Agent Configuration for Frequent Hardware Scans

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

This functionality supplements the settings in the IBM reporting and archiving settings section of the Inventory Settings page in the web interface for IT Asset Management (see IBM High-Frequency Scanning). These additional settings are configured to support frequent hardware scanning for IBM PVU licenses, and normally you do not need to make any changes here. These settings are mentioned here only for exceptional cases.

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 Gathering FlexNet Inventory.

Blocklisting irrelevant properties

The option HardwareChangesClassPropertyBlocklist 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 Gathering FlexNet Inventory.) 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