Nessus is a free program released under the GPL. It is a great tool designed to automate the testing and discovery of known security problems. One of the very powerful features of Nessus is its client server technology. Servers can be placed at various strategic points on a network allowing tests to be conducted from various points of view. Nessus is made up of two parts - a client and a server. You need a Unix-like system to use the server (Linux is just fine). First : download and install nessusd and nessus Second : create a nessusd account Installation: Download Nessus and related component from the URL: http://www.nessus.org/download/ to particular directory: Now, you need compile the related tool in order to install it in your linux system. Extract the downloaded component using command: tar -xvzf <pkg_Nm> which will create related directory for each component. Installing nessus-libraries root:~# cd nessus-libraries root:~# ./configure root:~# make root:~# make install Installing libnasl root:~# cd libnasl root:~# ./configure root:~# make root:~# make install Installing nessus-core root:~# cd nessus-core root:~# ./configure root:~# make root:~# make install Installing nessus-plugins root:~# cd nessus-plugins root:~# ./configure root:~# make root:~# make install you need to set the library path in linux if it is not set/configured: root:~# cat /etc/ld.so.conf You should able to see the line containing "/usr/local/lib" if it is not there then add it to /etc/ld.so.conf and type the folllowing command: root:~# ldconfig Installation is completed. You can use nessus-adduser to add nessusd account. root:~# nessus-adduser Configuration File: /usr/local/etc/nessus/nessusd.conf Where you can set several option for nessus configuration. * Start nessusd deameon root:~# nessusd -D For client side configuration check the below mentioned URL: http://www.nessus.org/demo/index.php?step=2 Courtesy: http://forums.linuxwebadmin.info/index.php/topic,132.0.html Thanks,
For those using Debian, there's a package available http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/...on=names&subword=1&version=stable&release=all Same goes probably for other debian based distros like mepis und *buntu
