The Advanced Settings page allows you to manually configure Nessus. You can configure advanced settings from the Nessus user interface, or from the command line interface. Nessus validates your input values to ensure only valid configurations are allowed.
Advanced settings apply globally across your Nessus instance.
To configure advanced settings, you must use a Nessus administrator user account.
Not all advanced settings are automatically populated in the Nessus interface.
Changes may take several minutes to take effect.
Settings that require restarting Nessus for the change to apply are indicated by the icon in the user interface.
A text banner displays that appears after you attempt to log in to Nessus.
Note: The banner only appears the first time you log in on a new browser or computer.
Maximum web users who can connect simultaneously.
A colon-delimited list of CGI paths to use for web server scans.
The maximum size, in kilobytes (KB), of plugin output to be included in exported scan results with the .nessus format. If the output exceeds the maximum size, it is truncated in the report.
Note: For Nessus 8.3.0 scanners installed on Windows, set the setting to 100000 to ensure that scan exports function correctly.
Port Range port_range Range of the ports the port scanners scans. default default, all, a comma-separated list of ports and/or port ranges.
When enabled, Nessus uses safe checks, which use banner grabbing rather than active testing for a vulnerability.
The type of NASL engine output in nessusd.dump.
normal normal, none, trace, or full.
Maximum number of hosts that can be scanned simultaneously across all scans.
Maximum number of simultaneous plugins that can run concurrently on each host.
Maximum number of simultaneous TCP sessions for a single host.
This TCP throttling option also controls the number of packets per second the SYN scanner sends, which is 10 times the number of TCP sessions. E.g., if this option is set to 15, the SYN scanner sends 150 packets per second at most.
Determines the type of check that is performed before a plugin runs.
If this setting is set to open_ports, then Nessus checks that required ports are open; if they are not, the plugin does not run.
If this setting is set to required_keys, then Nessus performs the open port check, and also checks that required keys (KB entries) exist, ignoring the excluded key check.
SSL Cipher List ssl_cipher_list Cipher list to use for Nessus backend connections. Nessus only supports strong SSL ciphers when connecting to port 8834. strong noexp, strong, and edh.
tls_1_2 compat, ssl_3_0, tls_1_1, and tls_1_2.
Note: The following settings are only available in Nessus Manager.
If set to 0, this defaults to 100.
Controls whether or not agent scan result audit trail data is included in the main agent database. Excluding audit trail data can significantly improve agent result processing performance.
Includes the agent scan result KB data in the main agent database. Excluding KB data can significantly improve agent result processing performance.
Sets the journaling mode to use when processing agent results. Depending on the environment, this can somewhat improve processing performance, but also introduces a small risk of a corrupted scan result in the event of a crash. For more details, refer to the sqlite3 documentation.
Sets the filesystem sync mode to use when processing agent results. Turning this off will significantly improve processing performance, but also introduces a small risk of a corrupted scan result in the event of a crash. For more details, refer to the sqlite3 documentation.
Location of the configuration file that contains the engine preference settings.
Must be an absolute file path.
Scan Source IP(s) source_ip Source IPs to use when running on a multi-homed host. If multiple IPs are provided, Nessus will cycle through them whenever it performs a new connection. None IP address or comma-separated list of IP addresses.
0 or integers larger than or equal to 3.
If set to 0, all history is retained.
Not all advanced settings are populated in the Nessus user interface, but some settings can be set in the command line interface. If you create a custom setting, it appears in the Custom tab.
The following table lists available advanced settings that are not listed by default in the Nessus user interface but can still be configured.
Adds a classification banner to the top and bottom of the Nessus user interface, and turns on last successful and failed login notification.
None UNCLASSIFIED (green banner), CONFIDENTIAL (blue banner), SECRET (red banner), or a custom value (orange banner).
A text banner displays that appears after you attempt to log in to Nessus. The banner only appears the first time you log in on a new browser or computer.