Docker Container Discovery and Inventory

FlexNet Manager Suite version 2020 R1

In this release we have added the capability to discover and inventory Docker containers where the FlexNet inventory agent is installed on your Linux Docker host.

Containers provide a standard way to package the application's code, configurations, and dependencies into a single object while sharing an operating system installed on the server (host). Containers run as resource-isolated processes, ensuring quick, reliable, and consistent deployments, regardless of environment.

A new Container Inventory group has been added to the Discovery and Inventory menu. Here you will find the new All Containers view that displays a hierarchy of your hosts, images and containers, and includes:

• Name
• Operating system
• Last used date
• Type
• Status - for example Running, Paused and Exited (stopped).

You can inspect these properties for each image:

• Created date
• Image ID
• Repository tags
• Respository digests

By clicking on the displayed link, you can open the Container Image Properties page. All containers that have been launched from this image can be seen by selecting the Containers tab. Applications installed in an image are visible from the Applications tab, and in the same manner the associated evidence can be viewed from the Evidence tab.

Important: Applications installed in containers will not impact the consumption from any of your licenses. This functionality is planned for a future release.

Tip: The License name column displayed in the Applications table is intentionally shown empty to indicate that there is no license consumption for these applications.

A Containers tab has been added to the Inventory Device Properties page providing a summary view of each container that has been launched from your container host. You can also inspect the properties for any image, and once again view the Application, Evidence and Containers information is available for each image

Application views have also been extended with a new Containers column in all of the Applications table views. This column provides you with the total number of applications from running containers.

Note: The existing Installed column now displays the total number of installations from existing inventory and from containers.

When inspecting an applications properties, the Devices tab has also been extended with a new Containers table view that provides information for:

• Container name
• Host name
• Image ID
• Status
• Started date
• Stopped date (where applicable).

Visibility of your Docker containers is disabled by default, so please ensure that you first enable it from the Inventory Settings page, under Container scanning.

Tip: It will typically take 1-2 days for this policy change to be distributed to your FlexNet inventory agents and the new inventory ingested into FlexNet Manager Suite.

The FlexNet inventory agent has been upgraded to collect this new inventory data. You will need to ensure that your Docker hosts are running FlexNet inventory agent version v15.0.0 (2020 R1) or later. For further information, please refer to the FlexNet Inventory Agent Change Log in Flexera Product Documentation.

Note: In this release, inventory of Docker containers is limited to 64 bit editions of Linux operating systems.

Inventory from Docker containers will not be counted towards your licensed number of inventory devices.

No container information will be available when using Flexera Analytics.

Important: Docker container discovery and inventory will be restricted to the FlexNet Manager for Datacenters license in a future release. For this FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R1 release, Docker container discovery and inventory is available to all for your evaluation.