Managing Inventory Settings
Within the Inventory Settings workspace you can specify and manage the auditing of assets for an organizational unit.
Use the Inventory Manager to:
- Specify audit frequency.
- Specify purging of audit history.
- Collect software usage information (and software execution data).
- Define if software updates and patches on clients should be collected .
- Enable LanProbe.
- Define SNMP community strings for LanProbe.
- Specify the agent task polling frequency.
- View executable files to be returned as part of the software inventory—for more information about the executable files that appear, see Update Inventory Settings from Software Inventory.
- Assign inventory settings to organizational units.
- Update your gateway proxy.
- Audit specific file types.
- Exclude folders from being audited.
The changes to the records are made the next time the machines are audited or when you click Audit Inventory on the toolbar.
Define Inventory Settings
Use the following steps to configure the inventory settings:
| 1. | Log into the Service Desk Console as a Discovery Manager or Configuration Manager and open the Inventory Settings workspace. By default, one record is listed. |
| 2. | From the toolbar, click New Inventory Setting. A blank Inventory Settings window appears. |
The following default tabs appear (results may vary depending on your system setup):
- Details. See the information in the next step.
- Community Strings. See Community Strings Tab
- Software Files. See Software Files Tab
- Org Units. See Org Units Tab
- Gateway Proxy. See Gateway Proxy Tab
- WiFi Configuration. WiFi Configuration Tab.
- Audit File Types. Audit File Types
- Audit Excluded Folders. Audit Excluded Folders
- Audit Subnet Configurations. Audit Subnet Configs
- Max Message Sending Retry. Limit Message Sending Retry
| 3. | Enter information into the fields under the Details tab. |
--fields--
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | A unique name for the new setting. |
| Version | Automatically updated by the system each time you make a change and save it. |
| Audit Frequency |
The frequency of the audit.
Select an option from the drop-down. We recommend selecting Random Weekday, which means that each computer associated with the Inventory Settings record in the network is audited on a different random weekday. |
| At | The time at which you want to run the audit. |
| Purge Audit History Older Than | How often you want the audit data to be deleted from the system. Specify the value in months. |
| Max Message Sending Retry | The number of times a client machine should send the same message if the IM server is unable to process it. This allows you to suspend the message. A resume agent task for the server will reactivate it. See Managing Inventory Settings. |
| Collect Software Usage |
Audits the software usage on client machines. |
| Collect Thin Client Sessions |
Audits terminal (virtual) sessions. See View Remote and Virtual Software Execution.
If you check this option, the Collect Software Usage option is also selected by default. |
| Collect Patches and Updates | Audits patches and software updates on client machines. |
| Enable LANProbe |
Enables LANProbe, which is installed on client machines as part of the client agent installation. By default, this option is not checked. You can manually start a LanProbe service from any client with the Client Agent installed. |
| Agent Task Polling Frequency | The frequency, in minutes, that the client agent polls for tasks. The default frequency is 30 minutes. |
| 4. |
Click Save  from the toolbar.
|
Community Strings Tab
This tab lists the SNMP community strings defined for LANProbe.
Perform the following steps to create a new community string:
| 1. | From the toolbar, click New Community String. The Community String window appears. |
| 2. | Enter the community string to be used for accessing the SNMP devices. |
When LANProbe is aware of a new IP or MAC address, it investigates the device-type using SNMP. Contact your network Administrator if you are unsure of which values to enter.
| 3. |
Click Save from the toolbar.
|
Software Files Tab
This tab lists the software programs set up for auditing.
To add files to audit to the list, do the following:
| 1. | From the toolbar, click Link  . A list of files appears. |
| 2. | Navigate to the file that you want to add to the list and click Select. The file is added to the list. |
| 3. |
Click Save from the toolbar.
|
Org Units Tab
This tab lists the organizational units that are assigned inventory settings.
The default configuration is one inventory setting, applicable to all audited computers. Creating new inventory settings and assigning them to organizational units allows for computers in different organizational units to have different settings, should this be necessary.
When the task processor service gets a request for client tasks (from the client agent), it checks whether there are any changes in the computer's inventory settings.
When a new computer is added, it is usually not linked to an organizational unit. The task processor searches for a root organizational unit, which is linked to the computer, if the root organizational unit is found. If the root organizational unit does not have linked inventory settings, the task processor tries to locate default inventory settings to link to the root organizational unit. If default settings are not found, the task processor creates new inventory settings and links it to the root organizational unit.
If the organizational unit that is linked to a computer is not the root organizational unit and it does not have inventory settings, then the task processor recursively follows the organizational unit parent links until it finds a root organizational unit or an organizational unit with inventory settings and then applies the settings to the organizational unit in question.
To add organizational units to the list, do the following:
| 1. | Click Link . |
| 2. | Select an organizational unit. |
Gateway Proxy Tab
The Gateway Proxy tab lists any gateway proxies defined for Windows clients. (Mac clients are defined in the server address within the saas.ini file on the local installation.)
To enter information about the gateway proxy, do the following:
| 1. | Enter information into the fields. |
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Endpoint Address |
The address of the endpoint URL.
The default proxy port 8097 is used unless defined in the endpoint address. For example, http://company/users:8113. |
| Priority | The priority number of this address. |
| 2. | Click Save. |
| 3. | To remove a gateway, select the gateway from the list and click Delete  . |
WiFi Configuration Tab
The WiFi Configurations tab lists any WiFi configurations used.
| 1. | To create a new WiFi configuration, click New MDI_WiFiConfiguration. The New MDI_WiFiConfiguration window appears. |
| 2. | Enter information into the fields. |
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Network Name | The name of the network. |
| Encryption |
The encryption type. Choose from the drop-down list.
|
| Password | The network password. |
| Active | Makes this configuration active. |
| 3. | Click Save. |
Audit File Types
The Audit File Types tab allows you to check machines for the number of occurrences of a specified file-type, by it's extension (such as gz, EXE, dll or html). The audit reports the number of occurrences and the total size of all files of the specified file type. The top 50 occurrences of file-types are listed by default. You can create a specific file-type to audit. However, creating a new audit file type overrides the top 50 defaults and only lists the file types that you specify. To create a new or specific file type to audit, do the following:
| 1. | From the Inventory Settings > Audit File Types tab, click New Audit File Type to open the dialog. The New Audit File Type window appears. |
| 2. | Enter the extension of the file type. You do not need to enter a dot (.) before the extension type. The file type is case-insensitive. |
| 3. | Click Save. Enter as many file types as you need to track. |
| 4. | Click Deploy Settings. |
| 5. | The file type data is available in the Extension Histogram tab of the CI. |
Audit Excluded Folders
The Audit Excluded Folders tab allows you to specify folders from being audited for file types or other data. In most instances you must specify a full path.
| 1. | From the Inventory Settings > Audit Excluded Folders tab, click New Audit Excluded Folder to open the dialog. The New Audit Excluded Folder window appears. |
| 2. | Enter the folder name or full path. This is a required field. You can use wildcard characters such as ? and *. For Windows, folder CLSIDs and environment dtrings such as {d20ea4e1-3957-11d2-a40b-0c5020524153} and %ProgramFiles% are also supported. |
| 3. | Select a platform (such as: AIX, Windows, OSX) from the drop-down list. |
| 4. | Click Save. Enter as many paths or folders that you would like to exclude from being audited. |
| 5. | Click Deploy Settings. |
Audit Subnet Configs
The Audit Subnet Configs tab allows you to specify subnets of specific switches to either be included or excluded from LanProbe audits. For example, you can enter 10.1.2.3/24 or 172.16.33.9/24
| 1. | From the Inventory Settings > Audit Subnet Configs tab, click New Switch Subnet Config to open the dialog. The New Switch Subnet Config window appears. |
| 2. | Enter the IP address. |
| 3. | Select an option from the include or exclude drop-down list. |
| 4. | Click Save. Enter as many IP addresses that you would like to include or exclude from being audited. |
| 5. | Click Deploy Settings. |
Limit Message Sending Retry
Sometimes a client agent sends a message that cannot be processed by the server. If the message was sent due to a failure or other error, the agent tries to resend the message an indefinite number of times.
You can modify the number of retries from the Inventory Settings workspace, by setting the following.
| 1. | Within the Inventory Settings workspace, select an organizational unit. |
| 2. | In the Max Message Sending Retry field, enter the number of retries to allow. The default value is 5. However, we recommend that you do not modify this value for existing configurations as this enables FrontRange Solutions to troubleshoot specific problems. |
| 3. | Click Save. |
Any machine that displays an agent status of suspended indicates that it is no longer sending messages to the server since it has retried the specified number of times. It no longer processes any tasks and the client agent task must be resumed.
Open the configuration item (CI) and select Resume Client Agent on the task bar to allow the machine to resume sending messages.