Scan Engine Pools

NOTE

You must be licensed to use Scan Engine pools to create and apply them in your site configurations. Contact your Customer Success Advisor to learn more about gaining access to Scan Engine pools.

Properly licensed Nexpose customers can take advantage of a Scan Engine pooling capability that balances the load of a single scan across several of your distributed Scan Engines. Scan Engine pools are useful when you need to optimize scans for significantly large sites.

This article explains how to create and configure Scan Engine pools.

Requirements

Scan Engine pools have the following requirements:

  • Your product license must support Scan Engine pooling.
  • Scan Engine pools can only be composed of your distributed Scan Engines. The following engine types are not usable in Scan Engine pools:
    • Local Scan Engine
    • Rapid7 Hosted Scan Engine
    • Pre-Authorized AWS Scan Engine
  • You can add any distributed Scan Engine to a pool, regardless of its connectivity status. However, Scan Engines that are not currently “Active” will not contribute to scan load balancing. Verify that all Scan Engines in your pool are “Active” to ensure maximum scanning optimization.

Create a Scan Engine Pool

You can create a Scan Engine pool within a site configuration or through the Administration page.

Create a Scan Engine Pool in a Site Configuration

To create a new Scan Engine pool in a site configuration:

  1. In a new or existing site configuration, click the Engines tab.
    • You can create a new site by expanding the Create dropdown next to the left navigation menu, or access an existing site by clicking its edit icon in the “Sites” table of the Home page.
  2. Click the Create Engine Pool subtab.
  3. Name your Scan Engine pool.
  4. In the Scan Engines table, select each available Scan Engine that you want to include in the pool.
  5. Click Save when finished.

Your new Scan Engine pool is now available for use in your site configuration. Return to the Select Scan Engine subtab to select your new pool in the “Scan Engines & Pools” table.

Create an Engine Pool through Administration

To create a new Engine pool through the Administration page:

  1. Browse to and click on the Administration tab in your left navigation menu.
  2. Click Scans > Engine Pools.
  3. In the Engine Pools section, click Create Engine Pool.
  4. Name your Engine pool.
  5. In the Engines table, select each available Engine that you want to include in the pool.
  6. Click Create when finished.

Your new Engine pool now appears in the Engine Pools table of the Engine Pool management page.