Welcome to Logos Red, I go bylogos and:
Nessus is a vulnerability scanner and one of the main ways to automate a penetration test for common exploits.
You might not be aware of the fact that Nessus offers you a free trial of 16 IP addresses. With this small free trial you can try and see how to utilize Nessus during a penetration test.
In this post I’ll guide you through installing Nessus on Kali Linux.
My Promise
This post will finally end your meaningless search for a valid answer, and you will leave with Nessus installed on Kali Linux.
If there are still any questions left, let me know so I can add it to help the next person who will arrive here.
My Goal
To help you improve in less time than it took me and to make sure you leave with what I promised.
I want you to join our community and for this to be a place that you revisit often.
Installation Guide
Go to the downloads page https://www.tenable.com/downloads/nessus and make sure you select “Linux – Debian – amd64”
After you’ve downloaded the file, open a terminal in the Downloads folder and type the following to install Nessus:
sudo dpkg -i {name_of_nessus_file.deb}
In order to start Nessus, type the following
systemctl start nessusd.serviceAnd go to the following link:
https://localhost:8834/Click on Continue
Select “Register for Nessus Essentials”
Enter your credentials and sign up
You’re going to be given an activation code
Create an administrator account
And just like that, you are done.
Error: Invalid ‘code’ field bad format
If you signed up for Nessus using a browser and got the activation code via email, you might’ve received that same error.
This is due to the way you’ve copied the code from your email; try the following:
- Copy the code manually into Nessus or remove the first and last characters and add them again
- Switch browsers
- Disable any plugins
More Resources
If you didn’t understand something or you need some help, we have our own Discord community and I currently offer free coaching.
You can also leave us some feedback with what you did not understand and we will make sure to correct it.
