Configure Updates to Inventory Agents

Adjust the database settings that control automatic updates of deployed FlexNet Inventory Agents.

Note: Advanced inventory functionality often requires you to authorize the latest versions of FlexNet Inventory Agent.

By default, an upgrade to your central application server(s) and inventory beacon(s) does not trigger any automatic updates to the FlexNet Inventory Agents that you have deployed on target machines for local inventory collection. In fact, the upgrade mechanism for FlexNet Inventory Agent is turned off after an upgrade to the central application servers. This gives you freedom to manage the upgrade of deployed FlexNet Inventory Agents independently of the upgrade to the central application server.

Tip: This procedure applies only to FlexNet Inventory Agents installed locally on inventory targets (either through 'adoption' or third-party deployment) and collecting policy from an inventory beacon. Other scenarios are handled differently:

Copies of the FlexNet inventory core components installed on inventory beacons and used for zero footprint inventory collection are updated as part of the FlexNet Beacon self-update.
If you are using copies of the lightweight FlexNet Inventory Scanner, you need to update those copies using the same techniques by which you deployed it in the first place.
If you have used other techniques to deploy the FlexNet inventory core components to file shares or other locations of your choosing (where they are not automatically collecting policy), you need to use your preferred technique for deploying updated components.

The upgrade of deployed FlexNet Inventory Agents is controlled by settings stored in the central operations databases. For that reason, this procedure takes place on your batch server/reconciliation server (or whichever server includes that functionality, such as your processing server, or application server in smaller implementations).

Tip: The database setting grants permission (through policy) to the FlexNet Inventory Agents to perform self-upgrades (or even downgrades) to the specified version. The setting, therefore, can only be put into effect on those platforms where the FlexNet Inventory Agent includes self-update functionality, and where new versions of the FlexNet Inventory Agent are included in the operations databases after the upgrade. Currently, FlexNet Inventory Agents on Debian or Ubuntu Linux do not include self-update functionality. On these platforms, you can do any of:

Deploy new versions of FlexNet Inventory Agent manually
Use your preferred third-party deployment tool to publish updates to FlexNet Inventory Agents
Uninstall the old version(s) of FlexNet Inventory Agent, and once again target the devices for adoption through FlexNet Manager Suite.

To authorize self-update of FlexNet Inventory Agent through policy:

Log in to your batch server using the installing user account (suggestion: fnms-admin).
Depending on the actions you want to take, the account requires either read or write access to the database.
In a command window, navigate to installation-folder\DotNet\bin.
To review a list of the FlexNet Inventory Agent versions to which you may upgrade:
```
.\ConfigureSystem.exe list-agent-versions
```
Note: Managed Service Providers (MSPs) covering multiple tenants must use:
```
.\ConfigureSystem.exe list-agent-versions --tenantuid tenantIdentifier
```
This lists all versions of the FlexNet Inventory Agent that are stored in your database and available for use as upgrades to your currently deployed agents. The list is typically updated at each release of FlexNet Manager Suite. Versions are shown by their internal major-minor-update numbering (such as 12.0.0).
To identify which version of the FlexNet Inventory Agent you have currently authorized as the target version for all upgrades:
```
.\ConfigureSystem.exe current-agent-upgrade
```
Note: Managed Service Providers (MSPs) covering multiple tenants must use:
```
.\ConfigureSystem.exe current-agent-upgrade --tenantuid tenantIdentifier
```
To authorize a new version of the FlexNet Inventory Agent as the target version for all upgrades:
```
.\ConfigureSystem.exe select-agent-upgrade --version versionString
```
Note: Managed Service Providers (MSPs) covering multiple tenants must use (all on one line):
```
.\ConfigureSystem.exe select-agent-upgrade --version versionString 
                                      --tenantuid tenantIdentifier
```
Replace versionString with the same major-minor-update numbering as is displayed by the list-agent-versions action. This value must be an exact match for one of the available versions listed by list-agent-versions. If not, no action is taken. (Notice that there is no requirement for the new version to be greater than versions previously installed: you can specify an earlier version from the available list, which causes any later FlexNet Inventory Agents to downgrade to the specified earlier version.)
Tip: The same version (number) of the FlexNet Inventory Agent is normally installed across all platforms.
To halt all upgrades and downgrades of the FlexNet Inventory Agents currently deployed in your enterprise:
```
.\ConfigureSystem.exe clear-agent-upgrades
```
Note: Managed Service Providers (MSPs) covering multiple tenants must use:
```
.\ConfigureSystem.exe clear-agent-upgrades --tenantuid tenantIdentifier
```
Tip: The result is the default state after the FlexNet Manager Suite application server(s) have been upgraded.

When your new settings are saved to the central database, they are distributed to your inventory beacons at the next update, along with the installer for the currently authorized target version of the FlexNet Inventory Agent for each platform. The individual FlexNet Inventory Agents receive the setting and (if necessary) the installer when they next check in (by default, once a day), and subsequently they self-update to the specified version.

For more information about the actions available with this utility, use either of these commands:

.\ConfigureSystem.exe help
.\ConfigureSystem.exe help action-name