4.1.1. Creating a Polling Policy

To create a policy that enables polling:

1. Open the policies container.

2. Select Create an Object.

   1. Select DENS Policy from the drop-down list.

   2. Enter a unique name for the polling policy (such as Poller).

   3. Click Create.

3. Select the new policy from the Contents pane.

4. Select Edit the Data.

5. Uncheck Use DENS if it is selected, then click OK.

6. Select Add or Remove Links and Link the policy to the desired computers or containers.

7. Click Save Changes.

The computers you linked to no longer use DENS. You must now configure a polling action as described in Section 4.1.2.

4.1.2. Creating a Polling Action

To create a polling action for computers that do not use DENS:

1. Open the actions container.

2. Select Create an Object.

   1. Select Action from the drop-down list.

   2. Enter a unique name for the polling action (such as Poller).

   3. Click Create.

3. Select the new action from the Contents pane.

4. Select Edit the Action.

5. Select Poll for directory changes as the Action to Run and click OK.

6. Select Edit the Schedule and define a schedule (see Section 2.4.1.3).

7. Link the action (see Section 2.4.2) to the same computers or containers to which you linked the poller policy.

8. Click Save Changes.

4.2.1. Using the Setup Logging Wizard

The Setup Logging wizard guides you through the process of creating an gateway policy to set up logging.

1. Click Wizards->Setup Logging.

2. Follow the directions presented on the screens.

The wizard asks you to supply:

• a unique name for the gateway policy you are creating

• whether you want to log messages to an SNMP console or to an e-mail address (SMTP)

• the fully qualified host name or IP address of the SNMP console address and the Community (default is Public), or the fully qualified host name of the SMTP server and the e-mail address you want to send messages to

• the Alert Types you want to monitor

• the individual computers, computer groups, or containers that you want to link the gateway policy to

4.2.2. Manually Creating a Gateway Policy

To manually create a new gateway policy:

1. Open the policies container.

2. Select Create an Object.

   1. Select Gateway Policy from the drop-down list.

   2. Enter a name for the gateway policy (such as Standard Alerts).

   3. Click Create.

3. Select the new policy from the Contents pane.

4. Select Edit the Gateways.

5. Click Add to add a gateway.

   • To add an SMTP (e-mail) gateway, select SMTP from the drop-down list and click Add. Then enter the mail server address (a fully qualified host name; for example, mailserver.yourcompany.com) and click OK.

   • To add an SNMP (SNMP console) gateway, select SNMP from the drop-down list and click Add. Then enter the SNMP server address (the fully qualified host name or IP address) and click OK.

6. Select Edit the Gateways again, and click on the name of the gateway for which you want to set alert levels.

   • For SMTP, enter the e-mail address(es) of the accounts to receive the alerts, then click Add.

   • For SNMP, enter the community in the Community field. If no Community is entered, the default is Public. You can enter any string you want. Machines can be configured to only accept instructions from a system that passes a particular Community string, so Community can be viewed as a kind of password, but it is not encrypted.

7. Select the Alert Types (Alert Log, Error Log, and so on) that you want to be notified about.

8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for each gateway you configure and when done, click OK.

9. Select Add or Remove Links and link the policy to the desired computer or computer group.

10. Click Save Changes.

4.3.1. Performing a Software Inventory

A software inventory lists the packages (RPM, pkg, or custom) currently installed on a client system. You can use the Run Software Inventory wizard to create an action to run a software inventory, or you can manually run a software inventory.

You can customize your software inventories:

• by creating a different schedule for the inventory action (see Section 2.4.1.3)

• by adding constraints to the action (see Section 2.4.1.2)

• by linking to more than one computer, or to a computer group (see Section 2.4.2)

• by defining the number of inventory scans to keep (see Section 4.3.3)

4.3.2. Performing a Hardware Inventory

A hardware inventory lists packages currently installed on a client system. You can use the Run Hardware Inventory wizard to create an action to run a hardware inventory, or you can perform the procedure manually.

You can customize your hardware inventories in any of these ways:

• by creating a different schedule for the inventory action (see Section 2.4.1.3)

• by adding constraints to the action (see Section 2.4.1.2)

• by linking to more than one computer, or to a computer group (see Section 2.4.2)

• by defining the number of inventory scans to keep (seeSection 4.3.3)

4.3.3. Setting the Number of Inventories to Keep

The Inventory policies specify how many inventories to keep. For example, if the number is 7 (default), then the results of the seven most recent inventory scans are kept. Inventory scan objects are stored in the scans containers under each computer object. A scan object can be thought of as a kind of differential file comparison: it has entries for everything added or removed since the last scan.

To change the number of scans to keep:

1. Open the policies container.

2. Select Create an Object.

   1. Select Inventory Policy from the drop-down list.

   2. Enter a unique name for the policy (such as Save3HW).

   3. Click Create.

3. Select the new policy from the Contents pane.

4. Select Edit the Scans.

5. Enter the number of scans to keep and click OK.

6. Link the policy to the desired computer(s) or computer group(s) to which you have linked the associated inventory action.

7. Click Save Changes .

4.4.1. Creating a Computer Group from Inventory Results

When you perform a hardware or software inventory, the results are displayed beneath the container for the inventoried computer. The pub directory can be searched for matches on software packages and the resulting list of computers can be made into a computer group. You should run a fresh inventory on all clients before creating a computer group from inventory results.

To create a computer group from the inventory database:

1. Click Search for Computers.

2. Select an item to search for, such as a graphics adaptor or software package.

3. Enter search criteria.

   You can specify the exact criterion to search for (for example, on a hard disk partition you can specify Bootable: yes, no, or either) or use the drop-down list to select the equal sign (=), less than or equal to sign (<=), or greater than or equal to sign (>=) to further qualify your search.

4. Click Search. A list of systems matching the criteria appears.

5. Enter a unique group name, then click Create Computer Group.

6. The group is created in the container you were in when you performed the search. You can move the group to a different location if desired. (See Section 2.3.3).

When you create a group from inventory results, you do not need to link individual computers to this group. The links are created automatically.

4.4.2. Manually Creating a Computer Group

You can create a computer group based on any logical grouping you want. To manually create a computer group:

1. Select the object container in which you would like to create the computer group.

2. Select Create an Object.

   1. Click Object Type->computer group.

   2. Enter a name for the group and click Create.

   3. Click Create.

3. Select the group name from the Contents pane.

4. Select Add or Remove Links.

5. Click Add.

6. Enter a search string for the computer(s) you want to add.

7. Choose the computers you want to link to this group by selecting the checkbox to the left of each computer name.

8. Click Link.

You might construct a search string that can find all the computers you want to add at one time, or you might repeat steps 5-8 until all computers you want to add are located and linked.

4.5.1. Creating a Health Policy

You can create as many health policies as you want. As long as the policies have unique names there is no limit to the number of policies you can define.

To create a health policy:

1. Open the policies container.

2. Select Create an Object.

   1. Click Create.

   1. Select Health Policy from the drop-down list.

   2. Enter a name for the policy (such as Monitor Desktops).

3. Select the new policy from the Contents pane.

4. Select Edit the Health Monitors.

5. Click Add to add an entry.

6. Select an item from the drop-down list, then click Add. Items are described in Section 4.5.1.1.

7. Customize each entry. You need to enter:

   • any identifying information required, such as partition names or mount points

   • threshold values that cause notices (least severe), warnings (moderately severe), and alerts (most severe) to be generated

   • a name for any custom event you want generated when a particular threshold is crossed

   When done customizing the entry, click OK.

8. Repeat step 7 for as many entries as you want to add.

9. When you are finished configuring all entries, click OK.

10. Link the policy to the desired computer(s) or computer group(s).

11. Click Save Changes.

4.5.2. Creating a Health Action

After you create a health policy, you must also create an associated action to run it.

1. Open the actions container.

2. Select Create an Object.

   1. Select Action from the drop-down list.

   2. Enter a name for the action (such as Desktop Health).

   3. Click Create.

3. Select the new action from the Contents pane.

4. Select Edit the Action.

5. Select Check system health using linked Health Policies as the Action to run and click OK.

6. Select Edit the Schedule and define a schedule (see Section 2.4.1.3).

7. Link the action (see Section 2.4.2) to the same computers or containers to which you linked the health monitor policy .

8. Click Save Changes.

4.5.3. Creating a Custom Action

Custom actions can be written to perform many different types of tasks. They take the same parameters as built-in actions, such as constraints, schedules, and links, but you provide the script to be run. You can customize an action to run automatically when Health Monitor thresholds are exceeded.

To create a custom action:

1. Open the actions container.

2. Select Create an Object.

   1. Select Action from the drop-down list.

   2. Enter a name for the custom action (such as freespace).

   3. Click Create.

3. Select the new action from the Contents pane.

4. Select Edit the Action.

   1. Select Run a script as the Action to run.

   2. Enter a valid script in the Script field. For example, a script to display a message to all users on each computer the action is linked to might be:

          #!/bin/sh
      wall << EOS
      The department NFS server is going down for maintenance in 5 minutes.
      Please save your work and log off now.
      Downtime will be 1 hour.
          EOS

      Any kind of script can be entered. The first line of the file indicates what shell or interperter is to be used (for example, #! /usr/bin perl, #! /usr/bin/python, #! /bin/csh, and so on). This has to be in the first line of the file, and the # character has to be the first character in the file. If no interperter or shell is given, the Volution agent assumes it is a shell script to be executed by /bin/sh, and it inserts a #! /bin/sh at the top of the script for you. For more information about shell scripting, see the operating system documentation.

   3. Click OK.

5. Select Edit the Schedule and define a schedule (see Section 2.4.1.3).

   • If this action is independent of any custom event, select one of the time options.

   • If this action is meant to be run after a particular event, select Event and choose the event.

   • If this action is meant to be run after a custom event, select Event, select Custom Event, and enter the name of the custom event you created when configuring the health monitor policy.

6. Link the action (see Section 2.4.2) to the desired computers or containers.

7. Click Save Changes.

4.6.1. Creating a Printer Policy

You can create as many printer policies as you want. For example, you might create one policy for each group of computers that share the same printers and default printer. As long as the policies have unique names and are linked to the correct computer or computer containers, there is no limit to the number of policies you can define.

To create the policy:

1. Open the policies container.

2. Select Create an Object.

   1. Select Printer Policy from the drop-down list.

   2. Enter a name for the policy (such as SalesPrinters).

   3. Click Create.

3. Select the new profile from the Contents pane.

4. Select Edit the Data.

5. Enter information into the fields.

6. When you are finished configuring all entries, click OK.

7. Link the policy to the desired computer(s) or computer group(s).

8. Click Save Changes.

4.6.2. Creating a Printer Action

Once you create a Printer policy, you must also create an associated action to run it.

1. Open the actions container.

2. Select Create an Object. The Create Object tool appears.

   1. Select Action from the drop-down list.

   2. Enter a name for the printer action (such as UpdateSalesPrinters).

   3. Click Create.

3. Select the new action from the Contents pane.

4. Select Edit the Action.

5. Select Update printcap file using linked Printer Policies as the Action to run and click OK.

6. Select Edit the Schedule and define a schedule (see Section 2.4.1.3).

7. Link the action (see Section 2.4.2) to the same computers or containers to which you linked the Printer policy.

8. Click Save Changes.