KACE Systems Management Appliance 14.1 Common Documents

For example, you might want to add custom fields to obtain the DAT file version number from the registry, the file created date, the file publisher, or other data for a device. You could then create labels based on this information to group similar devices, or create reports using this information.

Go to the Software list:

Log in to the appliance Administrator Console, https://appliance_hostname/admin. Or, if the Show organization menu in admin header option is enabled in the appliance General Settings, select an organization in the drop-down list in the top-right corner of the page next to the login information.

On the left navigation bar, click Inventory, then click Software.

Select Choose Action > New.

Enter values in the Name, Version, and Publisher fields.

This information is used to identify the custom data field on detail pages.

In the Custom Inventory Rule field, enter the appropriate syntax for the information you want returned:

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To return a Registry Value, enter the following, replacing valueType with either TEXT, NUMBER, or DATE. NUMBER is an integer value: RegistryValueReturn(string absPathToKey, string valueName, string valueType)

Example: RegistryValueReturn(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\McAfee.com\Virusscan Online,SourceDisk, TEXT)

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On Windows, Mac, and Linux devices, you can retrieve the following attributes from the stat() function:

access_time, creation_time, modification_time, block_size, blocks, size, device_id, group, inode, mode, number_links, owner, device_number

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On Windows devices, you can retrieve the following attributes from the VerQueryValue() function:

FileName, Comments, CompanyName, FileDescription, FileVersion, InternalName, LegalCopyright, LegalTrademarks, OriginalFilename, ProductName, ProductVersion, PrivateBuild, SpecialBuild, AccessedDate, CreatedDate, ModifiedDate

Click Save.

See Writing custom inventory rules.

Schedule inventory data collection for managed devices

The appliance collects hardware and software inventory data from Agent-managed and Agentless devices according to the appliance data collection schedule you set.

For Agent-managed devices, software inventory information is available on both the Software and Software Catalog pages. For more information about these pages, see Differences between the Software page and the Software Catalog page.

For Agentless devices, software information is listed only on the Software page. See Managing applications on the Software page.

If the Organization component is enabled on your appliance, you schedule inventory data collection for each organization separately.

Do one of the following:

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If the Organization component is enabled on your appliance, log in to the appliance System Administration Console, https://appliance_hostname/system, or select System in the drop-down list in the top-right corner of the page next to the login information. Then click Organizations. To display the organization’s information, click the organization’s name.

On the Organization Detail page that appears, locate the Communication and Agent Settings section.

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If the Organization component is not enabled on your appliance, log in to the appliance Administrator Console, https://appliance_hostname/admin. Then select Settings > Provisioning., and click Communication Settings on the Provisioning panel.

The Communication Settings page appears.

In the Agent and Communications Settings section, specify the following settings:

NOTE: To reduce the load on the appliance, limit the number of Agent connections to 500 per hour. The number of connections that appears next to the inventory, scripting, and metering intervals, applies to the current organization only. If the Organization component is enabled on your appliance, the total number of Agent connections for all organizations should not exceed 500 per hour.

Option	Suggested Setting	Notes
Agent Logging	Enabled	Whether the appliance stores scripting results provided by Agents installed on managed devices. Agent logs can consume as much as 1GB of disk space in the database. If disk space is not an issue, enable Agent Logging to keep all log information for Agent-managed devices. These logs can be useful during troubleshooting. To save disk space, and enable faster Agent communication, disable Agent Logging.
Agent Inventory	12 hours	The frequency at which Agents on managed devices report inventory. This information is displayed in the Inventory section.
Agentless Inventory	1 Day	The frequency at which Agentless devices report inventory. This information is displayed in the Inventory section.
Catalog Inventory	24 hours	The frequency at which managed devices report inventory to the Software Catalog page.
Metering	4 hours	The frequency at which managed devices report metering information to the appliance. Requires metering to be enabled on devices and applications.
Scripting Update	4 hours	The frequency at which Agents on managed devices request updated copies of scripts that are enabled on managed devices. This interval does not affect how often scripts run.

In the Notify section, specify the message to use for Agent communications:

Option

Suggested Setting

Notes

Agent Splash Page Message

Default text:

KACE Systems Management Appliance is verifying your PC Configuration and managing software updates. Please Wait...

The message that appears to users when Agents are performing tasks, such as running scripts, on their devices.

In the Agentless section, specify communications settings for Agentless devices:

Option	Description
SSH Timeout	The time, in seconds or minutes, after which the connection is closed if there is no activity.
SNMP Timeout	The time, in seconds, after which the connection is closed if there is no activity.
Maximum Attempts	The number of times the connection is attempted.
WinRM Timeout	The time, in seconds or minutes, after which the connection is closed if there is no activity.