How to Instal and Manage Tenable Agent Services on Windows and Linux

Tenable is a vulnerability assessment scanner that identifies security weaknesses (like software flaws, missing patches, malware, and misconfigurations) in networks, devices, and applications, helping organizations prioritize and fix threats.

Now let's talk about how to install and manage tenable agent on Windows and Linux.

The agent installer can be obtained from https://www.tenable.com/downloads/nessus-agents?loginAttempted=true

Install Tenable Agent on Windows

Install process is quite straightforward, just run the executables. You will be asked for Key, Server Address and Group (optional)

This can also be done using command line

"C:\Program Files\Tenable\Nessus Agent\nessuscli.exe" agent link --key=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --NESSUS_GROUPS=GroupName --host=cloud.tenable.com --port=443

Once done, the machine should appear under Explore > Assets on the Tenable web dashboard.

Install Tenable Agent on Linux

This example will be done on RedHat box. The installation is quite common as we jut need to run the Linux package.

rpm -i NessusAgent-10.7.1-el7.x86_64.rpm

The software will be installed on /opt/nessus_agent/
Activation process can be done using the command bellow

/opt/nessus_agent/sbin/nessuscli agent link --key=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --NESSUS_GROUPS=LinuxGroup --host=cloud.tenable.com --port=443

Once done, the machine should appear under Explore > Assets

Manage Tenable Agent services on Windows

There's nothing much to do with the service actually, just commond action such as Start, Stop or Restart. CLI based action can be done using the executable C:\Program Files\Tenable\Nessus Agent\nessuscli.exe

Otherwise, you just want to do it from services.msc

Manage Tenable Agent services on Linux

Main executables for the service-related operations is /opt/nessus_agent/sbin/nessuscli

For example, checking agent status using sudo /opt/nessus_agent/sbin/nessuscli agent status

More command can be checked via sudo /opt/nessus_agent/sbin/nessuscli --help

Managing tenable service can be performed using systemctl command, the service name is nessusagent