Agent third-party deployment: System Requirements

FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R1 (On-Premises)

The following details apply to the full FlexNet inventory agent when deployed to a target device using third-party deployment tools/methods of your own choice.

Supported platforms

The FlexNet inventory agent operates on the following platforms (inventory targets):
Microsoft Windows UNIX-like platforms
  • Windows Server 2003 SP1 and SP2, 2008 R2 x64, 2012, 2012 R2, 2012 R2 SP1, 2016, 2019
  • Windows Server Core 2008, 2008 R2 x64, 2012, 2012 R2
  • Windows Server Standard (previously known as Windows Server Core) 2016, 2019
  • Windows Vista x64, 7 x64, 8 x64, 10 x64
  • Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10.
  • AIX 7.1 LPARs, 7.2
  • Amazon Linux 2
  • CentOS (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit): 6-7.5; (x86 64-bit only): 7.6-7.7 (lower versions); 8.0-8.1 (higher versions)
  • Debian Linux 7–10.2 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit), 10.3 (x86 64-bit only)
    Note: For Debian Linux 9.4, 9.5 and 10 (both 32-bit and 64-bit), minimal installations of the OS core omit the ifconfig command. This prevents collection of the IP address and MAC address in inventory. The root user can use the following command to restore this functionality:
         apt-get install net-tools  -y
  • Fedora Linux 25-30 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 27-31 (x86 64-bit only)
  • HP-UX 11i v3, vPars/nPars
  • macOS 10.6–10.15
  • OpenSuSE Leap 42.2, 42.3 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 15-15.1 (x86 64-bit only)
  • Oracle Linux 4.5–6.10 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 7.0-8.0 (x86 64-bit only)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit) 5.0–6.10; (x86 64-bit only) 7.0-7.8 (lower versions); 8.0-8.2 (higher versions)
  • Photon OS 3.0
  • Red Hat Linux 8–9 (x86 only)
  • Solaris 8–11 (SPARC), Zones for versions 10–11
  • Solaris 9–11.4 (x86), Zones for versions 10–11
  • SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 12 SP3, 12 SP4, 12 SP5, 15, 15 SP1 (x86 64-bit only)
  • Ubuntu 12–17.04 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 17.10-18.4.4 (x86 64-bit only).

Disk space requirements

The following table gives three disk space figures for installation of FlexNet inventory agent:
  • Package type gives the kind of installer package provided for each platform, and Package size defines the disk space to download or copy the installer for each of the platforms, before installation.
  • Installed defines the disk space for the binary files after installation. The default locations for installation are:
    • Windows: %ProgramFiles(x86)%\ManageSoft (on modern 64-bit systems, this expands to C:\Program Files (x86)\ManageSoft)
    • UNIX-like systems: /opt/managesoft
  • Workspace approximates a typical operating space requirement. The precise requirements depends on the self-update installer package size, the number of inventory files awaiting upload, usage tracking, the growth of log files, and the like. The default locations for this requirement are:
    • Windows: %ProgramData%\ManageSoft Corp for data; and %temp%\ManageSoft for log files. The default values for these on modern operating systems are typically C:\ProgramData\ManageSoft Corp and C:\Windows\Temp\ManageSoft (for the SYSTEM account running processes as Windows services).
    • UNIX-like systems: /var/opt/managesoft for working data, including /var/opt/managesoft/log for log files.
Platform Package type Package size Installed Workspace
AIX

LPP

20 MB 25 MB 100 MB
HP-UX

SD-UX

55 MB 55 MB 150 MB
Linux i386 (Red Hat, Oracle, CentOS, Fedora, SuSE)

RPM

10 MB 20 MB 100 MB
Linux x86_64 (Red Hat, Oracle, CentOS, Fedora, SuSE)

RPM

10 MB 25 MB 100 MB
macOS Mac Package Bundle 15 MB 35 MB 100 MB
Solaris SPARC

Sys V Package (pkg)

20 MB 20 MB 100 MB
Solaris x86

Sys V Package (pkg)

20 MB 20 MB 100 MB
Windows

MSI

18 MB 37 MB 100 MB
The following log files are available:
  • installation.log — Log from ndlaunch, responsible for downloading and install all packages required for FlexNet inventory agent
  • policy.log — Generated by the policy download component, mgspolicy
  • schedule.log — Log from the ndschedag schedule component
  • tracker.log — Generated by the inventory component, ndtrack
  • uploader.log — Log from the ndupload file upload component
  • usageagent.log — Generated by the mgsusageag usage tracking service.

Memory requirements

  • Minimum RAM: 512 MB
  • Recommended RAM: 2 GB
In general, through a cycle of inventory gathering and upload, the memory demand is in the order of 5-30 MB.

Communication protocols and ports

In the network layer, both IPv4 and IPv6 formats are supported for communications between an inventory beacon and components of the FlexNet inventory agent (specifically, ndtrack, ndupload and ndlaunch). (However, communications with the central application server or any component server thereof still require IPv4 across the network layer.) For more details on the architectural impacts, see Support for IPv6 Networks.

All ports used by FlexNet inventory agent are configurable to any value through preference settings, for example by including the port number in URL settings. The default values for communications supported between the FlexNet inventory agent (in the Agent third-party deployment case) and inventory beacons are:
  • File upload and download using HTTP protocol: port 80
  • File upload and download using HTTPS protocol: port 443
  • FTP file transfers (not supported by FlexNet Beacon on inventory beacons, but may be used in custom infrastructure): port 21
  • Windows direct file upload and download (UNC shares) may be used in custom infrastructure, but are not directly supported by FlexNet Beacon
  • Additional ports may be required if supporting a proxy.

Supported packages to inventory

FlexNet inventory can include data from most package technologies supported by the operating systems, and some additional third-party packaging technologies:
Platform Supported package technologies

All platforms

InstallAnywhere (IA), InstallShield Multiplatform (ISMP), BEA/Oracle Installer (BEA), Oracle Universal Installer (OUI), IBM Installation Manager (IIM)

AIX

LPP, RPM

HP-UX

Software Distributor SD-UX Package

Linux

RPM (Red Hat, CentOS, Oracle, SuSE, Fedora, etc), DPKG (Debian, Ubuntu).

macOS

Mac Application Bundle, Mac Package Bundle

Solaris

Sys V Package (pkg), IPS

Windows

MSI, Add/Remove Programs Registry Key

However, FlexNet inventory cannot collect data from some of the less common or newer operating system technologies and many third-party technologies. Some known examples include:
  • All platforms — IBM InstallStream, IBM Tivoli Netcool Installer
  • macOS — Mac flat package.

System load benchmarks

The following notes reflect observed behavior on sample systems using the full installed FlexNet inventory agent.
Task Run duration (seconds) CPU usage (seconds) CPU usage (% of single core) Memory usage Network load

Inventory collection

13 to 240 s

5 to 130 s

10% to 50%

4 MB to 20 MB

10 KB to 200 KB per upload

Usage monitoring

Ongoing

Under 1 s / day

Negligible

4 MB to 8 MB

5 KB to 20 KB / day

Policy update*

15 s to 33 s

Under 1 s per policy

Negligible

3 MB to 5 MB

10 KB to 100 KB per policy update

* For each policy update, FlexNet inventory agent downloads its current policy from its preferred inventory beacon. This links to several packages:
  • Failover settings (upload and download locations on all available inventory beacons, all of which are configured for anonymous authentication)
  • Client configuration (the preferences for use by all installed components included in the FlexNet inventory agent)
  • Schedule
  • Inventory settings and extensions (InventorySettings.xml)
  • Agent self-upgrade package.

Using each package, FlexNet inventory agent checks the last downloaded content against the version currently on the inventory beacon. When there is no change, there is no further download (so that the checking process is both rapid and lightweight for the network). Changed items are downloaded, which may increase the network load for that occasion. The largest single impact is when a new agent update package is declared: for details of the download size per platform for update packages, see the disk space listing above.

FlexNet Manager Suite (On-Premises)

2020 R1