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Why is my internal system showing as unresponsive?

Is your 'active' internal system showing as unresponsive, and you can't work out why? This article should help!

Updated over 3 weeks ago

So, your agent status command has proven that the agent installation was (seemingly) a success?

Running: Yes​
Linked to: cloud.tenable.com:443
​Link status: Connected to cloud.tenable.com:443

But your internal system is still showing as unresponsive. Not to worry, there are a handful of reasons why this might be happening. This article will help you identify which one applies to you.

  1. The machine was offline or unresponsive during the scan period
    In order for a target to show as online within Intruder, it needs to be connected to the Internet and able to respond to the traffic from the scanning engine for the duration of the scan. If the target goes offline or reboots during a scan, then it may show as 'unresponsive' on the portal. It would be worth rebooting the machine and running the scan again.

  2. There is a problem with the network connection
    Have you checked that the internet is working and there aren't any 'power management' settings enabled anywhere? To test this, open your browser and type: https://cloud.tenable.com
    ​
    ​Are you scanning targets in regions with varying operating hours?
    Consider implementing region-based tagging for targets, e.g. UK assets tagged with UK_Laptops and US assets tagged with US_Laptop. This would allow for scheduling scans during your targets' normal operating hours.
    ​
    ​Are you sure it's not a DNS issue?
    If your DNS server is not responding, we'd suggest configuring an always-reachable server that can consistently respond to requests. If DNS traffic is being filtered, we'd suggest allowlisting our IPs to unconditionally allow all DNS requests to our servers to go through without a hitch.

  3. The agent has been installed, but then subsequently unlinked/uninstalled

    Have you checked the portal for any notifications of the agent being uninstalled or unlinked?
    ​


    If you see this error, you'll need to re-link the internal system, following the steps in our installation articles.

  4. The agent is not installed correctly

    At this point, it's probably worth starting over:

    1. Uninstall the agent, following the steps in the relevant OS guide (including any appended notes).

    2. Reboot the system.

    3. Re-add the internal system, following the steps in our installation articles.

Related Articles
Unresponsive external host
Internal agent installation - checking your agent status
How to restore an internal target
Renaming an internal target
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