Introduction

Nessus is quite possibly one of the easiest packages to install. The myriad ways available to security analysts to deploy Nessus in their environment makes it a perfect match for the security organization that wants to control every aspect of an application. For this reason, there are many issues to consider when provisioning Nessus for your environment:

• Will you use many servers or just one?

• Will users be authenticated by password or client-side certification?

• Will this installation update and maintain itself, or will you perform this maintenance manually?

This chapter examines these types of questions, including the different methods of installation and their requisite skill sets. You can then choose your installation method based on your operating system preference, deployment process, skill level, and desired level of configurability. The members of the Nessus community have gone to great lengths to be inclusive in their installation methods a side effect of having a community that spans many different operating systems and many different network environments.

Quick Start Guide

There are several ways to install Nessus in a quick manner. Of course, compiling from source is always recommended, but it is not always required and not always the quickest. Linux vendors and other UNIX vendors have made great progress toward offering quick and easy methods to install packages that quite often save time and do not require knowledge of compilers to get up and running.

There are three unique ways to install Nessus:

• nessus-installer.sh (least recommended)

• UNIX-specific package installation

• Compile from source