Central Configuration systemhound 2007
From systemhoundwiki
Contents |
Overview
The Central Configuration Tool is used to control when systemhound detection programs (plugins) are run. You can also input user defined custom fields, which appear in a machine’s detailed hardware report. In addition, customisation options for some of the plugins are available.
To open the Central Configuration Tool, launch the tool directly from the filesystem.
"Program Files\systemhound\Utils\PluginConfiguration\MaintWiz.exe"
Note that you must be running under a local administration account to use the tool.
Plugin Schedules
You should not alter the plugin schedules or alter the execution frequency unless requested to do so by support. In the event that you wish all machines to send their data as soon as possible please use the ’force resend’ option detailed later.
Within the tool there are sections for each Operating System from Windows 95 to Windows Vista and within each section are the individual plugin configurations. Out of the box, systemhound is configured to run without any change to this set-up.
| Section | Description | Default frequency |
| Application Reporting | software reporting and Windows update reporting | daily |
| Custom Computer Details | user-defined custom fields retrieved from either INI file or registry locations. WMI queries (WQL) are also supported. | 7 days |
| Database Drivers | OleDB and ODBC Drivers | daily |
| System Information | Hardware reporting, BIOS reporting and network details | daily |
| Systemhound data upload | client communication to the server to check for new plugins, deliver new inventory (if available) and check for polling interval changes. | hourly |
Changing the data collection intervals
This section describes how to use the Central Configuration Tool to change the default data collection intervals for the network. This is the frequency at which each computer communicates with and passes data to the systemhound server (SHS).
There is normally no reason to alter the frequency and the default frequency set at time of deployment is the only supported configuration.
As shown in the table above the standard systemhound installation has a default polling interval for Application Reporting and System Information for each computer of 1 day and a default systemhound data upload interval of 1 hour.
The daily data collection interval means that the client signals to the SHS to upload any new data logs of hardware and software once every day. The hourly upload interval means that the client will communicate to the SHS every hour to see if any changes to any collection parameters or polling intervals have taken place. If so, the revised collection parameters/polling intervals will be passed from the SHS to the clients and updated.
It is important that the data upload interval is not too infrequent, as a weekly upload for example will mean that changes to polling intervals etc will not be updated for a week, unless the Force Resend option is used.
Audit logs will only be sent to the server if a plugin has run since the last data poll.
For each class of data on each operating system on the network, polling intervals can be defined. To change polling intervals the following procedure should be used:
1. Click on the data type within the Operating system in the left hand pane above (e.g. Windows Vista system information, see Fig 1). Then click on the data description field (e.g. Database Drivers) and then click on ’Job 0’.
2. This will then bring up the current polling interval in the Execute Task pane. Modify the polling intervals here. You can choose to execute a task by number of days, hours or minutes. You can also choose not to execute the task on certain days.
3. The new polling interval will take effect at the next data upload session. If for example an interval of 2 hours is specified for "system information" and the upload interval is one hour, then in one hour’s time the new polling interval would become effective and two hours after that the hardware inventory information would be collected.
4. All configuration changes must be saved (File/Save) before they will be released to systemhound client machines.
Note: If the Force Resend option is applied, the scheduled times for running a particular plugin are ignored. When the client next communicates with the server, it is told to run the plugin immediately, regardless of the last time it ran. For example, the default schedule for retrieving user defined data is set to 7 days. If you have an urgent need to see updated data, click on Force Resend. When the client next communicates with the server (every hour, by default), it will retrieve user defined data and at the next data upload session an hour later, it sends this data to the server. Therefore, within a maximum of two hours, you can view updated user defined data instead of waiting 7 days.
Note: data collection and upload takes place immediately after first installation, irrespective of the polling intervals. (The exception is using the Install Wizard, where you can choose not to do this). Therefore, you will be able to see a machine’s inventory data on the web reports soon after the systemhound client is installed.
Note: if a client machine is not on the network (e.g. laptops, pcs that aren’t logged in) at the designated collection time, upload will take place when it is next connected to the network. Data collection will continue to take place at the designated polling intervals; the data log file is automatically deleted when it reaches 500Kb if it has been unable to connect to the server.
Figure 1: example of the data collection interval for a class of data for a specific Operating System
Setting additional data collection schedules
Occasionally, you may wish to collect the same data at different intervals. For example, you may want a data upload interval of 1 day at the weekend but every hour during the week. Or you may want to carry out a hardware inventory once per day during the week, but every four hours at the weekend.
To do this, a new job (Job 1) should be created either via selecting New Job from the Plugin menu at the top of the screen or right clicking on current job (Job 0) or the data description.
Input the intervals for the additional schedule and then save the changes (File/Save).
To delete a schedule, select the Job and either right click and choose Delete Job, or choose this option from the Plugin menu.
Configuring Application Reporting
By default, the application (software) reporting finds software as follows:
Registry - from applications registered within the Operating System, reporting on version and product description
Add/Remove Programs - from applications that have a standard uninstall entry as shown in Add/Remove Programs within Control Panel.
Services - from installed services, reporting on version and description.
The final option that is available is to search the Program Files directory for all executables, reporting on version and product description. This option is not turned on by default. To turn this on, check the box for the relevant Operating System, and save the changes.
Note: This is not enabled by default due to the large number of executables returned from a scan of the Program Files directory, many of which are irrelevant. Enabling this will result in larger log files from the client to the server, increased network traffic and a possible impact on user machines.
For further information on customizing systemhound software reporting, please see ’Custom Software’.
User Defined Fields
User defined fields enable you to input your own information into systemhound and view this on the detailed hardware reports. This information could be anything; examples are the location or department of the pc, a serial number or asset id or anything that you wish to see in a particular machine’s hardware report. An unlimited number of fields can be defined, with the information being derived from a file or from a registry entry on each machine. WMI is also supported through the use of WQL queries enabling custom system information to be retrieved.
Figure 2: example of user defined fields. This information is viewed in the detailed hardware report for the machine
Capturing user defined information from an initialization file
For this example, you can create a file called pcinfo.txt in your WINNT folder on your Windows 2000 computers. It should have the following format, as shown below.
The INI section headings are required and enable you to structure your user defined information. The headings do not appear on the reports.
1. In the Central Configuration Tool, select the Operating System, Windows 2000 in this case.
2. Right click on Custom Field Reporting under Custom Computer Details and choose New Job.
3. In the right hand window, click on Add.
4. Select Initialisation File (selected by default).
5. Enter the details as shown in Fig 3. Environment variables such as %WINDIR%, %PROGRAMFILES%, %SYSTEMROOT% are supported or enter a specific location such as C:\WINNT\pcinfo.txt.
Note: The environment variable must be available to the systemhound scheduler service which runs under the service account. But by using ’standard’ environment variables you can write support different installation folders.
| Environment Variable | Description |
| %programfiles% | Program Files directory on local drive. |
| %systemdrive% | The system drive which windows is running from e.g. C:\ |
| %windir% | The windows folder (e.g. c:\windows) |
6. Click OK and repeat these steps for every user-defined entry you want reported.
7. Then save your configuration changes by clicking on File\Save.
8. The changes will be sent to client machines at the next upload session, and will take effect at the next scheduled data collection interval. To see the custom information, click on the detailed hardware report for an individual pc.
Note: To test this immediately, run shrefresh.exe. This exe is in Program Files\systemhound\Utils\Refresh on the systemhound server and client machine from systemhound 2007 onwards.
Note: The user defined fields support wildcards. For example if it was set to read the INI file C*.adp, it would find C1196.adp. It reads from the first match it finds.
Figure 3: inputting user defined information via an ini file
Capturing custom information using WMI
This example shows how to configure systemhound to report local user accounts on a machine through the use of WMI. Querying WMI data within systemhound is achieved through writing WQL queries. Please refer to the Microsoft developer site for more detail on WQL.
Unlike standard WQL, systemhound WQL supports environment variables. For example:
Will return all the local user accounts configured on the machine. The keyword TOP is also supported by the software to limit the rows returned – this is extremely useful to reduce the result set returned by some WQL queries. The example below will return only the first 2 fields.
Whilst developing your WQL query, you may click on ’execute query’ to test the query and view the results.
Capturing user defined information from the registry
This example shows how to configure systemhound to capture information defined within the registry, in this case whether filenames with an 8.3 format have been disabled or not.
1. In the Central Configuration Tool, select the Operating System, Windows 2000 in this case.
2. Right click on Custom Computer Details and choose New Job.
3. In the right hand window, click on Add.
4. Select Registry Entry.
5. If the registry entry we want is located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation. In the Hive drop down list, select HKLM (the hive corresponds to each of the main registry classes) and in the Key field, enter SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\. In Field, enter NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation. In the Reporting Field Name, enter a description for this custom information.
6. Click OK.
7. Repeat these steps for every registry entry you want reported. If you wish to select a default value from the registry enter a @ into the field box.
8. Then save your configuration changes by clicking on File->Save.
9. The changes will be sent to client machines at the next upload session, and will take effect at the next scheduled data collection interval. To see the custom information, click on the detailed hardware report for an individual pc.
Figure 4: inputting user defined information via a registry entry
User defined fields can also be edited and deleted (as shown below). Highlight the entry you want and select Edit or Remove. All changes must be saved to take effect.
Note: The user defined fields need to be entered for each Operating System present on your network that you want to collect information from. To copy these fields across to other Operating Systems quickly (from Windows 2000 to XP for example), save any changes to the Central Configuration, go to Program Files\systemhound\Release\Windows2000\Plugins and copy the file custinfo2.dat to Program Files\systemhound\Release\WindowsXP\Plugins.
Note: By default the polling interval for Custom Information is set to run every 7 days but you can change this to whatever suits you. If the information you are retrieving does not change very often, you may wish to leave it at 7 days.
