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Internal Vulnerability Scanning on macOS: Manual Set-up

Internal Vulnerability Scanning on macOS: Manual Set-up

How to set up our agent-based internal scanning solution to protect macOS devices in your internal network
Patrick Craston avatar
Written by Patrick Craston. Updated over a week ago

This article describes how to manually install the agent on a Linux device. If you wish to individually install the agent on your devices, you can use the installation wizard inside the platform.

🚨 IMPORTANT 🚨

For each agent that you install, you must have a license available; if you don't, the machine(s) won't show up on your targets page.

👉 If you're installing the agent on 10 machines, you must have 10 licenses available.

Step 1: Download the agent installer

  • Search for the relevant .dmg installer file (i.e. NessusAgent-X.X.X.dmg) and download it.

Step 2: Install the agent

Double-click on the .dmg file and then double-click the "Install Nessus Agent.pkg" installer.

Step 3: Configure your linking command

  • Open the Targets page > Add Targets > Internal targets

  • Click 'View configuration keys'

  • Copy the 'Prefix' and 'Key'

  • Assemble your name. It's comprised of:

    • Your Prefix (unique identifier of your account)

    • and your DeviceName (what you'd like the target to be named in the portal).

    e.g. DQEGBQUAAAc_paul-laptop

  • Populate the command below with your Prefix and DeviceName

sudo /Library/NessusAgent/run/sbin/nessuscli agent link --name=[Prefix_DeviceName] --cloud --key=819652a91d674e8d5be08e21299f1a3c69bd9806c72e24bc05df6b32b8db7fe1

  • Your DeviceName can also be populated automatically using the hostname of the computer by using the following command:

sudo /Library/NessusAgent/run/sbin/nessuscli agent link --name=[Prefix]_$(hostname -s) --cloud --key=819652a91d674e8d5be08e21299f1a3c69bd9806c72e24bc05df6b32b8db7fe1

Step 4: Link the agent to Intruder

  • Open the Terminal app

  • Run the linking command you created above

  • If you see a prompt for a password, enter your computer's password and hit return. (Don't worry that you can't see any of the characters that you're typing – this is normal).

  • When the linking command has run successfully, you'll see this 👇 :

  • It'll take between 5-10 minutes for the system to show on your targets page and voila. (...assuming you have licenses available that is).


If you have any trouble, please click the button below:

Where is my internal system?

Note: Internal vulnerability scanning is only available to Pro, Premium and Vanguard customers.

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