Getting ready

To use Nessus for the first time, you will have to register and get a registration code from the Nessus website. To test Nessus, you can use Nessus Home, which allows you to scan your personal home network (up to 16 IP addresses per scanner). You can download it at https://www.tenable.com/products/nessus-home.

To install Nessus on Kali Linux, on the download page choose the Debian software package file (.deb) for your version 32 or 64 bits, and use the dpkg -i command, followed by the Nessus software package file:

root@kali:~# dpkg -i Nessus*.deb 
...
Unpacking Nessus Core Components...
nessusd (Nessus) 6.11.1 [build M20101] for Linux
Copyright (C) 1998 - 2017 Tenable Network Security, Inc

Processing the Nessus plugins...
[##################################################]

All plugins loaded (1sec)

 - You can start Nessus by typing /etc/init.d/nessusd start
 - Then go to https://kali:8834/ to configure your scanner

Processing triggers for systemd (235-2) ...
root@kali:~#

Then, start the Nessus services, using the following command:

root@kali:~# systemctl start nessusd.service

Then open your browser and go to https://kali:8834/ to configure Nessus. To start working with Nessus in msfconsole, we will have to load Nessus and then connect it with the server to start our penetration testing.