Hi,
I have set up an external target with the IP address of my web server which has multiple sites. When I run a task the report shows ‘Number of scanned hosts: 0’ what would cause this? have I set up the target or task incorrectly?
Hi mpage,
This problem indicates that the target host is not seen as alive, and therefore not being scanned. This can happen if the target host doesn’t reply to ping requests. You can change the alive detection in the target configuration (Configuration → Targets → Edit icon of your target → Alive Test).
If you set the alive test to “Consider alive”, the target host will be scanned even if it doesn’t reply to any ping requests. Note that setting the “Consider alive” option may increase scan time.
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Thank you @TreAtW it seems that I can’t ping my server or any of the sites on it although they are working fine.
Hi mpage,
this can have many reasons. Firewall issues and security configuration to not reply to pings are the main candidates. Log files and nmap are your friends. 
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Yes, @TreAtW I have discovered that AWS ec2 instances do not reply to pings by defalt so I have set up a rule and re-running the scan now. Thank you for your help.
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