Altiris™ Inventory Pack for Servers 7.0 Release Notes

Article:DOC1592  |  Created: 2009-03-05  |  Updated: 2009-03-05  |  Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC1592
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Question

What do I need to know about Altiris™ Inventory Pack for Servers 7.0 from Symantec?

Answer

Altiris™  Inventory Pack for Servers 7.0 from Symantec
Release Notes

Build number (Windows: 7.0.1020) (Unix and Linux: 7.0.3040)

Introduction

Where to get more information

Features in this Release

Known Issues in this Release

Introduction

Inventory Pack for Servers expands the capabilities of Inventory Solution to include server-related data. You can gather data about software components and applications, such as the following:

  • Microsoft Windows operating system
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000 32-bit or 2005 32-bit
  • Microsoft SQL Server Clustering
  • Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 or 2003
  • Microsoft DHCP Server
  • Microsoft DNS Server
  • Microsoft RAS Server
  • Microsoft IIS 5.0 or above
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
  • VMware ESX
  • SCSI Controllers
  • System DSN
  • Clusters
  • MySQL
  • Oracle
  • Apache HTTP Server
Supported platforms:

You can gather inventory on target servers running the following platforms:

  • Windows 2000 (x86)
  • Windows Server 2003 (x86, x64)
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4, 5 (x86, x64)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, 10 (x86, x64)
  • VMware ESX 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.5
  • MySQL 5.0
  • Oracle 9i, 10g, or 11
  • Apache HTTP Server 2 or above

Inventory Pack for Servers is part of Altiris™ Server Management Suite from Symantec.

For the suite release notes, see Knowledge Base article 45893.

Where to get more information

The product installation includes the following documentation:

Document Description Location

User’s Guide

Information about how to use this product, including detailed technical information and instructions for performing common tasks.

This information is available in PDF format.

Help

 Information about how to use this product. This information is the same as in the User’s Guide.

Help is available at the solution level and at the suite level.

This information is available in HTML help format.

The Documentation Library, which is available in the Symantec Management Console on the Help menu.

Context-sensitive help is available for most screens in the Symantec Management Console.

You can open context-sensitive help in the following ways:

  • The F1 key
  • The Context command, which is available in the Symantec Management Console on the Help menu.

For more information, you can use the following resources:

Resource Description Location

Symantec Management Platform Release Notes

 Information about new features and important issues in the Symantec Management Platform.

This information is available as an article in the Knowledge Base.

https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=45141&p=1

You can also search for the product name under Release Notes.

Installing the Symantec Management Platform products

 Information about using Symantec Installation Manager to install the Symantec Management Platform products.

This information is available as an article in the Knowledge Base.

https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=45732&p=1

Altiris 7 Planning and Implementation Guide

 Information about capacity recommendations, design models, scenarios, test results, and optimization best practices to consider when planning or customizing an Altiris 7 Infrastructure for your organization.

This information is available as an article in the Knowledge Base.

https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=45803&p=1

Knowledge Base

 Articles, incidents, and issues about this product.

http://kb.altiris.com/

Symantec Connect (formerly Altiris Juice)

 An online magazine that contains best practices, tips, tricks, and articles for users of this product.

http://www.symantec.com/connect/endpoint-management-virtualization

Online Forums

 Forums for users of this product.

http://forums.altiris.com/

Features in this Release

Besides the new core Inventory Solution 7.0 features, such as common cross-platform data classes and the Inventory task wizard, Inventory Pack for Servers 7.0 includes the following:

1.       Extended platform support – Support for Linux, Windows Server 2008 as well as Windows Server 2003 64-bit has been added. It now supports ESX 3.0.1, 3.0.2, and 3.5.

2.       Server application support – Support for application configuration inventory support of Oracle, Apache, and mySQL. This is in addition to the existing support for IIS, SQL, Exchange, GSX, DNS, and DHCP.

3.       Expanded the level of configuration inventory gathered for IIS and SQL. Added inventory for Remote Access Server (RAS).

Known Issues in this Release

The following are unresolved issues in this release. For additional information regarding an issue, click the Article ID link.

 For a list of guidelines and other useful tips, see the Things to Know about Inventory Pack for Servers 7.0. 45938
Known Issue Article ID
Traces in the log files
On the target computer, Inventory Pack for Servers tries to inventory the data classes for various supported server components, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft IIS Server, and so on, irrespective of whether server components are present or not. This does not result in slowing down the inventory process. However, some traces, like “Could not collect the inventory information for xxxx”, “Failed to collect inventory for xxxx”, “Execution of query Failed”, or “Failed to inventory information from WMI. Error: … ” are added to the log files when an Inventory task for gathering Server data classes is run with the “Enable verbose client logging" option on Advanced option > Run Options selected.
DHCP Scopes and DHCP Options data classes incorrectly reports the values that has double quotes
While defining the DHCP scopes, if you used double quotes in the description (example: DHCP Scope Configuration for “Altiris” company), the Description column of DHCP Scopes data class will report a value only up to the first double quotes that is, from the given example it will return only, DHCP Scope Configuration for. This limitation also applies to the Scope Id and the Super Scope columns of DHCP Scopes data class and the Scope Id column of DHCP Options data class.

The same limitation also applies to the, netsh exec filename, command provided by the DHCP Server. This command is used to import the DHCP configuration details from the text files.

The reported version of the DHCP server does not match with the DHCP version given in the About dialog of the DHCP server
The Version column of the DHCP data class reports the DHCP version, which is different from the version given in the About dialog of the DHCP server.		  
Data class is not being populated
On Microsoft Windows 2000 Server operating system, the “Super Scope” field of Inv Srv DHCP Scopes data class is not being populated.		  
IIS Inventory

The IIS inventory gathered for the IIS Application Pools data class automatically starts the IIS Admin service if it is in a stopped state.

IIS Inventory

The “Header Wait Timeout” field from IIS Http Server Setting Data data class is not reported.

IIS Inventory
“Application Server Console Installed” and “Remote Admin Installed” fields from IIS Setting data class are not reported on Windows Server 2008 for IIS 7.0.
IIS Inventory

The Inventory Agent gathers the IIS inventory using IIS metabase. IIS metabase is fully supported until IIS version 6.0. With IIS version 7.0 on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 IIS metabase has been replaced by XML configuration files. To gather the IIS 7.0 inventory, you need to install the Management Compatibility features, which can be installed through “Server Manager” on Microsoft Windows Server 2008.

IIS Inventory

With IIS 7.0 installed on Microsoft Windows Server 2008, some fields of the following IIS data classes are not being populated correctly even if the Management Compatibility features are installed.

“IISHttp VirtualDir Setting Data” data class

Fields:

  • Content Location
  • Default Document Enabled
  • Default Document Name
  • Script Source Access Enabled
  • Access Read Enabled
  • Access Write Enabled
  • Directory Browsing Enabled
  • SSL Access Enabled
  • Content Expiration Enabled
  • Content Expiration Setting
  • Log Enabled
  • Execute Permission

“IIS Http Host Setting Data” data class

Fields:

  • Content Location
  • Default Document Enabled
  • Default Document Name
  • Script Source Access Enabled
  • Access Read Enabled
  • Access Write Enabled
  • Directory Browsing Enabled
  • SSL Access Enabled
  • Content Expiration Enabled
  • Content Expiration Setting
  • Log Enabled
  • Execute Permission

“IIS Http Server Setting Data” data class

Fields:

  • Central Binary Logging Enabled
  • Rapid Fail Protection Interval
  • Rapid Fail Protection Max Crashes
Prerequisite for gathering the inventory of “Exchange Mailboxes” data class
On a freshly installed operating system, before executing a Server Inventory Standalone Package or a Server Inventory task for gathering Microsoft Exchange Server data classes, you must explicitly install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86); otherwise, the inventory for the data class “Exchange Mailboxes” will not be gathered.

The Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) installs runtime components of Visual C++ Libraries required to run the applications that uses these runtime components. Server Inventory plug-in depends upon these libraries and runtime components.

The package can be freely downloaded from the link

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=200b2fd9-ae1a-4a14-984d-389c36f85647&displaylang=en

WIN:SQL Server Clustering MSCS Configuration:

The “Max Number of Nodes” field from “Inv Srv Cluster” dataclass are not be reported.

WIN: Remote Access Server (RAS) Configuration:
  • Server Inventory Agent does not implement the logic for populating Device Name field of RAS Network Interface data class, so this field will not be populated in any scenarios.
  • Server Inventory Agent does not implement the logic for populating “TCP/IP Allowed” and “NetBIOS Gateway Enabled” fields of RAS Protocol data class, so these fields will not be populated in any scenarios.
Apache Web Server
  • Only a single instance of Apache server is supported.
  • Server Inventory Agent does not implement the logic for populating Host State field of Http Host data class for Apache Servers, so this field will not be populated in any scenarios with Apache Server.
  • Some modules that are compiled statically if used in tag then properties under such section are retrieved and displayed without checking the specific module condition.
  • If the value for “KeepAliveTimeout” parameter is specified in the configuration file httpd.conf of Apache Web Server then after gathering the inventory, NSE loading fails for the data class “Http Host Setting Data” on NS Server.
Exchange Server Inventory
  • On Windows 2003 Operating System, Inventory of “Exchange Mailboxes” data class are only be populated using “Logged In” user context.
  • On Windows 2000 Server Operating System, Inventory of “Exchange Mailboxes” data class are not be populated.
  • Inventory for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 is not supported.
SQL Server Inventory
  • “License Type” and “Number of License” fields would not be populated in the SQL Server License data class.
  • Inventory of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is not supported.
  • Inventory for 64-bit installations of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005 is not supported.
Oracle
Server Inventory Agent does not implement the logic for populating the following fields:
  • “Block Size” field of “Oracle Database” data class
  • “Block Size” and “File System Size” fields of “Database Storage Area” data class for Oracle 9i
  • “Users High Watermark” field of “Oracle Database Service” data class
On Microsoft Windows Server 2008, the following data classes are not reported, or if reported, do not contain the inventory for Oracle.
  • Oracle Database Service
  • Database System
  • Database Service
  • Associate Database System to Service
“ContentExpirationEnabled” error
Sometimes the “ContentExpirationSetting” field from “Inv Srv IISHttpVirtualDirSettingData” and “Inv Srv IISHttpHostSettingdata” dataclasses shows some value even if “ContentExpirationEnabled” is false.
MySQL
  • Connection to mySQL database using Socket (e.g. –socket=) in the connection parameters is not supported.
  • Server Inventory Agent does not implement the logic for populating “Connection Limit” field of “Database Service” data class.
  • Inventory of installations of multiple instances of mySQL server on a computer is not supported. If multiple instances are installed, the inventory for the first instance that is found would be gathered.
Database inventory
  • If you select any of kind of database inventory (for example, Oracle, mySQL or MS SQL) from the data class selection tree, Inventory will gather data for almost all the databases (Oracle, MySQL, and MS SQL) installed, irrespective of selection in the tree because most of the data classes are common among them.
  • If one has disconnected from the registered server running SQL Server through SQL Server Enterprise Manager by right-clicking on the server name and then clicking the “Disconnect” menu then after gathering the inventory, then “Operational Status” property of the “Database Service” data class, indicating the disconnected status would not be reported.
Components data class
  • Inventory of "Connection Point Services" is not being reported in "Component" data class on Windows Server 2008.
  • On Microsoft Windows Server 2008 64-bit operating system, “Status Enabled” field is not being reported correctly.
Standalone Inventory
If a Standalone inventory package or Inventory task for gathering server data classes is run on client operating systems (for example, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP, and so on) the results are undefined.
Running an Inventory task in a “Specified User” context on a Domain Controller (DC) machine fails
Running an Inventory task in a “Specified User” context on a Domain Controller (DC) machine fails. To workaround this problem, please execute the Inventory Task in a “System” user context or in a “Logged In” user context.
Server Inventory Plug-in for Windows platforms
Server Inventory Plug-in for Windows platforms doesn’t install to a non-default location on target computers.

The default location refers to %ProgramFiles%\Altiris. If you have installed the Altiris Agent at a path other than this and roll out the policy to install Inventory Plug-in for Windows, it does not get installed in the folder where the Altiris Agent was installed; instead, it gets installed at %ProgramFiles%\Altiris.


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