Configuring services

Many of the most integral and fundamental functions provided by LANDesk components, such as the inventory server and the scheduler service, can and should be configured in order to optimize performance in your particular network environment. Do this by using the Configure LANDesk Software Services applet that you can launch from the LANDesk Start menu program group (or from the management console, click Configure > Services).

NOTE: Configuring services is restricted to only LANDesk Administrators
Only a user with the LANDesk Administrator right can modify service settings. Also, the Configure services option is available only from the main console, not from any additional consoles you may have set up.

Read this chapter to learn about:

Selecting a core server and database

Before configuring a service, use the General tab to specify the core server and database you want to configure the service for.

NOTE: Any service configuration changes you make for a core server and database will not take effect until you restart the service on that core server.

About the General tab

Use this tab to select the core server and database you want to configure a specific service for. Then, select any other service tab and specify the settings for that service.

When specifying usernames and passwords to a database, the username and the password may not contain an apostrophe ('), a semicolon (;) or an equals sign (=).

Configuring the Inventory service

Use the Inventory tab to configure the Inventory service for the core server and database you selected using the General tab.

If you need to restart the Inventory service on a clustered core, you'll need to do it through the Windows Service Control Manager. The Restart services button in the LANDesk Software Services Inventory tab can't restart the Inventory service on a clustered core.

About the Inventory tab

Use this tab to specify the following inventory options:

About the Unknown inventory items dialog

The Unknown inventory items dialog box (Configure > Services > Inventory tab > Unknown items button) lets you control what new items are added to the inventory database. When the inventory scan runs, it can find objects that are not identified in the database. Because there can be corrupt data or other issues on a managed device, you may not want the new data to be added to the database. This dialog box lists all items that have been found and gives you the option to add the new items to the database, delete them, or block them from ever being added to the database.

About the Software scan settings dialog box

Use this dialog box (Configure > Services > Inventory tab > Software button) to configure the frequency of software scans. A device's hardware is scanned each time the inventory scanner is run on the device, but the device's software is scanned only at the interval you specify here.

Configuring what inventory scan attributes get stored in the database

The inventory scanner looks for hundreds of inventory items. If you don't need all of this scan information in your database, you can speed up scan insertion time and reduce your database size by limiting the number of scan attributes that get stored in the database. When you do this, managed devices still submit complete inventory scans, but the core server's inventory service only stores the attributes you specify in the database.

By default, the inventory service inserts all scan attributes into the database. Any attribute filtering changes you make won't affect data that is already in the database. To limit what data gets stored, follow the steps below.

To set up inventory scan data filtering
  1. Click Configure > Services > Inventory tab > Attributes button.
  2. Attributes in the Selected attributes column on the right get inserted into the database. Move the attributes you don't want in the database to the Available attributes column on the left. When you have finished, click OK.
  3. Restart the inventory service by clicking Restart on the Inventory tab.
  4. Click OK.

Resolving duplicate device records in the database

In some environments OS imaging is used regularly and frequently to set up devices. Because of this, the possibility of duplicate device IDs among devices is increased. You can avoid this problem by specifying other device attributes that, combined with the device ID, create a unique identifier for your devices. Examples of these other attributes include device name, domain name, BIOS, bus, coprocessor, and so on.

The duplicate ID feature lets you select device attributes that can be used to uniquely identify the device. You specify what these attributes are and how many of them must be missed before the device is designated as a duplicate of another device. If the inventory scanner detects a duplicate device, it writes an event in the applications event log to indicate the device ID of the duplicate device.

In addition to duplicate device IDs, you may also have duplicate device names or MAC addresses that have accumulated in the database. If you're experiencing persistent duplicate device problems (and you want to prevent future duplicate device records being scanned into your database), you can also specify that any duplicate device names currently residing in the database are removed. This supplementary duplicate device handling feature is included as part of the procedure below.

To set up duplicate device handling
  1. Click Configure > Services > Inventory > Device IDs.
  2. Select attributes from the Attributes list that you want to use to uniquely identify a device, and then click the >> button to add the attribute to the Identity Attributes list. You can add as many attributes as you like.
  3. Select the number of identity attributes (and hardware attributes) that a device must fail to match before it's designated as a duplicate of another device.
  4. If you want the inventory scanner to reject duplicate device IDs, select the Reject duplicate identities check box.
  5. Click OK to save your settings and return to the Configure Inventory dialog.
  6. (Optional) If you also want to resolve duplicate devices by name and/or address, click Devices to open the Duplicate Devices dialog box, where you can specify the conditions when duplicate devices are removed, such as when device names match, MAC addresses match, or both match.

About the Duplicate Device ID dialog

Use this dialog (click Configure > Services > Inventory tab > Device IDs button) to set up duplicate device ID handling.

About the Duplicate Devices dialog

Use this dialog (click Configure > Services > Inventory tab > Devices button) to specify the name and/or address conditions when duplicate devices are removed from the database. When you have one of the remove duplicate options checked, duplicates are allowed in the database, but they are removed the next time database maintenance happens.

Configuring the scheduler service

Use the Scheduler tab to configure the scheduler service ( Tools > Distribution > Scheduled tasks) for the core server and database you selected using the General tab.

You must have the appropriate rights to perform these tasks, including full administrator privileges to the Windows devices on the network, allowing them to receive package distributions from the core server. You can specify multiple login credentials to use on devices by clicking Change login.

One additional setting you can configure manually is the Scheduled task window's refresh rate. By default, every two minutes the Scheduled tasks window checks the core database to determine if any of the visible items have been updated. If you want to change the refresh rate, navigate to this key in the registry:

Set "TaskRefreshIntervalSeconds" to the number of seconds between refreshes for an active task. Set "TaskAutoRefreshIntervalSeconds" to the refresh interval for the whole Scheduled task window.

About the Scheduler tab

Use this tab to see the name of the core server and the database that you selected earlier, and to specify the following scheduled task options:

About the Change login dialog box

Use the Change login dialog box (click Configure > Services > Scheduler tab) to change the default scheduler login. You can also specify alternate credentials the scheduler service should try when it needs to execute a task on unmanaged devices.

To install LANDesk agents on unmanaged devices, the scheduler service needs to be able to connect to devices with an administrative account. The default account the scheduler service uses is LocalSystem. The LocalSystem credentials generally work for devices that aren't in a domain. If devices are in a domain, you must specify a domain administrator account.

If you want to change the scheduler service login credentials, you can specify a different domain-level administrative account to use on devices. If you're managing devices across multiple domains, you can add additional credentials the scheduler service can try. If you want to use an account other than LocalSystem for the scheduler service, or if you want to provide alternate credentials, you must specify a primary scheduler service login that has core server administrative rights. Alternate credentials don't require core server administrative rights, but they must have administrative rights on devices.

The scheduler service will try the default credentials and then use each credential you've specified in the Alternate credentials list until it's successful or runs out of credentials to try. Credentials you specify are securely encrypted and stored in the core server's registry.

NOTE: Rollup core servers use the scheduler service credentials to authenticate for synchronization. On rollup cores, these scheduler service credentials must be a member of a group with console administrator privileges on the source core servers. If the credentials don't have these privileges, the rollup will fail and you'll see task handler errors in the source core server's synchronization log.

You can set these options for the default scheduler credentials:

You can set these options for additional scheduler credentials:

When adding alternate credentials, specify the following:

Configuring preferred server credentials

There is a Credentials button at the bottom of the Configure LANDesk Software services dialog box. This button launches the Preferred servers dialog box, where you can specify the preferred servers that devices will check for software distribution packages. These preferred servers offload demand on the core server and help you distribute network traffic in low-speed WAN environments where you don't want devices downloading packages from off-site servers. Preferred servers work for every delivery method except multicast. UNC package shares work with all packages. HTTP package shares only work with MSI and SWD packages.

Importing and exporting preferred server lists

You can share lists of preferred servers by exporting a list and then importing it on another core server. Lists are saved as LANDesk exported items files, with a .ldms extension.

Adding servers to the preferred servers list

You can add servers, remove them, and modify server information for the Preferred servers list.

NOTE: When controlling preferred server access through IP address ranges, note that devices within the same multicast domain share their configuration files and may use the same servers, even if some of those devices aren't in a particular preferred server's IP address range.

When you have completed the information in this dialog box, click OK to save the server information to the Preferred servers list.

To modify a server or remove it from the list, select it and click Edit > Edit selected server or Remove selected server.

Configuring the Custom jobs service

Use the Custom jobs tab to configure the custom jobs service for the core server and database you selected using the General tab. Examples of custom jobs include inventory scans, device deployments, or software distributions.

Jobs can be executed with either of two remote execution protocols, TCP or the standard LANDesk agent protocol, CBA. When you disable TCP remote execute as the remote execute protocol, custom jobs uses the standard LANDesk agent protocol by default, whether it's marked disabled or not. Also, if both TCP remote execute and standard LANDesk agent are enabled, the custom jobs service tries to use TCP remote execute first, and if it's not present, uses standard LANDesk agent remote execute.

The Custom jobs tab also enables you to choose options for device discovery. Before the custom jobs service can process a job, it needs to discover each device's current IP address. This tab allows you to configure how the service contacts devices.

About the Configure LANDesk Software Services dialog: Custom jobs tab

Use this tab to set the following custom jobs options:

Remote execute options
Distribution options
Discovery options

Configuring the Multicast service

Use the Multicast tab to configure the multicast domain representative discovery options for the core server and database you selected using the General tab.

About the Multicast tab

Use this tab to set the following multicast options:

Configuring the OS deployment service

Use the OS deployment tab to designate PXE representatives as PXE holding queues, and to configure basic PXE boot options for the core server and database you selected using the General tab.

PXE holding queues are one method of deploying OS images to PXE-enabled devices. You designate existing PXE representatives (located in the Configuration group in the network view) as PXE holding queues. For more information, see PXE-based deployment.

Select and move PXE representatives from the Available proxies list to the Holding queue proxies list.

About the OS Deployment tab

Use this tab to assign PXE holding queue proxies (representatives), and to specify the PXE boot options.

NOTE: Changes you make here to the PXE boot options will not take effect on any of your PXE representatives until you run the PXE Representative Deployment script on that representative.

Validating your OS deployment preboot environment

There is an OSD Validation button at the bottom of the Configure LANDesk Software services dialog box. Click this to open the OSD imaging environment dialog box, with which you can validate your license to use a DOS or Windows preboot environment for OS deployment.

About the OSD imaging environment dialog box

Use the OSD imaging environment dialog box to validate your license to use a DOS or Windows preboot environment. (No validation is required for using a Linux preboot environment.) License validation requirements are as follows:

To validate a DOS PE environment
  1. Click the OSD Validation button at the bottom of the Configure LANDesk Software services dialog box. (If you are using the OS deployment tool, click the Validate licenses button on the toolbar.)
  2. In the DOS imaging environment section, click Validate now.
  3. Insert a Windows NT4 server install CD in a drive. Click Browse and select the \CLIENTS\MSCLIENT\DISKS folder on the CD.
  4. Click OK. The validation process accesses files on that CD. When finished, it prompts for the next CD.
  5. When prompted, insert a Windows 98 install CD into a drive. Click Browse and select the \WIN98 folder on the CD.
  6. Click OK. The validation process will continue, and when complete, click OK.
To validate a Windows PE environment
  1. Click the OSD Validation button at the bottom of the Configure LANDesk Software services dialog box. (If you are using the OS deployment tool, click the Validate licenses button on the toolbar.)
  2. In the Windows PE imaging environment section, click Validate now.
  3. Click the link to download the WAIK. At the download dialog box, save the .iso image to a location on your core server.
  4. Burn the .iso image to a DVD, or make it accessible from your hard disk drive by using a drive emulator.
  5. Run the WAIK install from the DVD or image, using the default settings.
  6. When it is installed, return to the Windows PE imaging environment validation dialog box and click Next.
  7. Click Browse and select the location where you installed WAIK. Click OK.
  8. Click Next. The validation process will continue, and when you see the success message, click Finish.

Information about downloading and installing the WAIK is available in a LANDesk Support Community document at http://community.landesk.com/support/docs/DOC-6794.pdf.

To select a default preboot environment
  1. After you have validated the preboot environments you want to use, return to the OSD imaging environment dialog box.
  2. From the Default preboot environment list, select DOS, Linux, or Windows as your default preboot environment.
  3. Click OK.

Configuring the BMC password

Use the BMC password tab to create a password for the IPMI Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) on IPMI-enabled devices.

The password can be no longer than 15 characters and can contain only numbers 0-9 or upper/lowercase letters a-z.

Configuring OS virtualization credentials

Use the OS virtualization tab to enter default credentials for managing VMware ESX servers that are configured as virtual OS hosts. Virtual OS hosts that have been discovered are displayed in the network view in a separate Virtual OS hosts folder.