Manage Linked Agents

Required Tenable Vulnerability Management User Role: Scan Manager or Administrator

Use the following procedures to manage linked agents. For general information about linked agents, see Agents.

Restart an Agent

In Tenable Vulnerability Management, you can restart linked agents on the Linked Agents tab.

To restart an agent:

  1. In the left navigation, click Sensors.

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

  2. 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.

  2. Do one of the following:

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

      The Restart Agent window appears.

    2. Select one of the following Restart Types:

      Restart Type Description
      Soft Restart the agent backend without restarting the service.
      Hard Restart the agent backend and service.
      Idle Restart the agent backend and service when the agent is not running a scan.

    3. Click Save.

      Tenable Vulnerability Management 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.

    1. Do one of the following:

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

      • 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 Restart Agents window appears.

    3. Select one of the following Restart Types:

      Restart Type Description
      Soft Restart the agent backend without restarting the service.
      Hard Restart the agent backend and service.
      Idle Restart the agent backend and service when the agent is not running a scan.

    4. Click Save.

      Tenable Vulnerability Management 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.

Unlink an Agent

When you manually unlink an agent, the agent is removed from the Agents page, but the system retains related data for the period of time specified in agent settings. When you manually unlink an agent, the agent does not automatically relink to Tenable Vulnerability Management.

Tip: You can configure agents to automatically unlink if they are inactive for a certain number of days, as described in agent settings.

To unlink agents in Tenable Vulnerability Management:

  1. In the left navigation, click Sensors.

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

  2. Click the Nessus Agents tab.

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

  3. (Optional) Search for a specific agent or filter the agents in the table. For filter descriptions, see Filter Agents.

  4. Select the agent you want to unlink:

    Scope Action
    Unlink a single agent

    To unlink an agent from the Nessus Agents tab:

    1. In the agents table, right-click the row for the agent you want to unlink.

      -or-

      In the row of the agent you want to unlink, in the Actions column, click the button.

      The action buttons appear in the row.

      -or-

      Select the check box next to the agent you want to unlink.

      In the action bar, Tenable Vulnerability Management enables More > Unlink Selected.

    2. Click Unlink or Unlink Selected, as applicable.

    Unlink multiple agents

    To unlink multiple agents from the Nessus Agents tab:

    1. Select the check box next to the agents you want to unlink.

      In the action bar, Tenable Vulnerability Management enables More > Unlink Selected.

    2. Click Unlink Selected.

    Tenable Vulnerability Management unlinks the agents.

Rename an Agent

You can rename your linked agents from the Sensors menu. This can be helpful for making agents more recognizable to other users.

To rename an agent:

  1. In the left navigation, click Sensors.

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

  2. Click the Nessus Agents tab.

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

  3. Click the row of the agent you want to rename.

    The agent Details page appears.

  4. Click the button next to the agent name.

  5. Edit the agent name.

  6. Click the button next to the agent name.

    Tenable Vulnerability Management saves the new agent name and updates any related tables with the new name.

Export Linked Agents

On the Sensors page, you can export one or more linked agents in CSV or JSON format.

To export your linked agents:

  1. In the left navigation, click Sensors.

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

  2. Click the Nessus Agents tab.

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

  3. (Optional) Refine the table data. For more information, see Tables.

  4. Select the linked agents that you want to export:

    Export Scope Action
    A single linked agent

    To select and export a single linked agent:

    1. In the linked agents table, right-click the row for the linked agent you want to export.

      The action options appear in the row.

      -or-

      In the linked agents table, in the Actions column, click the button in the row for the linked agent you want to export.

      The action options appear in the row.

      -or-

      In the linked agents table, select the check box of the agent you want to export.

      The action bar appears at the top of the table.

    2. Click Export.
    Multiple linked agents

    To select and export multiple linked agents:

    1. In the linked agents table, select the check box for each linked agent you want to export.

      The action bar appears at the top of the table.

    2. In the action bar, click Export.

      Note: The Export link is available for up to 200 selections. If you want to export more than 200 linked agents, select all the linked agents in the list and then click Export.

    The Export plane appears. This plane contains:

    • A text box to configure the export file name.
    • A list of available export formats.
    • A table of configuration options for fields to include in the exported file.

      • Note: By default, all fields are selected.

    • A text box to set the number of days before the export expires.
    • A toggle to configure the email notification.
  5. In the Name box, type a name for the export file.

  6. Click the export format you want to use:

    Format Description
    CSV

    A CSV text file that contains a list of linked agents.
    JSON

    A JSON file that contains a nested list of linked agents.

    Empty fields are not included in the JSON file.

  7. (Optional) Deselect any fields you do not want to appear in the export file.

  8. In the Expiration box, type the number of days before the export file expires.

    Note: Tenable Vulnerability Management allows you to set a maximum of 30 calendar days for export expiration.

  9. (Optional) To send email notifications on completion of the export:

    Note: You can enable email notifications with or without scheduling exports.

    • Click the Email Notification toggle.

      The Email Notification section appears.

    • In the Add Recipients box, type the email addresses to which you want to send the export notification.

    • (Required) In the Password box, type a password for the export file. You must share this password with the recipients to allow them to download the file.

      Note: Tenable Vulnerability Management sends an email to the recipients and from the link in the email, the recipients can download the file by providing the correct password.

  10. Click Export.

    Tenable Vulnerability Management begins processing the export. Depending on the size of the exported data, Tenable Vulnerability Management may take several minutes to process the export.

    When processing completes, Tenable Vulnerability Management downloads the export file to your computer. Depending on your browser settings, your browser may notify you that the download is complete.

  11. Access the export file via your browser's downloads directory. If you close the export plane before the download finishes, then you can access your export file in the Export Management View.

Export Linked Agent Details

On the Details page for any linked agent, you can export details about your linked agent in CSV or JSON format.

To export details about a linked agent:

  1. In the left navigation, click Sensors.

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

  2. Click the Nessus Agents tab.

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

  3. (Optional) Refine the table data. For more information, see Tables.

  4. In the linked agents table, click the linked agent for which you want to export details.

    The Details page appears.

  5. In the upper-right corner, click Export.

    The Export plane appears. This plane contains:

    • A text box to configure the export file name.
    • A list of available export formats.
    • A table of configuration options for fields to include in the exported file.

      • Note: By default, all fields are selected.

    • A text box to set the number of days before the export expires.
    • A toggle to configure the export schedule.
    • A toggle to configure the email notification.
  6. In the Name box, type a name for the export file.

  7. Click the export format you want to use:

    Format Description
    CSV

    A CSV text file that contains a list of your linked agent details, organized by fields.

    Note: If your .csv export file includes a cell that begins with any of the following characters (=, +, -, @), Tenable Vulnerability Management automatically inputs a single quote (') at the beginning of the cell. For more information, see the related knowledge base article.
    JSON

    A JSON file that contains a nested list of your linked agent details, organized by fields.

    Empty fields are not included in the JSON file.

  8. (Optional) Deselect any fields you do not want to appear in the export file.

  9. In the Expiration box, type the number of days before the export file expires.

    Note: Tenable Vulnerability Management allows you to set a maximum of 30 calendar days for export expiration.

  10. (Optional) To send email notifications on completion of the export:

    Note: You can enable email notifications with or without scheduling exports.

    • Click the Email Notification toggle.

      The Email Notification section appears.

    • In the Add Recipients box, type the email addresses to which you want to send the export notification.

    • (Required) In the Password box, type a password for the export file. You must share this password with the recipients to allow them to download the file.

      Note: Tenable Vulnerability Management sends an email to the recipients and from the link in the email, the recipients can download the file by providing the correct password.

  11. Click Export.

    Tenable Vulnerability Management begins processing the export. Depending on the size of the exported data, Tenable Vulnerability Management may take several minutes to process the export.

    When processing completes, Tenable Vulnerability Management downloads the export file to your computer. Depending on your browser settings, your browser may notify you that the download is complete.

  12. Access the export file via your browser's downloads directory. If you close the export plane before the download finishes, then you can access your export file in the Export Management View.

    The agents.csv file exported from Tenable Vulnerability Management contains the following data:

    Field Description
    Agent Name The name of the agent.
    Status The status of the agent at the time of export. Possible values are unlinked, online, or offline.
    IP Address The IPv4 or IPv6 address of the agent.
    Platform The platform the agent is installed on.
    Profile Name The name of the agent's assigned agent profile.
    Profile UUID The UUID of the agent's assigned agent profile.
    Groups The names of any groups the agent belongs to.
    Group IDs The group IDs of any groups the agent belongs to.
    Version The version of the agent.
    Last Plugin Update The date (in ISO-8601 format) the agent's plugin set was last updated.
    Agent ID The ID of the agent.
    Agent UUID The UUID of the agent.
    Linked On The date (in ISO-8601 format) the agent was linked to Tenable Vulnerability Management.
    Last Connect The date (in ISO-8601 format) of the agent's last check-in.
    Last Scanned The date (in ISO-8601 format) the agent was last scanned.