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Endpoint Management Community Blog

Showing posts tagged with Altiris Client Management Suite
Showing posts in English
Computer Build Statistics
ianatkin | 31 May 2012 | 2 comments

Metrics, metrics, and more metrics.

I've been analysing the results from the last few months of deployments (encompasing nearly 300 machines across several departments with varying hardware) by 'binning' the deployment times got the graph below,

 

The blue diamonds are real results, the the two gaussian curves are trend-fits. The total deployment time is the cummulation of the time to,

  • Deploy the image with rdeploy
  • Run Windows mini-setup
  • Install latest patches (Flash, Adobe Reader, Java etc)
  • Install Departmental specific software (i.e. business critical software not present in the main image)
  • Install the Altiris Agent and get it's GUID
  • Domain Join

These statistics are generated from our deployment reports -a custom addition to our DS...

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May 23rd meeting CANCELLED
tbenson | 21 May 2012 | 0 comments

The May 23rd Twin Cities User Group meeting is cancelled for this week.

Sorry for the late notice!

We hope to have an event in June. Please check back for further info.

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CMDB task "Inventory to Asset Synchronization" does not sync the System Number
dodgint | 30 Apr 2012 | 2 comments

If you are using the computer BIOS field "Asset Tag" as a means to automate the Computer Asset entry for System Number you may be finding the CMDB Task "Inventory to Asset Synchronization is not updating the System Number with your Asset Tag. There is an article that is related to this issue, however it does not tell you a resolution for it.  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH44306

The problem is with the task using a Inventory Data Class that does not contain a value for the CMDB Data Class to use for System Number. There is a Inventory Data Class in the Inv_HW_Chassis.[Asset Tag] that does have the BIOS Asset Tag value, but the task does not use it. You will need to open a case to get a new Stored Procedure as a workaround or wait for the fix in a future release.

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Conficker and Weak Passwords
stebro | 26 Apr 2012 | 0 comments

Microsoft’s Security Intelligence Report Volume 12, released earlier this week discusses the continuing challenges of the Conficker worm in enterprises. Conficker came about in later 2008 and continues to plague Windows systems despite patches for the originally exploited vulnerability being available for over 3 years. Conficker continues to spread via one of two methods: exploiting weak passwords or unpatched systems and according to Microsoft’s Tim Rains, in an article by eWeek, 92% of recent infections are due to the exploit of weak passwords.

In terms of exploiting weak passwords, the Security Intelligence Report states “This type of attack uses the credentials of the logged-in user to access local or network resources, or else attacks password-protected resources using a built-...

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Problems installing the 7.1 SP2 AMS after CMS 7.1 SP2b
Ludovic Ferre | 20 Apr 2012 | 4 comments

I encountered an issue a few weeks back that was a little strange, but I didn't need to pursue it as my Windows Server 2008 VirtualBox VM Decided to die upon installing some Software Update, but yesterday a customer contacted me on the very same issue.

The problem is that you cannot install Asset Management Suite via SIM after CMS was installed. The error occurs on the InstallReadiness check named "Upgrade Required".

The readiness check is encrypted so we cannot exactly see what it is verifying and what is failing, but I have a case going to backline to check this right now.

Let's see what the error comes from, but as I answered the customer today: No, there is no incompatibility between AMS and CMS 7.1 SP2.

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Report for Internet Explorer Version - or Audit Software in General
maese.oli | 17 Apr 2012 | 0 comments

Trying to find out where is Internet Explorer report in NS 7.1 (that previously exist on Altiris 6) got this "solution":

You can use this report -->Discovery and Inventory --> Inventory --> Cross-Platform --> Software/Applications --> General Software -->  "Audit Software Search report"

To get Internet Explorer installed version you must specify:

File Name: iexplore.exe

Manufacturer: microsoft%

This "solution" can by cloned (by cloning reports) and changed, fixing Parameters; to get your custom SOFTWARE VERSION REPORT OF YOUR INSTALLED APPS.

Hope this helps the newcomers to NS 7.x version.

Thanks,
Eugenio

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Future San Diego Symantec Endpoint Management User Group Meetings
adude | 06 Apr 2012 | 0 comments

Just a heads up on the dates for the next San Diego Altiris, I mean, Endpoint Management User Group Meetings, please add to your calendars.

 

  •   Thu, May 17 @ Point Loma Nazarene
  •   Thu, Aug 16 @ Jack in the Box
  •   Thu, Nov 15 @ Jack in the Box

Meetings times are from 10 AM to 2 PM

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PS Packages Downloaded at the Root of the Agent Folder
Ludovic Ferre | 23 Mar 2012 | 0 comments

This is not a recent problem, but given I have stumbled upon it twice in the last week I thought I'd share the problem and solution with the community here, specially as the 2 cases I had were becoming critical as package distribution was not working.

So, what is the issue? Well, first packages are not synchronising between the Notification Server (6.0 SP2 R13) which is a problem - specially in the week after MS12-020 was released).

What is blocking the package delivery? Honestly I can't tell. However the common point between both cases was that the packages where delivered on the PS under the "Altiris Agent" directory, with one guid per package.

As I couldn't get the package servers to synchronised I went to a random package and removed the Package Server Download Alternate Location entry. After running a client configuration update the package server started synchronising all packages.

This was true for both customers, and is...

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Beware of Application Log Errors 2262 and Inventory Rule Management recycling on SMP 7.0
Ludovic Ferre | 16 Mar 2012 | 0 comments

I have seen what I thought was a one off problem with a secondcustomerInventory Rule Management (IRM) web-service in Patch 7.0 is a key element of the Patch cycles, as its the single point of contact for the Inventory Rule Agent to get rule xml hashes and strings.

However this single point of failure is coming under serious stress in recent times, as I have seen two live systems encountering this very same issue.

 

Important note! This problem mostly impacts the 7.0 environment as Patch Management 7.1 SP1 and upward is unaffected due to changes in the patch compliance checks (we now have the Patch Assessment Tool instead of the Inventory Rule Management).

Now what is the issue? 

In the Notification Server application logs you will find messages related to EventId 2262 [1] and the InventoryRuleManagement application pool (as you have split the pool, right?). The messages are logged...

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It's always the silly little settings that get you!
Ludovic Ferre | 07 Mar 2012 | 0 comments

So, not so long back we looked at a strange issue with my customer not being able to save large sequential Software Delivery tasks after they were modified.

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/intriguing-behaviour-editing-large-sequential-swd-task-causes-sql-connection-be-disconnected

We were back at it today, as looking down the TDS stream could not explain why the server (well, the w3wp process to be exact) initiated the disconnection to the SQL server.

We went back to the same server, and looked at the same sequential task and the same profiler trace from the 28th of February. The base idea today was that if we can't tell why it fails we should be able to find some boundaries to the failure, from the Sequential Task perspecitve (mainly via the count of entries therein). Alternatively I started scrolling down...

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