Tips and Best Practices

What is an activation key? You need an agent activation key to install Qualys Cloud Agent. This provides a way to group agents and bind them to your subscription with Qualys Cloud Platform. You can create different keys for various business functions and users.

Benefits of adding asset tags to an activation key: Tags assigned to your activation key is automatically assigned to agent hosts. This helps you manage your agents and report on agent hosts.

Running the agent installer: You have to run the installer from an elevated command prompt or use a systems management tool using elevated privileges.

Be sure to activate agents to provision for applications - Vulnerability Management (VM). Activating an agent for an application consumes an agent activation key. You can set up auto-activation by defining applications for activation keys, or do it manually in the Qualys Cloud Agent user interface.

What happens if you skip activation? Cloud Agents sync only inventory information (IP address, OS, DNS and NetBIOS names, MAC address) to the Qualys Cloud Platform, and host assessments are not performed.

How many agents can I install? You can install any number of agents but can activate a Cloud Agent only if you have an activation key. The Agents tab in the Cloud Agent user interface shows your installed agents.

Ensure Cloud Agents are connected: Once installed, agents connect to the Qualys Cloud Platform and provision themselves. You can see agent status on the Agents tab in Cloud Agent user interface. The agent status is updated continuously. If your Cloud Agent does not have a status, this means that your agent is not successfully connected to the Qualys Cloud Platform and you need to troubleshoot.