Creating and Registering an Inventory Beacon to Upload Inventory to Flexera One
After you have downloaded and installed the FlexNet Beacon software on your beacon server by following the instructions in Downloading and Installing the FlexNet Beacon Software, you can now create an inventory beacon on this beacon server and register the “upstream” connection which allows it to upload collected inventory to IT Asset Management.
Note:If you are installing a hierarchy of inventory beacons, so that some 'child' beacons report to 'parent' beacons rather than to the central application server, you must register them top down through the hierarchy. Parent beacons must be registered before their children. As well, for a parent inventory beacon, you must choose between:
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Using an IIS web server, or the built-in simplified web server, to manage communications with downstream devices (whether inventory devices or child inventory beacons) |
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Using Windows authentication, anonymous authentication, or a local account on the parent inventory beacon to run the web service managing those communications. |
You may implement your choice of web server only after you have registered this inventory beacon.
To create an inventory beacon to upload inventory to Flexera One:
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1.
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On the beacon server, run the inventory beacon interface (for example, Start > FlexNet Beacon). |
Tip:Running the inventory beacon requires an account with administrator privileges.
By default, the interface should first display the Parent connection page. Otherwise, go to this page.
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2.
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Ensure the Enable parent connection checkbox is selected. |
This enables the controls in this page.
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3.
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Find the Beacon UID field, click Copy, and paste the copied string into a text editor. |
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5.
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After logging in, if you have access to several organizations, make sure you select the correct one in the Select an Organization section to the left of your user profile. |
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Go to the IT Assets Inventory Tasks Beacons page (Data Collection > IT Assets Inventory Tasks > Beacons). If you are a customer of both IT Asset Management and IT Visibility, you can also choose to go to Data Collection > Common Inventory Tasks > Common Beacons. |
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7.
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Click Create Beacon or Configure A Beacon. |
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8.
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Input the following information. |
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Beacon Unique ID—Paste in the Beacon UID that you copied from the FlexNet Beacon application. This is the unique ID for the beacon. |
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Name—Input a name for the beacon. This name will be used to identify this new inventory beacon in future listings. |
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Upgrade Mode—Select the upgrade mode from the following options: |
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Manual—The beacon will never be automatically upgraded. This is the default and recommended option. |
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Always upgrade to approved version—The beacon will always be automatically upgraded to the approved version. The version number of the approved version is also displayed for your information. |
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Always upgrade to latest version—The beacon will always be automatically upgraded to the latest version. |
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Use a specific version chosen for this beacon—If you select this option, a list of all available beacon versions are displayed for you to select a specific version, and the beacon will be automatically upgraded to this version. |
Note:If this is a child beacon, you cannot select the parent beacon on this page. Instead, you will need to select the parent beacon and add credentials on the beacon server.
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9.
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(Optional) If you want the beacon to be enabled right after it is created, select the Enabled checkbox. |
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10.
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Click Save to create the beacon. |
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Click Download Configuration, and in the confirmation dialog, click YES. A configuration file in the XML format will be downloaded. If you are logged into the Flexera One Platform on a separate workstation than the beacon server, you must copy the downloaded beacon configuration file to the beacon server. |
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On the beacon server, run the FlexNet Beacon application. |
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On the Parent connection page, click Import configuration. |
Important: Do not use the Download configuration button in the FlexNet Beacon application. This function will soon be deprecated and the button will be removed.
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Browse to the location of the downloaded configuration file, select it, and click Open. |
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When the configuration details are changed, the inventory beacon runs a background check on the connection, and displays the results on the page. If there are problems listed, you can address these and (if required) click Test connection to retry. |
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a.
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Check that your web browser on the inventory beacon server can still access your central application server. |
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b.
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All communications from the inventory adapter to require the HTTPS protocol. |
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c.
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If the network connection is still good, repeat the Test connection in the inventory beacon interface. If the error persists, we have established that it was not a momentary intermittent problem. |
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Validate that you did not edit the GUID in steps 2-3, and that the inventory beacon name you created contains only alphanumeric characters. If either of these problems is possible, repeat this process from step 2 to create a different configuration file, with new credentials. |
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e.
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Have a system administrator review the beacon log file located in C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Compliance\Logging to look for further information about the failure. Ask the system administrator whether there are any network settings (such as proxies) that prevent a web service accessing a website that a browser is allowed to access. |
After this registration process, your inventory beacon knows how to “phone home.” To make it operational, you must now:
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Add the downstream connections from which data is to be collected (as described in the following topics) |
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Ensure that it remains enabled. Operation of each inventory beacon can be enabled/disabled both from the beacon itself, and from Flexera One. By default it is enabled at both ends. |
This individual inventory beacon is now configured for its upstream communications. However, if this inventory beacon is typical, and either:
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Is a 'parent' inventory beacon through which others are to upload, or |
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Is to collect inventory uploaded by installed instances of Inventory Agent, or by the zero footprint inventory collection method (as defined in Gathering FlexNet Inventory) |
Then you must now choose the kind of web server to use on this inventory beacon, the kind of authentication, and the account credentials to use (if necessary). These details must be in place before you can repeat the configuration process for any child inventory beacons that are to connect here; and before any inventory files can be uploaded. For more details, see Configuring Inventory Collection.