Getting Started with Nessus
Last updated
Last updated
Let's see how we can download and set up Nessus for its first use so that we can start learning its various features. Feel free to follow along and set up a Nessus instance on your own VM. For the interactive portions of this module, we provide a lab instance of Nessus and another with OpenVAS installed.
To download Nessus, we can navigate to its to download the correct Nessus binary for our system. We will be downloading the Debian package for Ubuntu for this walkthrough.
With both the binary and activation code in hand, we can now install the Nessus package:
Once we have Nessus installed, we can start the Nessus Service:
To access Nessus, we can navigate to https://localhost:8834. Once we arrive at the setup page, we should select Nessus Essentials for the free version, and then we can enter our activation code:
Once we enter our activation code, we can set up a user with a secure password for our Nessus account. Then, the plugins will begin to compile once this step is completed:
Finally, once the setup is complete, we can start creating scans, scan policies, plugin rules, and customizing settings. The Settings page has a wealth of options such as setting up a Proxy Server or SMTP server, standard account management options, and advanced settings to customize the user interface, scanning, logging, performance, and security options.
Next, we can visit the to request a Nessus Activation Code, which is necessary to get the free version of Nessus:
