Link an Agent to Tenable Nessus Manager

After you install Tenable Nessus Agent, link the agent to Tenable Nessus Manager.

Before you begin:

To link Tenable Nessus Agent to Tenable Nessus Manager:

  1. Log in to the Tenable Nessus Agent from a command terminal.

  2. At the agent command prompt, use the command nessuscli agent link using the supported arguments.

    For example:

The following table lists the supported arguments for nessuscli agent link

Argument Required Value
--key

yes

The linking key that you retrieved from the manager.
--host yes

The static IP address or hostname you set during the Tenable Nessus Manager installation.

--port yes 8834 or your custom port.

--name

no A name for your agent. If you do not specify a name for your agent, the name defaults to the name of the computer where you are installing the agent.
--ca-path no A custom CA certificate to use to validate the manager's server certificate.
--groups no

One or more existing agent groups where you want to add the agent. If you do not specify an agent group during the install process, you can add your linked agent to an agent group later in Tenable Nessus Manager.

List multiple groups in a comma-separated list. If any group names have spaces, use quotes around the whole list.

For example: --groups="Atlanta,Global Headquarters"

Note: The agent group name is case-sensitive and must match exactly. You must encase the agent group name in quotation marks (for example, --groups="My Group").

--offline-install no

When enabled (set to "yes"), installs Tenable Nessus Agent on the system, even if it is offline. Tenable Nessus Agent periodically attempts to link itself to its manager.

If the agent cannot connect to the controller, it retries every hour. If the agent can connect to the controller but the link fails, it retries every 24 hours.

--proxy-host no

The hostname or IP address of your proxy server.

--proxy-port no The port number of the proxy server.
--proxy-password no The password of the user account that you specified as the username.
--proxy-username no The name of a user account that has permissions to access and use the proxy server.
--proxy-agent no The user agent name, if your proxy requires a preset user agent.