Start or Stop a Tenable 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 troubleshooting. Tenable also recommends stopping the agent whenever you perform a manual update.

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

Windows

  1. Navigate to Services.
  2. In the Name column, click Tenable Nessus Agent.
  3. Do one of the following:
    • To stop the agent service, right-click Tenable Nessus Agent, and then click Stop.
    • To restart the agent service, right-click Tenable Nessus Agent, and then click Start.

Alternatively, you can start or stop an agent from the command line using the following commands:

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 to start or stop an agent on a Linux system:

Start or Stop

Linux Command Line Operation

RedHat, CentOS, and Oracle Linux

Start

# systemctl start nessusagent
Stop

# systemctl stop nessusagent

SUSE

Start

# systemctl start nessusagent

Stop

# systemctl stop nessusagent

Debian, Kali, and Ubuntu

Start

# systemctl start nessusagent

Stop

# systemctl stop nessusagent

macOS

  1. Navigate to System Preferences.
  2. Click the essus button.
  3. Click the ock button.
  4. Type your username and password.
  5. Do one of the following:
    • To stop the agent service, click the Stop Nessus Agent button.
    • To start the agent service, click the Start Nessus Agent button.

Alternatively, you can start or stop an agent from the command line using the following commands:

Start or Stop

macOS Command Line Operation

Start

# sudo launchctl start com.tenablesecurity.nessusagent
Stop

# sudo launchctl stop com.tenablesecurity.nessusagent