Agent Settings

To change agent settings, use the nessuscli utility on the command line interface to set available settings. For more information, see Nessus CLI Agent Commands.

Agent Manager Settings

On your agent's manager, you can configure system-wide agent settings to specify agent and blackout window settings for all your linked agents. For more information on creating, modifying, and deleting blackout windows, see Blackout Windows.

In Nessus Manager:

Option	Description
Manage Agents
Track unlinked agents	When this setting is enabled, agents that are unlinked are preserved in the manager along with the corresponding agent data. This option can also be set using the `nessuscli` utility.
Unlink inactive agents after X days	Specifies the number of days an agent can be inactive before the manager unlinks the agent. Inactive agents that were automatically unlinked by Nessus Manager automatically relink if they come back online. Requires that Track unlinked agents is enabled.
Remove agents that have been inactive for X days	Specifies the number of days an agent can be inactive before the manager removes the agent.
Override Blackout Windows (Nessus Manager 8.3 and earlier)
Exclude all agents from software updates	When enabled, Tenable.io or Nessus Manager prevents agents from updating software. This setting does not affect the agent update plan. Agents continue to receive plugin updates and perform scans.
Blackout Windows (Nessus Manager 8.4 - 8.11)
Enforce a permanent blackout window schedule	When enabled, Nessus Manager prevents agents from updating software. The following blackout window settings also apply during this window. Tip: This setting acts as a permanent blackout window while it is enabled.
Prevent software updates	When enabled, agents do not receive software updates during scheduled blackout windows.
Prevent plugin updates	When enabled, agents do not receive plugin updates during scheduled blackout windows.
Prevent agent scans	When enabled, the system does not run agent scans during scheduled blackout windows.
In Nessus Manager 8.12 and later, configure global blackout window settings as described in Modify Blackout Window Settings.

In Tenable.io:

Option	Description
Inactive Agents
Unlink agents that have been inactive for X days	Specifies the number of days an agent can be inactive before the manager unlinks the agent. After the specified number of days, the agent is unlinked, but the corresponding agent data is not removed from the manager. Tenable.io automatically tracks unlinked agents and related data for the number of days specified in this option. You cannot turn off this tracking. Note: Inactive agents that were automatically unlinked by Tenable.io do not automatically relink if they come back online.
Override Blackout Windows
Exclude all agents from software updates	When enabled, this option overrides scheduled blackout windows. It prevents agents from receiving software updates at any time. Agents continue to receive plugin updates and perform scheduled scans.