Modify Remote Agent Settings

Required Tenable.io Vulnerability Management User Role: Scan Manager or Administrator

In Tenable.io, you can modify settings for individual agents (versions 7.6 and later) on the Linked Agents tab. For information on editing similar settings in the command line interface, see Advanced Settings in the Nessus Agent User Guide.

Note: In addition to using the following procedure, you can manually update agents through the command line. For more information, see the Nessus Agent User Guide.

To modify remote agent settings in Tenable.io:

  1. In the upper-left corner, click the Menu button.

    The left navigation plane appears.

  2. In the left navigation plane, click Settings.

    The Settings page appears.

  3. Click the Sensors tile.

    The Sensors page appears. By default, the Nessus Scanners tab is active and Cloud Scanners is selected in the drop-down box.

  4. Click the Nessus Agents tab.

    The list of agents appears and Linked Agents is selected in the drop-down box.

  1. (Optional) Search for a specific agent or filter the agents in the table, as described in Filter Agents in the Nessus Agent Deployment and User Guide.

  2. Do one of the following:

    1. In the agents table, in the row for the agent you want to edit, click the button.

      The Edit Agent window appears.

    2. Edit the agent settings:

      Setting Description Default Values
      Nessus Agent Log Level

      The logging level of the backend.log log file, as indicated by a set of log tags that determine what information to include in the log.

      If you manually edited log.json to set a custom set of log tags for backend.log, this setting overwrites that content.

      For more information, see log.json Format in the Nessus User Guide.

      		 normal
      • normal -Changes the backend.log logging level to normal and sets log tags to "log", "info", "warn", "error", "trace"
      • debug - Changes the backend.log logging level to debug and sets log tags to "log", "info", "warn", "error", "trace", "debug"
      • verbose - Changes the backend.log logging level to verboseand sets log tags to "log", "info", "warn", "error", "trace", "debug", "verbose"
      Plugin Compilation Performance

      Sets plugin compilation performance, which affects CPU usage. Low performance slows down plugin compilation, but reduces the agent's CPU consumption. Setting the performance to medium or high means that plugin compilation completes more quickly, but the agent consumes more CPU. For more information, see Agent CPU Resource Control in the Nessus Agent Deployment and User Guide.

      Note: This setting is only available for agents version 8.1 or later.

      		 high

      low, medium, or high
      Scan Performance

      Sets scan performance, which affects CPU usage. Low performance slows down scans, but reduces the agent's CPU consumption. Setting the performance to medium or high means that scans complete more quickly, but the agent consumes more CPU. For more information, see Agent CPU Resource Control in the Nessus Agent Deployment and User Guide.

      Note: This setting is only available for agents version 8.1 or later.

      		 high low, medium, or high
      Nessus Agent Update Plan

      Sets the agent's update plan to determine what version the agent automatically updates to.

      Note: This setting is only available for agents version 7.7.0 or later.

      		 Keep up to date with GA releases

      Keep up to date with GA releases, Opt in to Early Access releases, or Delay updates, staying on an older release
      Automatic Hostname Update When enabled, when the hostname on the endpoint is modified the new hostname will be updated in the agent's manager. This feature is disabled by default to prevent custom agent names from being overridden. no yes or no
      Offline Agent Scan Trigger Execution Threshold Specifies the number of days an agent can be offline before rule-based scans stop executing. 14 Integers 1-48
      Maximum Scans Per Day Specifies the maximum number of scans to run on the agent per day. 10 Integers 1 or more

    3. Click Save.

      Tenable.io saves your settings, and the changes take effect the next time the agent checks in. For online agents, this can take up to 45 minutes.

      If necessary for the setting changed, the agent restarts the next time it becomes idle.

    1. Do one of the following:

      • In the agents table, select the check box next to each agent you want to edit.

      • In the table header, select the check box to select the entire page.

      The action bar appears at the bottom of the page.

      Tip: In the action bar, select Select All Pages to select all linked agents.

    2. In the action bar, click the button.

      The Edit Agents window appears.

    3. Edit the agent settings:

      Setting Description Default Values
      Nessus Agent Log Level

      The logging level of the backend.log log file, as indicated by a set of log tags that determine what information to include in the log.

      If you manually edited log.json to set a custom set of log tags for backend.log, this setting overwrites that content.

      For more information, see log.json Format in the Nessus User Guide.

      		 normal
      • normal - Sets log tags to "log", "info", "warn", "error", "trace"
      • debug - Sets log tags to "log", "info", "warn", "error", "trace", "debug"
      • verbose - Sets log tags to "log", "info", "warn", "error", "trace", "debug", "verbose"
      Plugin Compilation Performance

      Sets plugin compilation performance, which affects CPU usage. Low performance slows down plugin compilation, but reduces the agent's CPU consumption. Setting the performance to medium or high means that plugin compilation completes more quickly, but the agent consumes more CPU. For more information, see Agent CPU Resource Control in the Nessus Agent Deployment and User Guide.

      Note: This setting is only available for agents version 8.0 or later.

      		 high

      low, medium, or high
      Scan Performance

      Sets scan performance, which affects CPU usage. Low performance slows down scans, but reduces the agent's CPU consumption. Setting the performance to medium or high means that scans complete more quickly, but the agent consumes more CPU. For more information, see Agent CPU Resource Control in the Nessus Agent Deployment and User Guide.

      Note: This setting is only available for agents version 8.0 or later.

      		 high low, medium, or high
      Automatic Hostname Update When enabled, when the hostname on the endpoint is modified the new hostname will be updated in the agent's manager. This feature is disabled by default to prevent custom agent names from being overridden. no yes or no
      Nessus Agent Update Plan

      Sets the agent's update plan to determine what version the agent automatically updates to.

      Note: This setting is only available for agents version 8.1 or later.

      		 Keep up to date with GA releases

      Keep up to date with GA releases, Opt in to Early Access releases, or Delay updates, staying on an older release
      Offline Agent Scan Trigger Execution Threshold Specifies the number of days an agent can be offline before rule-based scans stop executing. 14 Integers 1-48
      Maximum Scans Per Day Specifies the maximum number of scans to run on the agent per day. 10 Integers 1 or more

    4. Click Save.

      Tenable.io saves your settings, and the changes take effect the next time the agent checks in. For online agents, this can take up to 45 minutes.

      If necessary for the setting changed, the agents restart the next time they become idle.