Zero-Footprint: System Requirements

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

These details apply to the use of the FlexNet inventory core components installed as standard on each inventory beacon server (as part of the installation of FlexNet Beacon). In this configuration, the FlexNet inventory core components use remote execution techniques to gather inventory from separate targets (the techniques are naturally different for Windows and UNIX-like platforms, and are detailed in Zero-Footprint: Normal Operation). Therefore, there are two sets of requirements that become important in this Zero-footprint case:

• The requirements on the inventory beacon server itself
• Any impacts on the target inventory devices.

Note: At the risk of confusion, we should note that an inventory beacon can also be a managed device, a computer for which you want to collect its own inventory. This uses a separate code collection. For the remainder of this topic, we are overlooking this aspect, and focusing exclusively on the capacity of the FlexNet Beacon code installed on the inventory beacon to remotely collect inventory from other target inventory devices, excluding itself.

Supported platforms

On the inventory beacon itself, the FlexNet inventory core components impose no limits on the supported platforms. The FlexNet Beacon code (including the FlexNet inventory core components) can be installed on the following platforms:

• Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, 2022
• Windows 8, 10, 11.

For remote inventory collection in the Zero-footprint case, inventory can be gathered from the following platforms:

Windows Server 2008 R2 x64, 2012, 2012 R2, 2012 R2 SP1, 2016, 2019, 2022 Windows Server Core 2008 R2 x64, 2012, 2012 R2 Windows Server Standard (previously known as Windows Server Core) 2016, 2019 Windows 7, 8, 10, 11Note: Windows systems that can run on ARM-based devices are also supported.

• AIX 7.1 LPARs with Technology Level 5 or later, AIX 7.2
• Amazon Linux 2, 2023 (ARM64/AArch64; x86, 32-bit and 64-bit)
• CentOS 6-7.5 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 7.6-9 (x86 64-bit only)
• Debian Linux 8–11.3 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 11.5, 12.0 (x86 64-bit only)
  Note: For Debian Linux 9.4, 9.5 and 10 (both 32-bit and 64-bit), minimal installations of the OS core omit the ifconfig command. This prevents collection of the IP address and MAC address in inventory. The root user can use the following command to restore this functionality:

       apt-get install net-tools  -y

• Fedora Linux 26 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 27-38 (x86 64-bit only)
• HP-UX 11i v3 (Itanium only), vPars/nPars
• macOS 10.15.4–14 (applicable for both Intel and Apple M-series processors)
  Note: If you need to run the FlexNet Inventory Agent of version 20.1 or earlier on an Apple M-series processor ("Apple silicon"), Rosetta 2 must be installed and running. This is Apple's solution for transitioning most Intel-based applications to run on Apple silicon. There are two possible command formats for installing Rosetta 2:

  • Interactive installation that asks for agreement to the Rosetta 2 license:

    /usr/sbin/softwareupdate 
        --install-rosetta

  • Non-interactive installation:

    /usr/sbin/softwareupdate 
        --install-rosetta --agree-to-license

• Nutanix AHV hypervisor
  Note: All versions that are within their product support lifecycle and use the libvirt library are supported.
• OpenStack Ironic hypervisor
  Note: As the OpenStack Ironic hypervisor is used to provision bare metal as opposed to virtual machines, devices running under this type of hypervisor will be reported as a Computer.
• OpenSUSE Leap 42.2, 42.3 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 15-15.4 (x86 64-bit only)
• Oracle Linux 6.0–6.10 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 7.0-8.7 and 9.0-9.1 (x86 64-bit only)
• Photon OS 3.0-5.0
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.0-6.10 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 7.0-8.8 and 9.0-9.2 (x86 64-bit only)
• Rocky Linux 8, 9
• Solaris 10–11 (SPARC), Zones for versions 10–11
• Solaris 10–11.4 (x86), Zones for versions 10–11
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3, 12 SP4, 12 SP5, 15, 15 SP1, 15.2-15.5 (x86 64-bit only)
• Ubuntu 14–17.04 (x86, 32-bit and 64-bit); 17.10-23.04 (x86 64-bit only)

Linux on IBM zSystems platforms are also supported. The following Linux distributions are certified for usage on the IBM zSystems architecture. For details about supported versions on different hardware types, see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/linux-ibm-z-tested-platforms.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
• Ubuntu

Disk space requirements

On the inventory beacon itself, the FlexNet inventory core components are included in the disk space requirement for FlexNet Beacon:

• 1 GB of free disk space for each 10,000 devices from which FlexNet inventory is collected.

On target inventory devices (in the Zero-footprint process), the following are platform-specific disk space requirements:

• Windows: Where the target device is a typical workstation, in the order of 2MB; and for an Oracle server, in the order of 5MB.
• UNIX-like platforms: The downloaded code is approaching 23MB, and it then looks for an additional 16MB of working disk space in either (in priority order):
  1. The home directory of the account running the inventory (unless that directory is /)
  2. /var/tmp.
  Where this space is not available, inventory collection is not attempted.

After Zero-footprint inventory collection, the following (non-executable) files are left on the target inventory device as a potential aid to process validation or trouble-shooting, and are all replaced at the next iteration of the same process:

• An uncompressed inventory (.ndi) file is left:
  • For Windows devices, in %ProgramData%\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Tracker\ZeroTouch
  • For UNIX-like devices, when inventory collection is (as usual) run as root, in /var/tmp/flexera/tracker; or if inventory collection is run as another user, in /var/tmp/flexera.userName/tracker.
• Log files are saved on the target inventory device:
  • For Windows devices, in C:\Windows\temp\ManageSoft
  • For UNIX-like devices, when inventory collection is (as usual) run as root, in /var/tmp/flexera/log; or if inventory collection is run as another user, in /var/tmp/flexera.userName/log.

The following log file is available on the target inventory device in the Zero-footprint case:

• tracker.log — Generated by the inventory component, ndtrack

Memory requirements

On the inventory beacon itself, the memory demands in the Zero-footprint inventory collection process are negligible, and entirely covered by the standard specification for the inventory beacon of 1GB minimum RAM, 2GB or higher recommended.

On target inventory devices, the memory requirements are:

• Minimum RAM: 512 MB
• Recommended RAM: 2 GB

In general, through a cycle of inventory gathering and upload, the memory demand is in the order of 5-30 MB.

Communication protocols and ports

All ports used in Zero-footprint discovery and inventory collection are configurable to any value either through preference settings or by including the port number in URL settings.

The default ports used for discovery depend on what the inventory beacon is tasked to discover:

• ICMP is used for ping discovery of networked computers
• 135 (default) on the target device for WMI-based discovery of Hyper-V or XenDesktop (other ports depend on your configuration of WMI)
• 80 (with HTTP), 443 (with HTTPS) for VMware ESX/VCenter (default values, and of course using TCP)
• 1433 for Microsoft SQL Server (default)
• 1521, 2483 for Oracle DB (default)
• 137 for NetBIOS discovery of networked computers (default)
• 161 for SNMP discovery of networked computers (default)

The default ports for communications required for the Zero-footprint inventory case are:

• Windows: Outbound from inventory beacon to set up the service: for SMB, port 445; and for NetBIOS, port 139
• UNIX-like platforms: Outbound from inventory beacon to establish secure connection and copy the FlexNet inventory core components (in self-installing form): port 22
• Additional ports outbound from inventory beacon to an Oracle Database: ports 1521 and 2483
• Additional ports outbound from inventory beacon to a virtual machine under either ESX or VCenter: 80 and 443
• Windows and UNIX: Inbound from FlexNet inventory core components on target device: File upload using HTTP protocol: port 80
• Windows only: Inbound from FlexNet inventory core components on target device: File upload using HTTPS protocol: port 443
  Tip: File upload using HTTPS protocol is not directly supported for UNIX-like platforms in the Zero-footprint case. However, the standalone inventory agent ndtrack.sh for UNIX-like platforms supports inventory file upload using HTTPS protocol as long as SSL certificate is provided and the SSLDirectory option is specified on the command line.

  For example, the following command uses the SSLDirectory option to pass the path of the SSL certificate that is used on the UNIX-like platform to ndtrack.sh and uses the UploadLocation option to collect and upload inventory to the inventory beacon.

  ndtrack.sh -o UploadLocation="https://InventoryBeacon:port/ManageSoftRL" -o SSLDirectory="/mydir/certs/ssl"

  For more information about using ndtrack.sh, see ndtrack Command Line.

• Additional ports may be required if supporting a proxy.

Supported packages to inventory

FlexNet inventory can include data from most package technologies supported by the operating systems, and some additional third-party packaging technologies:

Platform	Supported package technologies
All platforms	InstallAnywhere (IA), InstallShield Multiplatform (ISMP), BEA/Oracle Installer (BEA), Oracle Universal Installer (OUI), IBM Installation Manager (IIM)
AIX	LPP, RPM
HP-UX	Software Distributor SD-UX Package
Linux	RPM (Red Hat, CentOS, Oracle, SuSE, Fedora, etc), DPKG (Debian, Ubuntu).
macOS	Mac Application Bundle, Mac Package Bundle
Solaris	Sys V Package (pkg), IPS
Windows	MSI, Add/Remove Programs Registry Key

However, FlexNet inventory cannot collect data from some of the less common or newer operating system technologies and many third-party technologies. Some known examples include:

• All platforms — IBM InstallStream, IBM Tivoli Netcool Installer
• macOS — Mac flat package.

System load benchmarks

The following notes reflect observed behavior on sample target inventory devices during collection of FlexNet inventory:

Task	Run duration (seconds)	CPU usage (seconds)	CPU usage (% of single core)	Memory usage	Network load
Inventory collection	13 to 240 s	5 to 130 s	10% to 50%	4 MB to 20 MB	10 KB to 200 KB per upload

Note: The above values are indicative only and can vary based on a number of factors including how much CPU is being used by other processes as the FlexNet Inventory Agent runs with the lowest priority, what settings are enabled including file scanning and Oracle Fusion Middleware detection, the number of files present on the device and whether specific IncludeDirectory and ExcludeDirectory settings have been provided.