Arch Linux User Repository

I'm experimenting dynamic release: dynamically updating $source and $sha256sums as well as using a pkgver(), so that the PKGBUILD will work with nessus-agent newer version without manually updating the unique source link that leads to HTTP 404 error for each new version before. As the crawling script was already written, better use it to automate the process. However, the method used is highly unconventional, so if you experiment any issue or have an idea to suggest cleaner / more elegant solution, please contact me.

I made an update to the PKGBUILD so that it updates itself to the latest version, tested with 11.0.3. It updates pkgver, sha256, etc, so that it works first time. I can send you a patch?

From 3452762a60a841eb06d2b034189805d630313116 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: John Lane <archlinux@jelmail.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2026 11:08:16 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] fix dynamic version update

---
 PKGBUILD | 12 +++++-------
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/PKGBUILD b/PKGBUILD
index 53ad101..252b8d0 100644
--- a/PKGBUILD
+++ b/PKGBUILD
@@ -15,19 +15,18 @@ url="https://www.tenable.com/downloads/nessus-agents"
 install="$pkgname.install"
 # If wish there was a cleaner way to dynamically update $source and $sha256sums as pkgver() does for $pkgver
 # Also the read -r mass variable assignment allows to run the script only once instead of running it 3 times with individual $(ruby get_nessus_link.rb <arg>)
-read -r _filename _url _version _dl_id _sha256 <<<$(ruby get_nessus_link.rb all)
+read -r _filename _url pkgver _dl_id _sha256 <<<$(ruby get_nessus_link.rb all)
 source=("NessusAgent-$pkgver-fc38.$arch.rpm::https://www.tenable.com/downloads/api/v1/public/pages/nessus-agents/downloads/$_dl_id/download?i_agree_to_tenable_license_agreement=true"
         'LICENSE'
         'get_nessus_link.rb')
-sha256sums=('4b7639f4ebd9bd18a24d9bca7f136b82c5561e684ea48fcf4a1413f9a5aef13f'
+sha256sums=("$_sha256"
             'd647aedd39d571faa3f1a9906db561eecbd9c41605ba7f562261ffb04877ba26'
             '191603f44668b2f7dbafde4faef75ace91590d5c07a7a146601834ebe65a4734')
 conflicts=('nessus') # due to /etc/ld.so.conf.d/nessus.conf

-pkgver() {
-  # ruby get_nessus_link.rb version
-  echo $_version
-}
+#pkgver() {
+#  echo $pkgver
+#}

 package() {
   mkdir -p "$pkgdir/etc/ld.so.conf.d" "$pkgdir/usr/share" "$pkgdir/opt/$pkgname" \
@@ -44,4 +43,3 @@ package() {
   # license
   install -Dm644 LICENSE "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname/LICENSE"
 }
-
--
2.44.0

==> Validating source files with sha256sums...
    NessusAgent-10.7.3-fc38.x86_64.rpm ... FAILED

I'm experimenting dynamic release: dynamically updating $source and $sha256sums as well as using a pkgver(), so that the PKGBUILD will work with nessus-agent newer version without manually updating the unique source link that leads to HTTP 404 error for each new version before. As the crawling script was already written, better use it to automate the process. However, the method used is highly unconventional, so if you experiment any issue or have an idea to suggest cleaner / more elegant solution, please contact me.

Can we update PKGBUILD like this? With this change, we will just need to update pkgver and the python script will be used to fetch the link. Any thoughts?

pkgname=nessus-agent
_pkgname=nessus_agent
pkgver=10.8.1
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Nessus vulnerability scanner agent"
arch=('x86_64')
depends=('gnupg')
makedepends=('inetutils')
license=('custom')
options=(!strip debug)
url="https://www.tenable.com/downloads/nessus-agents"
install="$pkgname.install"
source=("NessusAgent-$pkgver-fc38.$arch.rpm::$(python3 get_nessus_link.py)"
        LICENSE)
sha256sums=('a1fe47fbeca1591b6981bd5d98c83cd4ed9963ed2629a45dc70668961e87374a'
            'd647aedd39d571faa3f1a9906db561eecbd9c41605ba7f562261ffb04877ba26')
conflicts=('nessus') # due to /etc/ld.so.conf.d/nessus.conf

package() {
  mkdir -p "$pkgdir/etc/ld.so.conf.d" "$pkgdir/usr/share" "$pkgdir/opt/$pkgname" \
           "$pkgdir/usr/lib"

  cp -a usr/lib "$pkgdir/usr"

  # path to libraries
  echo /opt/${_pkgname}/lib > "$pkgdir/etc/ld.so.conf.d/nessus.conf"

  # main files
  cp -a opt/${_pkgname}/{bin,com,etc,lib,sbin,var} "$pkgdir/opt/$pkgname"

  # license
  install -Dm644 LICENSE "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname/LICENSE"
}

We might also need to update get_nessus_link.py

def main():
    data = get_json()
    url = None
    for download in data['props']['pageProps']['page']['downloads']:
        filename = download['file']
        if filename.endswith('-fc38.x86_64.rpm'):
            url = f'https://www.tenable.com/downloads/api/v1/public/pages/nessus-agents/downloads/{download["id"]}/download?i_agree_to_tenable_license_agreement=true'
            break

    if url is not None:
        print(url)
    else:
        print('Cannot find a download link!')

I pushed the changes here and tried with few peers https://github.com/SD-13/Nessus-agent-Arch

pkgver=10.7.1
source=("NessusAgent-$pkgver-fc38.$arch.rpm::https://www.tenable.com/downloads/api/v1/public/pages/nessus-agents/downloads/23581/download?i_agree_to_tenable_license_agreement=true"
        LICENSE)
b2sums=('18c6e39b6bfc161c97bd819560d46366deea884b7365ed6346e54013c6723849b1a45dc7ce0467d7e3eaa23d80279c4466d2a210c181867ff9fc09f5032014ca'
        '2c68d4f30686a711fbf5c77b70d9b307f9fdcc8095cea79d8c310edfeea87563d94b9106fce35fc53685e6703afb729b9d81f504a1983c367621605690ea03e1')

As before, an update for 10.5.1 is in need:

Tested this, with success:

pkgver=10.5.1
source=("NessusAgent-$pkgver-fc38.$arch.rpm::https://www.tenable.com/downloads/api/v1/public/pages/nessus-agents/downloads/21856/download?i_agree_to_tenable_license_agreement=true"
        LICENSE)
b2sums=('a5402500e4e62c3f6975a6a1cf8b84332533858a5c651182a8e49897a219cae86cfe91a6dd4f94d2ed3ccc3b03df4ee07d088d1094ca27c6d78b0dbc8548d93d'

@jadoublet Don't comment each time the link expires, just report the package as out of date. It's not useful to create a fork, I just have to bump the package it's trivial. It's not useful either that get_nessus_link.py generates ab2sum as updpkgsums updates it automatically.

@noraj, I don't have access to contribute to your repo but I cloned your repo and made some changes that you can review here. This includes updates to not only PKGBUILD and .SRCINFO but also to get_nessus_link.py that also prints out b2sum of the new agent file that can be used in PKGBUILD and .SRCINFO.

Failed to download package .. 404 not found

curl: (22) The requested URL returned error: 404
==> ERROR: Failure while downloading https://www.tenable.com/downloads/api/v1/public/pages/nessus-agents/downloads/17927/download?i_agree_to_tenable_license_agreement=true
    Aborting...
 -> error downloading sources: nessus-agent 
     context: exit status 1

Hi Noraj,

Thx, post_install() is working with yay. Guess removing the symlink should be added to:

--- a/nessus-agent.install
+++ b/nessus-agent.install
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ post_install() {
     ${NESSUS_PREFIX}/sbin/nessusd -R
   }

-  # Fix path for /usr/lib/systemd/system/nessusagent.service
+  #FIXME: Fix path for /usr/lib/systemd/system/nessusagent.service
   ln -s /opt/nessus-agent/ /opt/nessus_agent

   if [ "$NESSUS_PRODUCT" = "agent" ]; then
@@ -85,6 +85,10 @@ post_remove() {
   test -f ${NESSUS_PREFIX}/sbin/nessusd || { \
     rm -f ${NESSUS_PREFIX}/var/nessus/plugins-code.db
     rm -f ${NESSUS_PREFIX}/var/nessus/plugins-desc.db
+    
+    #FIXME: Fix path for /usr/lib/systemd/system/nessusagent.service
+    rm /opt/nessus_agent
+
   }
 }

I will try to fix the original problem at upstream. No promise ;-)

Thx and rgds, SJ