Symantec Management Platform (Notification Server)

Hey all,
   Just setting up CMS 7 in our lab environment, and trying to make sure all the needed functionality is there. One of the requirements is managing remote users who almost never VPN into the network. So, I figured we'd make the NS internet-facing, and just deploy the Agent with the public NS address.

   On an XP machine, I'm able to pull down the agent, it installs fine, the Agent Settings show that the "Altiris Server" value is correctly set to the public name, the "Computer ID" field is populated, and a Computer resource is created on NS. But, the "Configuration Changed" value remains at N/A, and the "Task Status" only shows Received request to stop running tasks.

   From what I read, the NS server really just needs port 80/443 for tasks and inventory, and our firewall isn't picking up any blocked requests on other ports. But, the documentation doesn't really mention this configuration, neither as supported nor unsupported. The only KB article I found that even mentions that "Task Status" value is 47375, and that doesn't apply.

   Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Aaron Firouz

Okay, in my impatience, I went ahead and called Altiris Support. The engineer concluded that despite setting the alternate NS name in the installation options, the Agent was still making requests to the server's internal name. He tried configuring the option manually on the server, as well as within the Agent's settings, but neither fixed the issue entirely.

Finally he concluded that the solution is to create a HOSTS file entry for the internal server name (NETBIOS and DNS), and direct it to the external IP. Once we did that, the Altiris Agent contacted the server and began receiving tasks.

The engineer said he would be creating a KB article regarding this issue, and will also place a "Feature Enhancement" request in to get this resolved in future releases. If I remember to, I'll post the KB article number once I receive it.

Thanks anyway!

Aaron Firouz

We have this configuration on our NS and are finding that it is causing a lot of network noise as the agents are now trying to get at the IP of the NS server and not using the DNS name in the host file.