Update Plugins Offline

Required user role when using Tenable Nessus Manager: System Administrator

Use this procedure to update an existing offline Tenable Nessus server's plugins. The following steps assume that you have already completed steps to Install Tenable Nessus Offline.

Note: Tenable recommends that you only use this process to update offline Tenable Nessus instances. All online instances of Tenable Nessus receive automatic plugin updates. For information on how your Tenable Nessus instances receive plugin updates, see Plugins and the following Tenable knowledge base article.

Note: You cannot update Tenable Nessus Expert web application scanning plugins when Tenable Nessus is offline.

To update plugins for an offline Tenable Nessus instance:

  1. Using the computer with internet access, open the Custom URL that you saved during the initial Tenable Nessus license generation process.

    The Tenable Nessus plugins TAR file downloads to your machine.

  2. Do one of the following:

    1. On the offline Tenable Nessus system, in the top navigation bar of the Tenable Nessus user interface, click Settings.

      The About page appears.

    2. Click the Software Update tab.

    3. In the upper-right corner, click the Manual Software Update button.

      The Manual Software Update dialog box appears.

    4. In the Manual Software Update dialog box, select Upload your own plugin archive, and then select Continue.

    5. Navigate to the compressed TAR file you downloaded, select it, then click Open.

      Tenable Nessus updates with the uploaded plugins.

    1. Copy the compressed TAR file to the offline Tenable Nessus system.

      Use the directory specific to your operating system:

      Platform

      Command

      Windows

      C:\Program Files\Tenable\Nessus

      macOS

      # /Library/Nessus/run/sbin/

      Linux

      # /opt/nessus/sbin/

      FreeBSD

      # /usr/local/nessus/sbin/
    2. On the offline system, open a command prompt.
    3. Use the nessuscli update <tar.gz file name> command specific to your operating system.

      Platform

      Command

      Windows

      "C:\Program Files\Tenable\Nessus\nessuscli.exe" update <tar.gz file name>

      macOS

      # /Library/Nessus/run/sbin/nessuscli update <tar.gz file name>

      Linux

      # /opt/nessus/sbin/nessuscli update <tar.gz file name>

      FreeBSD

      # /usr/local/nessus/sbin/nessuscli update <tar.gz file name>