After posting parts 1 and 2 of this series, a few customers inquired on how to generate a similar report for Altiris 6.x environments. My quick and sarcastic response was - "upgrade to Altiris 7". Not everyone appreciated that response and I realize many are working on their respective plans to upgrade in the near future
Here is a little more insight based on Part 2 of this series along with a post from over 2 years ago that used a predecessor tool called AMTSCAN. You will note that I've included a notation at the beginning of the old article to refer back to this one.
The main items to be updated from the old article including:
Creating the Custom Inventory XML
Shown below is an updated picture with the SCS7.0 SystemDiscovery registry fields selected. Some of the key fields have been selected (Note: If you need more information on the SCS7 SystemDiscovery, see part 2 of this article series.)
Adjust Inventory Collection Script
If you are already doing custom inventory in Altiris 6, the following will be very familiar. The custom inventory and collector executables are located at .\nscap\bin\win32\x86 fileshare. Using the XML generated and stored to this direct (i.e. systemdiscovery_inv.xml), run the following commands:
aexcustinv.exe /in .\systemdiscovery_inv.xml /out systemdiscovery_inv.nsi
aexnsinvcollector.exe /hidden /url "http://NSserver/aexns/postevent" /useguid
If troubleshooting, remove the /hidden portion to confirm the data is collected at the client
Check Inventory of Client
Once the above items have been completed, open the Inventory tab for the target client in the Resource Manager.
In the example below, the custom data shows a number of insights not natively collected via Altiris 6.x (nor in Altiris 7.x)
Once the above steps are done, create a package\job to sequence the following
- Run command SCSdiscovery systemdiscovery on the client
- Collect the custom inventory
Finally, create a report in the Altiris 6 environment to see the native\custom data across your enterprise. You will be able to quickly identify a number of items such as:
In an upcoming series, I will demonstrate how to configure Intel AMT using a standalone version of Intel SCS (Setup and Configuration Service) and then integrate back into the Altiris environment. This will be shown for Altiris 6.x and 7.x environments.
The opinions expressed on this site are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or strategies of Intel Corporation or its worldwide subsidiaries
Return to Part 2