System and License Requirements

To install and run Tenable Core + Tenable Nessus Network Monitor, your application and system must meet the following requirements established for Tenable Nessus Network Monitor. For more information about Tenable Nessus Network Monitor requirements, see Tenable Nessus Network Monitor in the General Requirements User Guide.

Note: Tenable Support does not assist with issues related to your host operating system, even if you encounter them during installation or deployment.

Environment Tenable Core File Format More Information
Virtual Machine VMware .ova file

Deploy Tenable Core in VMware

Microsoft Hyper-V .zip file

Deploy Tenable Core in Hyper-V

Hardware

 .iso image

Install Tenable Core on Hardware

Note: While you could use the packages to run Tenable Core in other environments, Tenable does not provide documentation for those procedures.

License Requirements

To deploy Tenable Core + Tenable Nessus Network Monitor, your Tenable Nessus Network Monitor application must meet the requirements described in NNM Licensing Requirements in the General Requirements User Guide.

Tenable Nessus Network Monitor Hardware Requirements

Note: Tenable does not recommend deploying multiple applications on a single instance of Tenable Core. If you want to deploy several applications on Tenable Core, deploy a unique instance for each application.

Enterprise networks can vary in performance, capacity, protocols, and overall activity. Resource requirements to consider for Tenable Nessus Network Monitor deployments include raw network speed, the size of the network being monitored, and the configuration of Tenable Nessus Network Monitor.

The following chart outlines some basic hardware requirements for operating Tenable Nessus Network Monitor:

Version Installation scenario RAM Processor Hard Disk
All Versions Tenable Nessus Network Monitor managing up to 50,000 hosts * (**) 2 GB RAM (4 GB RAM recommended) 2 2GHz cores 20 GB HDD minimum
Tenable Nessus Network Monitor managing more than 50,000 hosts ** 4 GB RAM (8 GB RAM recommended) 4 2GHz cores 20 GB HDD minimum
Tenable Nessus Network Monitor running in High Performance mode 16 GB RAM (HugePages memory: 2 GB) 10 2GHz cores with hyper-threading enabled 20 GB HDD minimum

*The ability to monitor a given number of hosts depends on the bandwidth, memory, and processing power available to the system running Tenable Nessus Network Monitor.

**For optimal data collection, Tenable Nessus Network Monitor must be connected to the network segment via a hub, spanned port, or network tap to have a full, continuous view of network traffic.

Note: Research your VM software vendor for comparative recommendations, as VMs typically see up to a 30% loss in efficiency compared to dedicated servers. Tenable Nessus Network Monitor supports VMware's vmxnet3 driver.

High Performance Mode

To run Tenable Nessus Network Monitor in High Performance mode, a minimum of two of the following types of Intel NICs are required; one as a management interface and at least one as a monitoring interface:

  • e1000 (82540, 82545, 82546)
  • e1000e (82571, 82574, 82583, ICH8.ICH10, PCH.PCH2)
  • igb (82575, 82576, 82580, I210, I211, I350, I354, DH89xx)
  • ixgbe (82598, 82599, X540, X550)
  • i40e (X710, XL710)

  • NT40A01-4x1