Installing Nessus 3.2.1 on 64-Bit Ubuntu

Installing Nessus 3.2.1 on 64-Bit Ubuntu

by Donnie Tevault

Nessus is a great security audit tool, and it works quite well with Ubuntu. But, if you install Nessus from the Ubuntu repositories, you're going to be stuck with an older version. If you need the better functionality of the newest version, you'll need to download it from the Nessus.org website. To complicate matters a bit more, there's a 64-bit version of the Nessus server, but there's only a 32-bit version of the Nessus client. So, if you're running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu, you'll need to work a bit of magic to get everything to work properly. (Don't fear, though, it's not that hard.)

First, you'll need to install the 32-bit run-time libraries.

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Now, go to http://www.nessus.org and download the "amd64" version of the Nessus server for Ubuntu, and the "i386" version of the Nessus graphical client for Ubuntu.

Install the Nessus daemon by entering:

sudo dpkg -i Nessus-3.2.1-ubuntu804_amd64.deb

Prepare to install the Nessus client by entering:

sudo apt-get install libqt4-core libqt4-gui

Install the 32-bit Nessus client by entering:

sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture NessusClient-3.2.1.1-ubuntu804.i386.deb

(The “--force-architecture” switch will force dpkg to install 32-bit packages on a 64-bit operating system.)

Start the Nessus daemon by entering:

sudo /etc/init.d/nessusd start

(Note that the Nessus server daemon will automatically start when you reboot the computer.)

Now, add yourself as a user.

sudo /opt/nessus/sbin/nessus-adduser

You should now be able to open the Nessus client from the “Applications/Internet” menu.

When the client comes up, click on the “Connect” button at the bottom of the window.

When the “Connection Manager” box opens, click on the “Edit” button. In the “Edit Connection” box, leave “Connection name”, “Host name”, and “Port” at their default values. Enter your own “Login” name and password. Click on the “Save” button.

Select the desired server, and click the “Connect” button.

Nessus 3 is now ready for use.