Targeted software inventory determines whether specific software is installed on managed computers. To find the software, it uses the software resource and detection rule information that is defined in the Software Catalog.
See“About targeted software inventory”on page 97.
Gathering software inventory
Running a targeted software inventory
To run a targeted software inventory
1
In the Symantec Management Console, on the Manage menu, click Policies.2
In the left pane, expand Discovery and Inventory.3
Right-click Targeted Software Inventory, and then click New > TargetedSoftware Inventory.
4
In the upper left of the right pane, click and type the following text: Type a name for this policy.Because the description does not always appear, make the name descriptive enough for other administrators to easily identify this policy.
New Targeted Software Inventory
Type a description to further identify this policy. Add description
5
In the right pane, expand the Software to inventory section, and click SelectSoftware.
6
In the Select Software dialog box, from the Available software list, select one or more software resources, add them to the Selected software list, and then click OK.7
To edit the detection rule for a software resource, under the Software toinventory section, select the software resource, and click Edit Rule.
For more information, see the topics about creating or editing inventory rules in the Symantec Management Platform User Guide.
8
On the policy page, expand the Schedule section, and define the schedule on which to check the client computers.9
On the policy page, expand the Applied to section, and select the client computers to check for the specified software resource.10
On the policy page, turn on the policy.At the upper right of the policy page, click the colored circle, and then click
On.
11
On the policy page, click Save changes.About software inventory using the
filescan.rule
file
(UNIX, Linux, and Mac only)
99 Gathering software inventory
Software inventory using thefilescan.rulefile lets you collect information
about the installed applications on your UNIX, Linux, and Mac computers. A file scan agent that is included in software inventory uses thefilescan.rule
file to detect the applications that are installed on your client computers. The
filescan.rulefile contains the data sets that represent information regarding
different applications. The file scan agent compares each data set to the actual file system data to find out whether an application is installed.
See“Running software inventory using thefilescan.rulefile”on page 101. Each data set in thefilescan.rulefile consists of two lines of data. The first line
is the application description data, and the second line is the matching criteria data. The application description data consists of the product name, the manufacturer, the version, and the description of the application. The matching criteria data includes a file name or the absolute path to the file that is part of the application, file size, and cyclic redundancy check (CRC). When the file scan agent finds this file in the specified directories, the associated product is reported as part of the inventory on that system.
A data set that represents information about an application in thefilescan.rule
file looks as follows:
product name = "Watcher" manufacturer = "Company" version = "3.24" description = ""
file = "/opt/secret/eys/watcher" size = "45698" CRC = ""
A defaultfilescan.rulefile is included in the Inventory Plug-in installation
package for each platform. It contains an example list of some common applications.
Symantec recommends that you customize the defaultfilescan.rulefile to
include the additional applications that the software inventory should report. You can also add entries for the applications that are developed in-house. After you customize thefilescan.rulefile, you can create a Quick Delivery task
to redistribute it to all UNIX, Linux, and Mac client computers.
For more information, see the topics about creating a Quick Delivery task in the
Software Management Solution User Guide.
See“About gathering software inventory”on page 89.
Gathering software inventory
About software inventory using the filescan.rule file
Running software inventory using thefilescan.rule
file
(UNIX, Linux, and Mac only)
To run the software inventory using thefilescan.rulefile, you must have the
Symantec Management Agent and the Inventory Plug-in installed on your UNIX, Linux, and Mac client computers. The Inventory Plug-in installation package includes a defaultfilescan.rulefile that contains an example list of some
common applications.
You can customize the defaultfilescan.rulefile and add the applications that
you want to be reported. You can also use the aex-filesurveyor utility to scan your UNIX, Linux, and Mac systems for executables. The output of the scan is formatted for use as afilescan.rulefile. After you create or customize afilescan.rule
file, you can distribute it to the client computers.
The file scan agent uses the settings of the Inventory task or policy to scan the directories. If you want to change the set of the directories that are scanned, you must edit the advanced settings of the Inventory task or policy. When no directories are specified, then all local drives are scanned.
See“About software inventory using thefilescan.rulefile”on page 99. To run software inventory using filescan.rule file
1
(Optional) Copy the defaultfilescan.rulefile from the client computer to the Notification Server computer and customize it.2
(Optional) To distribute the customizedfilescan.rulefile to the clientcomputers, create a Quick Delivery task in the Symantec Management
Console.
Thefilescan.rulefile should be copied to the following folder: /opt/altiris/notification/inventory/etc/
You can use the following universal path with custom installation directories:
`aex-helper info path -s INVENTORY`/etc/
For more information, see the topics about creating a Quick Delivery task in the Software Management Solution User Guide.
3
For the Inventory policy that gathers software inventory, ensure that the option File properties - manufacturer, version, size, internal name, etc. is checked.101 Gathering software inventory