
https://github.com/greenbone/gsa/releases

This suggests that GSA 28.3.0 and the gsad 24.16.0 currently offered by kali-rolling are incompatible.

Confirmed workaround

Downgrading greenbone-security-assistant to 26.17.0-0kali1, restarting gsad, and testing login in a private browser window restored functionality. The package is temporarily held with apt-mark hold.

Please check the compatibility of the versions published in kali-rolling and add an appropriate versioned dependency to prevent unsupported combinations.