Advanced Agent Configuration

FlexNet Manager Suite 2021 R1 (On-Premises)

By default, the FlexNet inventory agent is correctly configured when you turn on high-frequency mode for calculating sub-capacity consumption of IBM PVU and IBM VPC sub-capacity licenses (for details, look ahead Turn on High-Frequency Mode, but do not omit the intervening topics before turning on).

For special circumstances, you may wish to change the default behavior around the checking of hardware inventory, as described below. To understand those preferences, it is also helpful to know the default command line used for the FlexNet inventory agent in high-frequency mode.

Command line

The frequent hardware scanning relies on a custom command line for the installed FlexNet inventory agent. This command line cannot be altered. It uses the options shown in the following example:

ndtrack.exe -o WMI=true 
            -o Hardware=true 
            -o ManageSoftPackages=false 
            -o MSI=false 
            -o PlatformSpecificPackages=false 
            -o Software=false 
            -o TrackProductKey=false 
            -o IncludeRegistryKey= 
            -o IncludeDirectory=
            -o EmbedFileContentDirectory= 
            -o OnlyGenerateIfHardwareChanged=true 
            -o PerformSymantecSFScan=false 
            -o PerformIBMWebSphereMQScan=false 
            -o InventorySettingsPath="

Enabling uploads only on hardware change

The option OnlyGenerateIfHardwareChanged controls whether the scanned hardware inventory is uploaded only when there are changes since the last report, or always uploaded. It is set to true in the command line above to minimize network traffic for additional uploads of hardware inventory. For more information, see the preference listing in the Gathering FlexNet Inventory PDF file, available through the title page of online help.

Blocklisting irrelevant properties

The option HardwareChangesClassPropertyBlacklist identifies hardware properties that should be blocked or ignored in the check for hardware changes (that is, these values may change without triggering an upload of hardware inventory for this computer). This option has no effect if OnlyGenerateIfHardwareChanged is false.

The option has a string value made up of semi-colon-separated WMI classes. Each entry may be a simple class name, or a class name with trailing class property/properties (using a dot separator).

The option and its value may be stored in the Windows registry or, for UNIX-like platforms, in the config.ini file. It takes effect from there because it is not being overridden in the command line shown above. (For more details, see the preference listing in the Gathering FlexNet Inventory PDF file, available through the title page of online help.) If the option is not specified, the following default value is automatically used (wrapped here for readability):

Win32_OperatingSystem.FreePhysicalMemory.FreeVirtualMemory;
Win32_Processor.CurrentClockSpeed; 
Win32_Processor.CurrentClockSpeedNonWMI;
Win32_LogicalDisk.FreeSpace; 
SoftwareLicensingProduct;
MGS_OperatingSystem.LastBootUpTime.FreePhysicalMemory.FreeVirtualMemory