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In ZENworks Asset Management, there are several ways to troubleshoot connectivity problems.

A fairly common problem that comes up is firewalls blocking the client talking to the server. (Although usually it is the server responding to the client that is the problem.)

A good sign of this, is when the Web Client shows the name of the client machine with the problem, but does not seem to gather any inventory information.

You can look in the server logs, c:\program files\Novell\Zenworks\Asset Management\logs for the ColSrv logs (collection server) and it will report by default the communication between client and server.

If you enable client logging, (edit the cps.ini file in the Asset Management client directory, and add a line Diagnostic=1, then restart the Collection Service) then you will see that the client talks to the server (which is listening on 7460) and then opens a listener for the server to respond on 7461, which is usually blocked by the intervening firewall.

Thus the server knows there is a client out there, with some info passed to it, but when it tries to contact the client to get the inventory info from the client, it cannot communicate.

So add a firewall exception allowing the client to talk out on 7460 and listen on 7461 at the very least.

Enabling diagnostics on the client will pop open a logging window until you disable diagnostics. So probably not a long-term solution.

As you apply patches to the server side, it silently pushes patches out to the clients and restarts the service, you can see this in the diagnostic screen as well, as it happens.

OPEN CALL: Do you have any other connectivity tips and suggestions to share about ZAM Connectivity? You'll earn Novell Rewards points if we publish your ideas, so don't be shy. Fire away!

Other Suggestions

• Paul Pedron
• David Brightman New
• Christopher Farkas New
• Chip Mann New

Paul Pedron

How to Turn on Diagnostic Logs at the workstation w/ZAM 7.5 Agents and below.
Note: Make sure you enable 7460 & 7461 on the local workstation firewall if used.

Log windows available:
"Collection Client Diagnostic"
"ColW32 Default Trace Window" (Only works w/ZAM 7.5)

1. On the local workstation open the C:\program files\novell\zenworks\Asset Management\Bin directory (presuming default install).
2. Open the file cps.ini
3. Enter a line at the end for Diagnostics... it varies between versions and is case sensitive.
   • For ZAM 7.5 or lower the line should read for the single log:
     Diagnostic=1
   • For ZAM 7.5 or higher the line should read for both logs ("Collection Client Diagnostic" and "ColW32 Default Trace Window"):
     Diagnostic=2
4. Then create a new text file "options.txt" in the same C:\program files\novell\zenworks\Asset Management\Bin
   In this file should be a single line, single word reading:
   Diagnostic
5. Stop ZENworks Asset Management in services.
6. Make sure CCLient.exe and CClientSvc.exe isn't running in Task Manager. If it is, terminate the processes.
7. Start the services ZENworks Asset Management in Services - this starts CClientSvc.exe and CClient.exe.
   • If ZAM 7.0 SP1 and lower, the single window will pop up showing "Collection Client Diagnostic".
   • If ZAM 7.5, two windows will pop up listing the activity "Collection Client Diagnostic" and "ColW32 Default Trace Window".

David Brightman

I've always found that to turn diagnostics on with v7 and v3.3 clients you need to ensure the Diagnostic=1 setting exists within the section [Collection Client]

Example:

Cps.ini:

[CollectionClient]

Diagnostic=1

Christopher Farkas

Good call Paul, that fixed me after a few other things.

Don't forget (I did) to check with the IPS/IDS (Intrusion Prevention/Detection) guys, mine was being blocked by them. So close to firewall stuff, but I didn't think about it until I got down and really followed the flow and what could be stopping it.

Chip Mann

Another quick way to get diagnostics rather than change the cps.ini is just run the cclient.exe with the /diagnostic paramater. It only works for the session. Also if you need to run the cclient.exe program again you must reset the diagnostic flag by running it once without the parameter and then running cclient.exe again with the /diagnostic parameter.

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.