76.6 Scanning for Workstations That Are Never Connected to Your Network

ZENworks 7 Desktop Management Inventory Scanner helps you to collect the hardware and software information for workstations that are not connected to your network even at least once.

To collect the inventory for workstations that are never connected to your network, review the following sections:

76.6.1 Prerequisites

To collect the inventory for the workstations that are never connected to your network, make sure that the following prerequisites have been met:

  • The ZENworks 7 Desktop Management Inventory Agent must be installed on the workstation

  • The workstation should have at least one valid network adapter such as Ethernet, Token Ring, or FDDI installed.

76.6.2 Collecting Inventory for Workstations That Are Not Connected to the Network

To collect the inventory for the workstations that are never connected to your network:

  1. Manually create an eDirectory workstation object for the workstation that you want to scan for.

    Enter the following commands at the console prompt of an existing inventoried workstation that is connected to the network, and has ZENworks 7 Inventory agent and the recommended version of Novell Client installed:

    zwsreg.exe -unreg

    zwsreg.exe -IMPORTWS workstation_name -IMPORTSERVER NONE

    zwsreg.exe -unreg

    For more information on how to run zwsreg.exe, see Section 9.3, Using Zwsreg.exe.

  2. Manually create the zfdscanner.ini file with the following contents on the workstation:

    [ZfDScanner]

    WorkstationTypedDN=complete_typed_workstation_DN

    TreeName=eDirectory_tree_name

    ServerName=Inventory_server_DNS_name

    WMIScan=TRUE or FALSE

    DMIScan=TRUE or FALSE

    ScheduleFullScan=a_value_between _5_and_100

    CustomHWScan=TRUE or FALSE

    CustomHWScanBinaryName=name_of_binary_.exe

    SoftwareScan=TRUE

    You must enter the values for the following parameters: WorkstationTypedDN, TreeName, and ServerName. For the remaining parameters, if you do not specify the values or if you specify invalid values, the Inventory scanner sets the following default values:

    WMIScan = TRUE

    DMIScan=TRUE

    ScheduleFullScan=5

    CustomHWScan=FALSE

    CustomHWScanBinaryName=

  3. Using ZENworks 7 Desktop Management ConsoleOne, create the following .ini files: asset.ini, zippnames.ini, ibmnames.ini, and hwrules.ini.

    1. In ConsoleOne, right-click the Workstation package, click Properties, click Policies, then select any of the suboptions: Win95-98, WinNT-2000-XP, WinNT, Win2000, or WinXP.

    2. Select the Workstation Inventory Policy, then click Properties.

    3. Click Configuration Editor tab and do the following:

      • Click the Asset Information suboption.

        Configure Asset Information and click the Export button to save the file as asset.ini in a local directory

      • Click the Zipped Names suboption.

        To configure Zipped Names with the default values, click the Default button. Click the Export button to save the file as zippnames.ini in a local directory.

      • Click the IBM Names suboption.

        To configure the IBM Names with the default values, click the Default button. Click the Export button to save the file as ibmnames.ini in a local directory.

      • Click the HW Rules suboption.

        To configure HW Rules with default values, click the Default button. Click Export to save the file as hwrules.ini in a local directory.

    4. (Optional) If you want custom hardware scan functionality, create customhwattrlist.ini.

      • In the Workstation Inventory Policy property page, click Hardware Scan tab.

        The Enable Custom Scanning check box is selected by default.

      • Click Custom Attribute Editor, then click Export.

      • Save the file as customhwattrlist.ini in a local directory.

  4. Copy the INI files created in Step 3 to the %SystemRoot%\zenworks directory on the workstation that you want to scan for.

  5. Copy generaldictionary.xml and privatedictionary.xml from zenworks_installation_drive_or_volume\zenworks\inv\server\ dictdir on the Inventory server to the %SystemRoot%\zenworks directory on the workstation that you want to scan for.

  6. Run the ZENworks 7 Desktop Management Inventory scanner on the workstation that you want to inventory. At the console prompt, enter the following command from the ZENworks Inventory installation directory:

    zfdinvscanner.exe -d zfdscanner.ini_ file_path

    HINT:If zfdscanner.ini is present in the same location where the ZENworks 7 Desktop Management Scanner is running, you need not specify the zfdscanner.ini_ file_path to run the Inventory scanner.

    The Inventory scanner generates the .str file and saves it in the %SystemRoot%\zenworks directory.

  7. Copy the .str file to the Inventory_server_installation_path\zenworks\scandir directory.

76.6.3 Limitations

You should be aware of the following limitations with collecting inventory for workstations that are never connected your network.

  • The minimal information is not reported in eDirectory for disconnected workstations.

  • If the .str file of the workstation is deleted by the Storer or the Selector, you must manually trigger a full scan on the workstation and copy the .str file to inventory_server_installation_path\zenworks\scandir.

    To trigger a full scan, delete %SystemRoot%\zenworks\hist.ini on the workstation and run the ZENworks 7 Desktop Management scanner from the command line.