Clients not registering with Altiris Recovery Solution Server
Since upgrading from 6.2 SP2 to 6.2 SP3 I've been having trouble installing and re-installing clients. The majority of installs / reinstalls go to the Lost Recovery Solution Agents group.
Having done some investigation, it appears that the Notification Server Agent is not fully registering the clients so they are not being added to the NS database and therefore the SBS table in the Recovery Solution database doesn't have a NSWrkstaGUID entry.
I've worked out that that the following command forces an entry to be added to the NS database from the client:
C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\AeXAgentUtil.exe /Server:USEUBUKAP1
After I've done this I can run a query on the NS database and see that the client now has an entry and a GUID. However, this does not affect the RS database which still has a NSWrkstaGUID of 'NULL' (At this point it's also worth pointing out I checked KB34389- not only does the query listed to find RS clients with a NSWrkstaGUID of 'NULL' return no clients when I have about 30 when looking at the contents of the actual table, even if it did work and give you the list of the clients the article still doesn't tell you what to do about it!). Anyway, in order to populate the data for the RS database I have to re-run the agent setup:
\\servername\agent\agentsetup.exe /reinstall /comp:computername /user:username /pass:password /domain:domain
This does then correctly link the RS record with the NS record for that client and remove the computer from the "Lost Recovery Solution Agents" group and into the correct "Computers where RS agent is installed" group. However, this is not an ideal solution for sorting out the 30 remote clients I have in the lost container, especially as some have very slow links.
So this leads me to 2 questions:
1. Is there another reason (other than those listed in KB34389 as none of these seem to apply) why the clients are going straight to the Lost container- even if they're brand new installs and considering that all clients have the NS Agent installed?
2. Is there an easier fix to link the NS and RS records from the server (ie, via SQL statements) rather than try and do this remotely for 30 clients?
Regards,
Jonathan
Comments
Jonathan, You could probably
Jonathan,
You could probably do this via SQL, but I don't know that it would be a supported approach. Something like this:
UPDATE SBS
SET NSWrkstaGUID = '{' + CAST(acid._ResourceGuid AS NVARCHAR(38)) + '}'
FROM [NSSERVER\INSTANCE].[Altiris].dbo.Inv_Aex_AC_Identification acid
WHERE SBS.Name = acid.Name
AND SBS.NsWrkstaGuid IS NULL
If your RS DB Is on a different SQL server than your NS DB, you'll need to fully qualify the NS server table. I'm not 100% I have that table reference correct...but it is something like that.
Thanks,
Kyle
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Workaround found
The SQL statement above didn't seem to do very much when I ran it. However, I did find a different workaround. I created a batch file in the \\servername\agent share that did the following:
Execute the notifcation agent registration:
> C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\AeXAgentUtil.exe /Server:SERVER
Stop the Altiris Recovery Solution Agent:
> net stop "Altiris Recovery Solution Agent"
Apply a registry file that contained the following key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Altiris\eXpress\Recovery Solution Agent]
"FirstStart"=dword:00000001
> regedit /s agentrepair.reg
Start the Altiris Recovery Solution Agent
> net start "Altiris Recovery Solution Agent"
I then emailed a link to the batch file to the users that were in the Lost Recovery Solution Agent group and all they needed do was click on the link. This moved the clients back into the "Computers with Recovery Agent installed to cluster SERVER" group where they could be properly managed.
---
Contents of agentrepair.reg:
---
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Altiris\eXpress\Recovery Solution Agent]
"FirstStart"=dword:00000001
---
Contents of agentrepair.cmd:
---
@echo off
echo Recovering Lost Altiris Solution Client: %COMPUTERNAME%
echo.
echo STAGE 1: UPDATE THE ALTIRIS CLIENT GUID
"C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\AeXAgentUtil.exe" /Server:SERVER
echo.
echo STAGE 2: RESET THE ALTIRIS RECOVERY SOLUTION AGENT
net stop "Altiris Recovery Solution Agent"
regedit /s \\server\agent\agentrepair.reg
net start "Altiris Recovery Solution Agent"
echo.
echo There is a small chance you will be prompted to register, if so choose existing account and select your username and computer name. Press any key when done.
pause >nul
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