how to access whole nessus through shell script - bash

Question

I am trying to do a script to get me access of advance scan option of nessus in localhost. So I want advance scan operation through shell script without GUI. I want all operations like login, advance scan and export report are performed through shell script without GUI access.

Answer 1

Why do you want to do it with bash script?
You can do this much easier with the nessus API.
Have a look at the link below
https://github.com/jfalken/nessus_enterprise_rest_client

Answer 2

the simplest way of doing automatisation in nessus is to use the nessus API.
its located at https://NessusServerIP:8834/ - if you visit it, you will be greeted by the API-Documentation.
There are various API-Implementations available - if you google 'Nessus API client' you'll get a glimpse.
If you, as you said, want to to run bash-skripts than the simplest way is probably using CURL for the API-Requests.
A typical workflow will look like this:
authorize yourself to the NessusAPI (either via TOKEN or API-Key)
launch or configure a scan (and wait until it finished)
export a report (and wait until it finished)
download the exported report
CURL #1 (authorize using token):
curl -X POST --data '{"username":"NessusUser","password":"YourPassword"}' -k "https://NessusServerIp:8834/session"
--header "Content-Type:application/json" | python -m json.tool
..which will yield you following JSON yielding an Token which you need for the other API-Calls:
{"token": "e411e443521adee4496d79823a510cc68c5bf05aeda6e6eb"}
CURL #2 (launch a scan):
curl -X POST -H 'X-Cookie: token=e411e443521adee4496d79823a510cc68c5bf05aeda6e6eb' -H 'Content-Type:application/json'
--data '{"scan_id":"21", "alt_targets":[127.0.0.1]}'
-k "https://NessusServerIp:8834/scans/21/launch" | python -m json.tool
...which will be answered with a JSON like this, containing the ID of the just startet scan:
{"scan_uuid":"c1c30d8f-5f79-2e4b-2d03-05b8b3c595f1e768e03195abdfa2"}
CURL #3 (exporting a scan):
curl -X POST -H 'X-Cookie: token=766ef7a2302780c189ba563b89c5eb3706140c0ef1e4de8b' -H
'Content-Type:application/json' --data '{"scan_id":"33", "format":"html"}' -k
"https://NessusServerIP:8834/scans/33/export" | python -m json.tool
...which will yield this JSON response, containing a token to the exported file and the file_id:
{"token":"3e13ab381c480caa1e377411c0b561970c46e5d78894c5a0cb2be0e7f00fefe0","file":1434780027}
...so now we are ready to download the report. in this case, since i have specified "format: html" in the last call, its a .html you will need to safe the outcome into.
Curl #4 (download exported report):
curl -X GET -H 'X-Cookie: token=7d155aef4359d02addea29d8d56bca4a5045ca61efeb38ee' -H 'Content-Type:application/json'
--data '{"scan_id":"21", "alt_targets":127.0.0.1}'
-k "https://NessusServerIP:8834/scans/17/export/945237343/download" > report.html
...which should leave you with a report.html in the folder you started your script.
Now... how do you automatize this? Well write a Bash-Skript, put in this calls, parse the answers to extract the information you need - and then enjoy! :)
ps: i use the python -m json.tool to beautify the otherwise not very beautiful output of CURL.
Hope i have helped,
Gewure