Installing and Configuring the Staging Tool

FlexNet Manager Suite 2021 R1 (On-Premises)

This procedure includes many separate sub-processes to complete the setup of the HPE-UD adapter.

To install and configure the HPE-UD adapter:

1. Ensure that the account under which the adapter executable will run has read/write/execute permissions on this uCMDB_staging database. Authentication may be through Windows authentication or SQL Server authentication. Using Windows authentication, the default account is the username running the HPuCMDBStage.exe adapter. The username and password for SQL Server authentication are specified in the database connection string, which you may supply in FNMPuCMDBSettings.xml, or override with the -c option on the command line.
2. To extract information from the HPE-UD system, the HPuCMDBStage.exe tool must have the required permissions to query the HPE-UD system. You must create a user in the HPE-UD system and assign it with permission to perform the Run Legacy API and the Run Query by Definition actions. You must specify this user in the FNMPuCMDBSettings.xml file. For more information on configuring the HPE-UD system, see Configuring HPE Universal Discovery System.
3. Navigate to the fixed location on the inventory beacon where the inventory reader must find configuration files to control its uploads. Verify the existence of the following path: C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Compliance\ImportProcedures\Inventory\Reader\HP Universal Discovery.
4. Create a folder to contain the adapter executable and its configuration file. Location is not critical; a suggested path is under C:\Program Files\Flexera Software (for version 2015 and later, or for a stand-alone server that is not an inventory beacon or application server). In your chosen location, create a folder such as HPUDAdapter.
5. From the HPuCMDBStage\ folder within your unzipped archive, copy both HPuCMDBStage.exe and FNMPuCMDBSettings.xml to your newly created folder (such as C:\Program Files\Flexera Software\HPUDAdapter).
6. Open your copy of FNMPuCMDBSettings.xml in a text editor of choice, and review the self-documenting comments within that file. Modify the following values as required. Ensure that you specify the IP address of your HPE-UD server. You can use the command line options to configure HPuCMDBStage.exe. Use the '-h' option to get the list of available options.
   • Update values in the first element describing the downstream connection to the HPE-UD server, including the IP address, port, the account name and password for access. Keep a record of the account name and password for registering with HPE-UD. The default values are:

     <server protocol="http" address="10.200.20.138"
     port="8080" 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 HPuCMDBStage.exe tool. Here is an example:

     HPuCMDBStage.exe -p <password>

   • Update the second element for the connection to the staging database. The default values are:

     <database connection-string="Server=.;Database=uCMDB_Staging;Trusted_Connection=yes;"/>

   • Update the third element to configure whether, and where, the executable should save XML files of the inventory collected from HPE-UD. The default value stores any XML files below the location of the executable: <staging path="StagingData" method="stream"/> You may wish to redirect the path setting for easier access for human inspection.
   • Make sure that the user details in the <Server> section match with the user configured in the HPE-UD system.
   • Save the settings file.
7. Validate the HPE-UD adapter operation. For more information about validating the adapter, see Validating the HPE-UD Adapter.
8. 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.
   Important: It is suggested that you schedule the adapter to run at times which cannot overlap with the inventory reader uploading the results to the application server. Check the schedule for the compliance reader on the central application server, and avoid this time slot.

   By default, the inventory import (starting with the reader) is triggered around 2 am. Therefore you might consider scheduling this task for some time such as 10 pm daily. The command line for the scheduled task (assuming that you have saved your preferred settings) 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. Here is an example:

   HPuCMDBStage.exe -x <settings file>
   

This completes the configuration of the adapter executable.