Installing and Configuring the Staging Tool

FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R2 (On-Premises)

This procedure includes some separate sub-processes to complete the set-up of the adapter executable on your staging server, and arrange for regular upload of staged data.

To install and configure the staging tool:

Install the adapter executable along with its configuration file.
1. Create a folder (suggested: ADDMAdapter) to contain the adapter executable and its configuration file.
  Location is not critical: a suggested path is under C:\Program Files\Flexera Software (this path already exists if you have chosen to use an inventory beacon as your staging server).
2. From the FnmpADDMStage\ folder within your unzipped archive, copy both FnmpADDMStage.exe and FnmpADDMSettings.xml to your newly created folder (such as C:\Program Files\Flexera Software\ADDMAdapter). Both files must be in the same folder.
Update the configuration file (at the very minimum, correct the IP address of your BMC Discovery server).
1. Open your copy of FnmpADDMSettings.xml in a text editor of choice, and review the self-documenting comments within that file.
2. BMC has changed the permission required to access the XML API. You need to grant the new API access permission (api-access group), or update group permissions to include the api-access permission for users who require access to the XML web API.
  
  Important: Existing integrations will fail if you do not add the permission.
3. Update values in the first element describing the downstream connection to the BMC Discovery server, including the IP address, the account name and password for access.
  Keep a record of the account name and password for registering with BMC Discovery (see Account Configuration). The default values are:
```
<server protocol="http" address="10.200.20.138" username="exportuser" 
password="Pa$$w0rd" timeout="3600"/>
```
  Tip: If you do not wish to record the password in the plain text configuration file, you can use a script to retrieve the password from an encrypted store, and supply it as a command-line option when starting the FnmpADDMStage.exe tool.
4. Update the second element for the connection to the staging database.
  The default values are:
```
<database connection-string="Server=.;Database=ADDM_Staging;Trusted_Connection=yes;"/>
```
  This default assumes that the database is running on this same staging server (represented with the dot character). If not, modify to suit your situation, using either of the server name or its IP address.
5. Update the third element to configure whether, and where, the executable should save XML files of the inventory collected from BMC Discovery.
  The default value stores any XML files below the location of the executable (but turns off storage anyway):
```
<staging path="." method="stream"/>
```
  You may wish to redirect the path setting for easier access for human inspection. The method parameter may have any of the values stage, staged (these are two distinct values), prestaged, or stream (for details, look back to The Adapter Executable).
6. Save your modified settings file.
Assuming that you do not wish to trigger the adapter manually every time it needs to run, start Windows Task Scheduler, and create a basic task to run the adapter.
The command line for the scheduled task (assuming that you have saved your preferred settings, as described above) is simply to invoke the executable. Any parameters not specified on the command line are taken from the settings file in the same folder as the executable.
Important: It is critical that you schedule the adapter to run at times which cannot overlap with the inventory beacon uploading the results to the central compliance server. Check the schedule for the compliance reader on the compliance server, and avoid this time slot.
By default, the inventory import is triggered around 2am. Therefore you might consider scheduling this task for some time such as 10pm daily. Remember to allow sufficient time for inventory collection from BMC Discovery, followed by extraction from the staging database, and upload to the central application server.
Select an inventory beacon with a good network connection to the server hosting your staging database, and configure data extraction and upload.
1. Log into the FlexNet Beacon interface as an administrator, and navigate to the Scheduling page.
2. Either identify, or create, a schedule appropriate for data uploads from the staging database to the central application server.
  For details about creating a schedule on the inventory beacon, see FlexNet Manager Suite Help > Inventory Beacons > Scheduling Page > Creating a Data Gathering Schedule.
3. In the navigation pane on the left, select the Inventory systems page.
4. Click New... (choosing the SQL Server option if you opened the drop-down) to open the Create SQL Source Connection dialog.
5. Add a Connection Name that is easily recognized within the first few characters (for when it is later displayed in narrow columns).
6. For Source type, choose BMC Atrium Discovery and Dependency Mapping.
7. Enter the Server name (or IP address) where the staging database is running. (If it is running on this inventory beacon, use the special value (localhost) including the parentheses.)
  Tip: If the database instance you need is not the default one on the server you identify, add the instance name, separated with a backslash character. Example:
```
(localhost)\myInstance
```
8. Choose the authentication method, and if required add the Username and Password for accessing the database.
9. Enter (or choose) the Database name.
10. Click Test Connection. For more information, see the online help for this page.

Tip: Your batch server (or, in a single-server implementation, your application server) also requires files to help the inventory reader process the data uploaded from the staging database. There are at least 10 XML files, and a reader configuration file. However, you do not need to do any set-up or configuration for these files, as they are installed as part of the standard implementation of your batch (or application) server. You can validate the existence of these files at C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Compliance\ ImportProcedures\Inventory\Reader\ on that server.

This completes the configuration of the adapter executable itself, and of the upload from the staging database to the central application server. Now we can turn our attention downstream, first to possible installations on target UNIX-based machines, and then to enhancements to BMC Discovery itself.

FlexNet Manager Suite (On-Premises)

2020 R2