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Software Requirements

Nessus supports Mac, Linux, and Windows operating systems.

Nessus Scanner, Nessus Manager, and Nessus Professional

See the following table to understand the software requirements for Nessus scanners, Nessus Professional, and Nessus Manager.

Operating System	Supported Versions
32-bit Linux	Debian 7, Debian 8, and Debian 9 / Kali Linux 1, 2017.1, and Rolling Red Hat ES 6, CentOS 6, Oracle Linux 6 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) SUSE 11 and 12 Enterprise Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, and 16.04
64-bit Linux	Debian 7, 8, and 9 / Kali Linux 1, 2017.1, and Rolling Red Hat ES 6, CentOS 6, Oracle Linux 6 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) Red Hat ES 7, CentOS 7, Oracle Linux 7 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) FreeBSD 10, FreeBSD 11 Fedora 24, Fedora 25 SUSE 11 and 12 Enterprise Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 16.04, and 18.04
32-bit Windows	Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10
64-bit Windows	Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016 Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 Tip: Windows Server 2008 R2’s bundled version of Microsoft IE does not interface with a Java installation properly. This causes Nessus to not perform as expected in some situations: Microsoft’s policy recommends not using MSIE on server operating systems. For increased performance and scan reliability when installing on a Windows platform, Tenable highly recommends that Nessus be installed on a server product from the Microsoft Windows family such as Windows Server 2008 R2.
Mac OS X	Mac OS X 10.8 - 10.14

Nessus Agents

See the following table to understand the software requirements for Nessus agents.

Operating System	Supported Versions
32-bit Linux	Debian 6, Debian 7, Debian 8, and Debian 9 / Kali Linux 1, 2017.3 Red Hat ES 5 / CentOS 5 / Oracle Linux 5 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) Red Hat ES 6 / CentOS 6 / Oracle Linux 6 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) SUSE 11 Enterprise Ubuntu 9.10, Ubuntu 10.04, Ubuntu 11.04, Ubuntu 11.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and Ubuntu 17.10
64-bit Linux	Amazon Linux 2015.03, Amazon Linux 2015.09, Amazon Linux 2017.09, and Amazon Linux 2018.03 Debian 6, Debian 7, Debian 8, and Debian 9 / Kali Linux 1, 2017.3 Fedora 20, Fedora 21, Fedora 24, Fedora 25, Fedora 26, and Fedora 27 Red Hat ES 5 / CentOS 5 / Oracle Linux 5 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) Red Hat ES 6 / CentOS 6 / Oracle Linux 6 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) Red Hat ES 7 / CentOS 7 / Oracle Linux 7 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) Red Hat ES 8 / CentOS 8 / Oracle Linux 8 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) SUSE 11 and SUSE 12 Enterprise Ubuntu 9.10, Ubuntu 10.04, Ubuntu 11.04, Ubuntu 11.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and Ubuntu 17.10
32-bit Windows	Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 7, Windows Server 8, and Windows Server 10
64-bit Windows	Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 7, Windows Server 8, and Windows Server 10
Mac OS X	Mac OS X 10.8 - 10.14

Supported Web Browsers

Nessus supports the following browsers:

Google Chrome (50+)
Apple Safari (10+)
Mozilla Firefox (50+)
Internet Explorer (11+)

Note: For Nessus 7.0 and later, you must enable Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 in your browser.

PDF Report Requirements

The Nessus .pdf report generation feature requires the latest version of Oracle Java or OpenJDK.

Install Oracle Java or OpenJDK prior to installing Nessus.

Note: If you install Oracle Java or OpenJDK after you install Nessus, you must reinstall Nessus to enable PDF report generation.

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