Customizing Searches for FlexNet Inventory Scanner

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

You can extensively customize the FlexNet Inventory Scanner behavior using the command line by instructing it to include or exclude any of the following:

• Folders (and optionally, their subfolders)
• Particular file extensions
• Specific filenames
• File scanning and Oracle Fusion Middleware detection
• Cloud storage drives (such as Microsoft OneDrive)
• Temp directories
• Common directories where large amounts of files are stored that are not needed to determine installed software or might lead to false positives being reported in the case of backups (logs, documentation, or backup copies of files and so on)
• IncludeDirectory and ExcludeDirectory settings—IncludeDirectory, EmbedFileContentDirectory, ExcludeDirectory and ExcludeEmbedFileContentDirectory.
• Specific MD5 digest values.
  Tip: Checking MD5 digests across all inventory can significantly extend the time required for gathering inventory on a device.

When including or excluding extensions, file names and MD5 values, there is a possibility that a file could be both included and excluded. To overcome this problem, a matching MD5 value overrides a file name, which overrides a file extension.

For example, if

• File extension exe is included
• Filename xcopy.exe is excluded
• MD5 value 123456... (the MD5 for xcopy.exe) is included

then the FlexNet Inventory Scanner includes all files with extension exe except for all versions of xcopy.exe that do not have an MD5 value 123456...

If the same directory, file extension, filename or MD5 value is explicitly included and excluded, the exclusion command takes precedence.

All such customizations are available through command-line options when you execute the FlexNet Inventory Scanner (see FlexNet Inventory Scanner Command Line). On UNIX-like platforms only, in addition to the command-line options, they may be configured in the ndtrack.ini configuration file (see Configuring ndtrack.ini for UNIX-like Platforms).