http://forum.bigfix.com BigFix User Group en http://backend.userland.com/rss http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=17074#17074 17074@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Hopefully simple noob question about stopping tasks.. Message: Well what better way to learn than to test!  Looks like the action will just remain in a "Waiting" status once the execution time passes, but it doesn't run the task.  Also looks like once the End time passes, the Action will move to "Expired" status, and the % complete would stay at 0.00%.   The computers that were assigned the task would show up as Failed because the task never run.  So I answered my own question!   :) Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:35:09 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=17073#17073 17073@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Hopefully simple noob question about stopping tasks.. Message: Hello!  I'm new to the bigFix world!  :)   I've used Altiris for several years, and now I get to learn a new tool!  So I've created a task and scheduled it to run at say, 8:00pm.  But now it's being rescheduled for next week.  I've gone to my actions, and did a right-click-> Stop Action.  So the action's state is now "Stopped".  If I double-click on my action, the computers on which it was scheduled to run are still listed as "waiting".  Does this mean that my task is still going to run on these computers, or is there something else that I need to do to prevent my task from starting when the start-time hits?  What would happen if an action was deleted, and the task was still "Open" with pending computers?   :)   Thanks for answering!  I'm sure I'll be sending more this way over time!! Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:33:00 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=17028#17028 17028@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Power profile for clients with no logged on user Message: Hey Ben,I agree with you, Windows Power Management  is quite mysterious... especially in XP. They did make some significant improvements in Windows 7. For example, you can actually run a powercfg command to see what processes are preventing the machine from going to sleep. I'm not positive that all of this will work consistently, so I've set the standby timeouts relatively high (240 minutes when someone is logged in, 45 minutes when they aren't). For this subset of machines, I'm more concerned about them going to sleep mid-lecture than putting them to sleep consistently. If the "no user" power settings don't always work, I'm not going to lose sleep over it (pun intended). Regarding the user log ons overwriting power policies, I have applied a regular power profile (via the power profile wizard) that should reapply the settings whenever a user is logged on, so I actually have two power policies applied to these machines through BigFix. Fingers crossed, I'm hoping this will work. The machines I am testing this on seem to be consistently applying their power settings based on whether or not a user is logged on. They're sleeping right now (6am), which is good. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:55:07 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=17007#17007 17007@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Power profile for clients with no logged on user Message: Hi boyd,I am not sure this will work in all cases... after having dealt with Windows power policy reg keys and strange behaviors for a few years now, I can tell you that it is quite tricky and things do not always work like you would expect. The first issue I think you will hit is that whenever a user logs in the computer, it will overwrite the power policies (HKLM and HKCU).Ben Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:40:21 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16982#16982 16982@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Power profile for clients with no logged on user Message: Ben/John,I took a shot of courage (Smirnoff and gingerale) last night and sifted through the mind-numbing relevance that's generated by the Power Profile Wizard. I discovered that the relevance that inspects user registry keys was causing the problem. For the power profile that runs when no user is logged on, this is the relevance I ripped out (yours will vary slightly): Code: ( ( if name of operating system = "Mac OS X" then "Custom" else "CLM Podiums User (x-x-x)" ) as lowercase != it as lowercase ) of ( if name of operating system = "Mac OS X" then ( if exists file "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist" then ( ( if it = 3 then "Better Performance" else ( if it = 2 then "Normal" else ( if it = 1 then "Better Energy Savings" else "Custom" ) ) ) of integer "AC Power" of dictionary "ActivePowerProfiles" of dictionary of it ) of file "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist" else "Normal" ) else ( if ( name of operating system = "WinVista" ) then ( if ( value "FriendlyName" of key ( "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\" & ( value "ActivePowerScheme" of key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\" of registry as string ) ) of registry as string ) contains "," then ( following text of last "," of preceding text of first "%00" of ( value "FriendlyName" of key ( "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\" & ( value "ActivePowerScheme" of key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\" of registry as string ) ) of registry as string ) ) else ( preceding text of first "%00" of ( value "FriendlyName" of key ( "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\" & ( value "ActivePowerScheme" of key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\" of registry as string ) ) of registry as string ) ) ) else ( ( value "name" of key ( "Control Panel\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies\" & value "CurrentPowerPolicy" of key "Control Panel\PowerCfg" of it as string ) of it as string ) of ( key ( "HKEY_USERS\" & ( name of key whose ( name of it as lowercase != ".default" AND name of it as lowercase != "s-1-5-18" AND name of it as lowercase != "s-1-5-19" AND name of it as lowercase != "s-1-5-20" AND value "Logon User Name" of key "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" of it as string as lowercase = ( if exists first "\" of ( value "Logon User Name" of key "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" of it as string ) then ( preceding text of first "\" of ( value "Logon User Name" of key "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" of it as string as lowercase ) & "\" & name of current user as string as lowercase ) else ( name of current user as string as lowercase ) ) ) of key "HKEY_USERS" of registry ) ) of registry ) ) ) ) OR I also changed  "exists current user" to "not exists current user" to prevent the profile from being applied when a user is logged on. I haven't tested this thoroughly, but it seems to work. Remember, you still need to remove the "RunAsCurrentUser" portions of the action script. I've attached the fixlet that I'm using so you can compare and contrast. You'll probably want to make your own though.As a side note, I discovered that if there are two spaces between "waithidden" and a command in actionscript, it will fail: Code:Command failed (Thread execution failed) waithidden "C:\WINDOWS\system32\powercfg.exe" /create "CLM Podiums No User (15-20-45)" Make sure that any extra spaces are removed when you get rid of the "RunAsCurrentUser" portion of the commands. Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:00:08 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16977#16977 16977@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Power profile for clients with no logged on user Message: Boyd,We need to do the same thing.  Conference Room computers and other systems being used for presentations.  Please share whatever you come up with.  Thx.John Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:38:31 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16975#16975 16975@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Power profile for clients with no logged on user Message: Hey Boyd,Windows XP power profiles are weird... Every time any user logs in, the power profile of the computer is set to the last person that logs in and it stays there (even after the user logs out). So if you set this setting when no user is logged in, it will just get reset after the next user logs in...You might do better creating an action that runs when no users are logged in that forces standby... The tricky part would be adding the 45 min timer... I suppose you can add it to the actionscript and then doublecheck after 45 min that the user is still idle, but it isn't exactly pretty...Ben Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:12:00 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16970#16970 16970@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Unmanaged assets tab Message: Thanks guys... we are looking to get a better system for remote database access for these type of server plug-ins... we are working on it and hopefully it will be released soon to save some of these types of issues...Ben Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:26:38 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16961#16961 16961@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Power profile for clients with no logged on user Message: On a subset of machines, we want to prevent the system from going into standby whenever a user is logged on. When there is no user logged on, we would like the machine to enter standby after 45 minutes. To do this, I was planning to deploy two power profiles using the power profile wizard that are applicable depending on whether or not a user is logged on. For the power profile that runs when no user is logged on, I followed the instructions here: http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?id=2337. I removed the "exists current user" relevance but the fixlet is still not applicable on machines with no user logged on. Can anyone help me get a power profile fixlet working on machines with no logged on user?Thanks Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:27:21 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16943#16943 16943@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Unmanaged assets tab Message: Thanks charicool,I had the same problem and fixed it by changing the service user for one that could access SQL.Ben maybe this should be added to the diagnostic tool: check if the BES NMAP Unmanaged Asset Importer service can access the database. Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:26:00 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16851#16851 16851@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: NMAP 5 - Any plans / Update Timerframe? Message: I haven't gotten around to scanning with plain old NMAP yet.  Hopefully by the end of the week.Sooo, we didn't realize that the NMAP 5 update required us to recreate our NMAP 4 jobs.  We thought we had bigger issues when no data was coming in after the upgrade.  Was that documented anywhere?So we recreated the jobs today and ran a test scan.  It failed with this relevance being the cause:continue if {(exists file whose (name of it starts with "nmap-" AND exists line whose (((exists key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\BigFix\EnterpriseClient\BESScanner-NMAP" whose (value "NmapVersion" of it as string as version < "4.52") of registry) AND it as lowercase contains "nmap run completed at") OR ((exists key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\BigFix\EnterpriseClient\BESScanner-NMAP" whose (value "NmapVersion" of it as string as version >= "4.52") of registry) AND it as lowercase contains "nmap done at")) of it) of folder (pathname of windows folder & "\temp\nmap"))}Here is the NMAP XML Output file from the scan point:<?xml version="1.0" ?><?xml-stylesheet href="file:///C:/Program Files (x86)/BigFix Enterprise/BES Client/BESScanner-NMAP/NMAP/nmap.xsl" type="text/xsl"?><!-- Nmap 5.00 scan initiated Thu Nov 12 14:10:34 2009 as: C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client\BESScanner-NMAP\NMAP\nmap.exe -sV -sS -sU -p T:22,T:23,T:80,T:135,T:139,T:235,T:445,T:61616,U:52311 --exclude 172.26.2.77 -O --osscan-guess -PE -PA80 -T 4 -oX C:\WINDOWS\temp\nmap\nmap-BIGFIX02-1258035033.xml 172.26.2.2-254 172.26.40.2-254 172.26.45.2-254 172.200.45.2-254 --><nmaprun scanner="nmap" args="C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client\BESScanner-NMAP\NMAP\nmap.exe -sV -sS -sU -p T:22,T:23,T:80,T:135,T:139,T:235,T:445,T:61616,U:52311 --exclude 172.26.2.77 -O --osscan-guess -PE -PA80 -T 4 -oX C:\WINDOWS\temp\nmap\nmap-BIGFIX02-1258035033.xml 172.26.2.2-254 172.26.40.2-254 172.26.45.2-254 172.200.45.2-254" start="1258053034" startstr="Thu Nov 12 14:10:34 2009" version="5.00" xmloutputversion="1.03"><scaninfo type="syn"  protocol="tcp" numservices="8" services="22-23,80,135,139,235,445,61616" /><scaninfo type="udp"  protocol="udp" numservices="1" services="52311" /><verbose level="0" /><debugging level="0" />Any ideas why this is now failing? Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:02:56 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16733#16733 16733@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: NMAP 5 - Any plans / Update Timerframe? Message: Found out today that there's a problem with upgrading. Until we can publish a fix, you should uninstall and reinstall the importer service on your bigfix server, that should fix it. Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:24:40 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16627#16627 16627@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: NMAP 5 - Any plans / Update Timerframe? Message: Can you scan the devices with a standalone nmap 5 and post the xml output? That would determine if it's NMAP or our integration at fault. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:26:16 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16621#16621 16621@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: NMAP 5 - Any plans / Update Timerframe? Message: So we've found only minimal improvement with NMAP 5 :(  Perhaps I will visit the NMAP forums and see if there is any hope for better detection.  If I get some answers, I'll post them here.BigFix, thanks for the effort in getting this update out the door. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:27:58 -0800 http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?pid=16610#16610 16610@http://forum.bigfix.com Topic: Wake from Standby question... Message: Hey guys,We have been working with a couple of customers and we think we have an interim solution to the PC Narcolepsy problem... It uses some work that was done on http://forum.sysinternals.com/forum_pos … 6&PN=3See the attached Fixlet that should help prevent PC Narcolepsy by installing a small service that simply prevents the computer from going back to sleep... Please be sure to read the Fixlet description for more information:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PC Narcolepsy refers to the problem where a computer that is woken from standby will go back into standby after a couple minutes unless it is woken with user input device (such as a mouse/keyboard). This problem occurs when you use wake-on-lan or scheduled wake-from-standby capabilities to wake up a computer when no user is present. The reason this problem occurs is due to the Windows "Unattended Idle Timer" which is not configurable in Windows XP.StayAwake is a simple tool available at satria.de that will run in the background and reset the "Unattended Idle Timer" after a computer is woken up (by wake-on-lan, wake-from-standby, or other mechanisms). The end-result is that you don't need to worry about your computers immediately falling asleep after you wake them up.You must have .NET Framework 2.0 installed for this Fixlet to be relevant (and to use the StayAwake tool). Also this Fixlet requires 32-bit XP to be relevant. StayAwake is 20kb. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Note that BigFix did not provide the stayawake.exe tool for this Fixlet so it is downloaded from the satria.de site.We have had at least one customer test and confirm that this was working, but please do extensive testing on your own systems if you wish to use it.Note that BigFix is looking into including this functionality into the base product (so you don't need to download another tool) for a future power management release.Please post your experiences if you try this out.Thanks,Ben Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:04:37 -0800