Question
How to redirect NS6 Unix, Linux and Macintosh clients to an NS7 server.

Answer
 

1. Prior to version 7.1 of the ULM agent, a workaround needs to be applied to the NS7 server in order for redirected Unix/Linux/Macintosh clients to work with the new NS7 server. Please apply the resolution found in this kb: https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=51257&p=1. It involves copying two files from one directory on the NS7 server to another directory on that server. (Note: This workaround is not needed if the platform is upgraded with the following hotfix: https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=51432&p=1.)

2. In the NS6 console, browse to Settings, All Settings, Agents/Plug-ins, Settings, Altiris Agent Settings - Targeted, All Linux/Mac workstations, Advanced tab, "Alternate URL for accessing NS". Enter the url of the new NS7 server. Save the changes. Note that this will apply to all clients in the collection applied to this configuration policy. If you need to refine this to a smaller set of clients, e.g., for testing, you can create a new collection with those clients and clone the configuration policy and apply the new collection.

3. Ensure that the agent upgrade policy on the NS7 server is enabled.

4. Allow the clients to refresh policies or manually run aex-refreshpolicies on the client. The Linux clients should then report into the NS7 server, have a resource created on the NS7 server, refresh policies, etc. Note that once the clients redirect and refresh policies from the NS7 server, you should have a new <ns7 servername>.xml file in /opt/altiris/notification/nsagent/var/ and that running "aex-cta ts" should return the name of the NS7 task server.