Local Agents Commands

Required User Role: User with administrator privileges

To see and copy the full command for your specific operating system, see the Command Quick Reference.

Usage

You can link agents, unlink agents, and get a report on the status of the agent.

Link the Nessus Agent

The nessuscli agent link command links the agent to Tenable Nessus Manager or Tenable Vulnerability Management, using the manager linking key.

# nessuscli agent link --key=00b5a8fec9f3a21fa1cff66ce99c6324adf324226948c6f1516eb9f9433b964744

Required arguments:

  • --key=<key>

  • --host=<host>

  • --port=<port>

Optional arguments:

  • --name=<name>

  • --groups=<group1,group2,...>

  • --ca-path=<ca_file_name>

  • --offline-install

  • --proxy-host=<host>

  • --proxy-port=<port>

  • --proxy-username=<username>

  • --proxy-password=<password>

  • --proxy-agent=<agent>

Command Quick Reference

For the full command for your operating system, see the following:

Copy 
C:\Program Files\Tenable\Nessus Agent\nessuscli.exe agent link
Copy 
/Library/NessusAgent/run/sbin/nessuscli agent link
Copy 
/opt/nessus_agent/sbin/nessuscli agent link

Success or Failure Messages

Once the agent is successfully linked, the following output appears:

# nessuscli agent link --key=00b5a8fec9f3a21fa1cff66ce99c6324adf324226948c6f1516eb9f9433b964744 --groups= Workstation --host=ndev3 --port=8834

Agent successfully linked

If there were issues connecting the agent to the manager, a Failed to link the agent message appears.

# nessuscli agent link --key=00abd4c487c472edb77cea8a14bb8c603a88203a2e6bf1f6df46159b5ad5ef18df --name=Workstation --groups=Accounting --host=192.0.2.252 --port=8834

Failed to link the agent:

Check the Nessus Agent Status

The agent status shows you if an agent is linked, and how many jobs are pending if it is linked.

# nessuscli agent status

Agent linked

0 jobs pending

If the agent is not linked, the status shows that it is not linked to any servers.

# nessuscli agent status

Agent not linked to a server

If the agent is linked, the status shows the IP address of the connected server and port:

# nessuscli agent status

Agent is linked to 192.0.2.184:8834

0 jobs pending

Unlink the Nessus Agent

The nessuscli agent unlink command unlinks the agent from Tenable Nessus Manager or Tenable Vulnerability Management.

# nessuscli agent unlink