Remote Control config questions

[priteshj]

Hi,

We have just setup TRC 9.1 and have some questions that we need help with(checked the guides but cannot find anything):

1. We have a target group for a specific set of users that need access to a subset of PC’s, however when these users login they can still see all the PC’s(All targets), is there an out of the box method to display only the PC’s that are in their target group on the home page or is the only solution to create custom reports and assign to their homepage?

2. When the technicians use remote control through the Java Web Start controller it shows the IP address that it is connecting to instead of the host name. Is there a way to change this so that it uses the hostname?

3. All technicians have to authenticate to the TRC server. We do not use peer to peer. In this scernario is there an alternative to the Java Web start client for the controller?

Thank you

Pritesh

[chris]

Hi Pritesh,

1. I’m afraid that the TRC server is not capable of doing a query that shows only targets that the users have access to (this would require a very complicated, recursive SQL query). However, if those users have access to targets from a single target group only, then what you do is:

1. Create a custom report that lists only the targets in that particular target group.
2. Set that custom report as the homepage for the user group.

2. No, this is not possible. TRC always uses IP addresses to make the connection to the target as it is quite common that endpoints are not registered in the DNS, so the hostnames of the endpoint does not resolve. Is there a particular reason why you are asking this?

3. Since version 9.1.2 IF0001, there is an alternative to Java Web Start. The TRC server can now invoke the locally installed controller directly, using an embedded IBM Java run-time. See http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21977145

With Kind Regards,
Chris

[priteshj]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for the detailed response.

1.1 Create a custom report that lists only the targets in that particular target group:

I did attempt this approach but couldn’t get the query right. I eventually settled on a query that selects PC names based on an IP range as the PC’s are grouped on IP ranges, which is not the ideal solution but it worked. I will relook at query to use the target group. Is there a document with schema?

2. If the Firefox proxy setting is turned off then the remote control session goes through. If we leave the proxy setting enabled then the RC session doesn’t start. So we then wanted to add the hostname* to the proxy exclusion list. But RC connects with IP address. We have so many different subnets that would need to be added to each RC operators exclusion list. But we found a work around in the Java control panel settings that seems to be working.

3. Thanks for pointing this out will definitely look at updating the server and taking advantage of this option. Is this integration just launching the control software that can be installed on operators work station or is this a new controller component?

Regards
Pritesh

[chris]

Hi Pritesh,

The new option uses the locally installed controller (trc_controller_setup.exe or ibm-trc-controller and ibm-trc-controller-jre RPM packages), but you must use the latest version of it (9.1.2 IF0002 currently).

I’m afraid there’s no documentation for the database schema, but all the tables and columns can be seen in the Edit SQL dialog.

With Kind Regards,
Chris

[iMrSkull]

Hello colleagues, I encountered a similar situation as the creator of the topic.
Regarding how to limit the displayed computers within your department.
I have 24 groups, and they don’t need to see computers that are not part of their access. The topic was created in 2016, maybe today they have made this possible? If yes, tell me how please. Thank you

[iMrSkull]

Guys here, should we wait for an answer or is it better to create a new topic like this?

[rrossi]

Hi,
there is a BigFix Idea on the ideas portal related to this topic. If not done, please vote it:
https://bigfix-ideas.hcltechsw.com/ideas/BFLCM-I-262

Regards,
Riccardo

[f.pezzotti]

In addition to the @rrossi suggestion you can take a look at this post:

Bigfix Remote Control View Rights

As stated by @JasonWalker this is indeed possible. You can restrict the permissions of one User group to a specific Target group. Of course the Target group must contains only the wanted computers. This can be achieved by creating a permission pair User Group <-> Target Group by clicking on User Group -> All User Groups -> “select a user group” -> Manage Peremissions -> “select a Target group” -> Submit. In order to enable the permission just check “Enabled” then “Submit” again. Also you need…

This is what we suggest to customers when they want to restrict the access to the Targets information. You can also create a report to list all Targets whose access is granted to a specific User group using this SQL:

SELECT DISTINCT A.HWKEY ,A.COMPUTERNAME ,B.IP_ADDRESSES ,B.LOGGED_USER ,A.MANUFACTURER ,A.MODEL ,A.SERIAL_NO ,B.LAST_UPDATE FROM ASSET.ASSET A LEFT OUTER JOIN COMMON.LIVEPOINTS B ON A.HWKEY = B.HWKEY LEFT OUTER JOIN COMMON.GROUPASSETMEMBER G ON A.HWKEY = G.HWKEY WHERE G.GAKEY IN (SELECT GAKEY FROM COMMON.GROUPASSET WHERE G.GAKEY IN ( SELECT DISTINCT A.GAKEY FROM ASSET.PERMISSIONS AS A INNER JOIN ( SELECT GROUPKEY FROM TRCDB.ASSET.USER_GROUP WHERE NAME IN ( 'User group 1' ) ) AS B ON A.GroupKEY = B.GROUPKEY )) ORDER BY A.HWKEY

Replace '‘User group 1’ with the name of your group. You can also add multiple group names separated with ‘,’.

You can follow the same instructions in the post above to set the report as home page to a specific User group and hide the ‘All Targets’ page to non-admin users.