How A Distributed Scan Works

When a distributed scan starts, the Master Server begins by collecting information about the Target(s) and the Proxy Agents in the Agent Group assigned to the scan. The Master Server uses this information to break down the Target(s) into smaller components or sub-scans, then proceeds to distribute the scan workload among the Proxy Agents that are online and available.

Each Proxy Agent then starts to execute the assigned sub-scans on the Target(s). Results for the Target(s) are progressively processed and displayed in the Web Console as each sub-scan completes. While the distributed scan is in progress, if any Proxy Agent becomes idle (after completing all assigned tasks) or is newly connected, outstanding tasks from other Proxy Agents will be dynamically reallocated to these available Agents to further improve the overall scan time.

Sub-scans will not be distributed or assigned to Proxy Agents that are only added to an Agent Group after the start of a distributed scan.

A distributed scan schedule is marked as "Complete" only when all sub-scans distributed among all Proxy Agents have been completed.

To start a distributed scan, see Distributed Scan.