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Editing existing nessusrc files?
What's the appropriate way to edit existing nessusrc files? I
typically like to create a configuration in NessusClient then export it
to nessusrc format so I can call it directly from nessus.

There doesn't seem to be a way to reload this nessusrc file into
NessusClient however for later editing or modification. The "import"
function does something different -- not exactly clear what. :)

Also, I noticed it's rather hard to drill down and select individual
plugins from the Plugin selection dialog in NessusClient. If I search
for a plugin ID, it gets selected, but if I then do a subsequent search
for an additional plugin ID it clears out the first selection and only
selects my new search.

How does everyone do their nessusrc editing? By hand? Currently I am
using NessusClient to search for plugin ID's I want then modifying my
existing nessusrc file by hand. Kind of tedious. :)

Thanks,
Ray
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Re: Editing existing nessusrc files? [ In reply to ]
Ray Van Dolson wrote:
> What's the appropriate way to edit existing nessusrc files? I
> typically like to create a configuration in NessusClient then export it
> to nessusrc format so I can call it directly from nessus.

Most Nessus users edit their nessurc files in this manner.

> There doesn't seem to be a way to reload this nessusrc file into
> NessusClient however for later editing or modification. The "import"
> function does something different -- not exactly clear what. :)

This import function was to pull in scan polices from Nessus Windows
versions prior to 3.2.

> Also, I noticed it's rather hard to drill down and select individual
> plugins from the Plugin selection dialog in NessusClient. If I search
> for a plugin ID, it gets selected, but if I then do a subsequent search
> for an additional plugin ID it clears out the first selection and only
> selects my new search.

For Nessus 3.2, this is the expected behavior. Future releases should
address this.

> How does everyone do their nessusrc editing? By hand? Currently I am
> using NessusClient to search for plugin ID's I want then modifying my
> existing nessusrc file by hand. Kind of tedious. :)

A majority of our users run their scans with the Nessus Client or
Security Center and don't do manual editing. For those that do, the
ones that create .nessusrc files and then edit them have less issues.
Users that write them from scratch have a lot of support calls with us.
We've seen everything -- plugins listed more than once, plugin
preferences that don't exist or are misspelled and even users who have
written a good nessusrc policy, but aren't invoking the nessus client
the right way to make use of it.

Ron Gula
Tenable Network Security




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