Start or Stop a Nessus Agent

You can temporarily stop an agent from gathering data and restart the agent to resume gathering data. Stopping and starting an agent can be helpful for troublehshooting. Tenable also recommends stopping the agent whenever you perform a manual update.

The following sections describe best practices for starting and stopping a Nessus Agent on a host.

Windows

  1. Navigate to Services.
  2. In the Name column, click Tenable Nessus Agent.

  3. To stop the service, right-click Tenable Nessus Agent, and then click Stop.

    -or-

    To restart the Nessus Agent service, right-click Tenable Nessus Agent, and then click Start.

Start or Stop

Windows Command Line Operation

Start

C:\Windows\system32>net start "Tenable Nessus Agent"
Stop

C:\Windows\system32>net stop "Tenable Nessus Agent"

Linux

Use the following commands:

Start or Stop

Linux Command Line Operation

RedHat, CentOS, and Oracle Linux

Start

# /sbin/service nessusagent start
Stop

# /sbin/service nessusagent stop

SUSE

Start

# /etc/rc.d/nessusagent start

Stop

# /etc/rc.d/nessusagent stop

FreeBSD
Start

# service nessusagent start

Stop

# service nessusagent stop

Debian, Kali, and Ubuntu

Start

# /etc/init.d/service nessusagent start

Stop

# /etc/init.d/service nessusagent stop

macOS

  1. Navigate to System Preferences.
  2. Click the essus button.
  3. Click the ock button.
  4. Type your username and password.

  5. To stop the Nessus Agent service, click the Stop Nessus Agent button.

    -or-

    To start the Nessus Agent service, click the Start Nessus Agent button.

Start or Stop

macOS Command Line Operation

Start

# sudo launchctl start com.tenablesecurity.nessusagent
Stop

# sudo launchctl stop com.tenablesecurity.nessusagent