Novell Documentation: ZENworks Linux Management

Machines

For a conceptual discussion of channels, packages, and patches, see the following topics:

The following tasks contain information on performing common machine operations:

Adding a Machine

Before you can work with a machine, the machine must activate to your ZENworks Linux Management server. See Activations: Granting Client Access for details.

After a machine has activated, you can edit it in any way you see fit, provided that you have the appropriate permissions. For example, if the machine dev1.company.com used a key to activate and join the group "Developers," you can still add it to the "Workstations" group without sending another key. It does not matter whether it registered using an invitation, a multi-use key, or whether it contacted the server and requested activation using the organization ID token.

Viewing Machines

Click the Machines link in the ZENworks Linux Management Web interface.
Use the search tools to find machines. If you want to view all machines, submit an empty search. You can view any machine that has activated to your server, given you have the necessary permissions.

Deleting a Machine

A deleted machine is not able to perform updates, but it re-appears in the list of machines if it contacts the server again and presents a valid activation key or organization ID token.

Managing Client Machines

The list of client machines shows one row per machine, with the machine's alias, hostname, description, and time of last contact. To edit the settings for an individual machine, click the machine name in the left-most column, just as you would for a group, channel, or administrator. This brings you to a detailed view/edit screen for that machine.

The date of last contact for each machine is color coded: a green background indicates that the machine last contacted the server some time in the past 24 hours; orange indicates contact in the last week, and red indicates that the machine has not contacted the server in at least seven days.

Click on a machine name to get more detailed information about it. There are five tabs in the detailed machine information page: Basic, Permissions, Hardware, Software, and Settings.

Tab	Description
Basic	View and edit the e-mail address, host, and alias associated with the machine.
Permissions	View and edit group membership, channel access, administration privileges, and notification addresses.
Hardware	View a hardware profile for the machine in question. You can use the hardware information to do things like ship video drivers appropriate to the video cards in each machine. Hardware information is updated whenever rcd restarts, and when you use the rug sa command to add a service. If you add new hardware to a system, it is be reflected at the next daemon restart.
Software	View the packages in installed on a machine, regardless of whether they were installed by ZENworks Linux Management.
Settings	The Settings tab lets you change the same client preferences you can set by using the rug setcommand or editing the /etc/ximian/rcd.conf file. Below the main settings list is the list of users authorized to run the rug or red-carpet applications on the machine. Accounts created on the settings page are rcd accounts only, not actual login accounts.
System	Displays information about transactions that the machine has conducted: Pending actions since: If there are overdue transactions, this is the date when they should have run. If there are no overdue transactions, this is blank. Number of pending actions: The number of transactions that the machine has scheduled in the future. Transactions in the last 24 hours: number of transactions attempted in the last 24 hours. Failed transactions: Total number of failed transactions.

Managing the Current Machine Set

Before you work with the machine set, you must add machines to it. You can do that in several ways:

Visit a group and add all machines in the group to the current set by clicking the Add Group to Set link in the far upper right of the page.
Add one machine at a time from the Machines page, by checking the boxes in the In Current Set column and clicking the Update Set button.
When editing an individual machine, click the Add Machine to Set link in the far upper right of the page.

You can remove machines from the set in the machine list page or in the machine set Members tab, by unchecking the boxes in the In Current Set column and clicking the Update Set button.

Once you have added the necessary machines to the current machine set, you can work with the set as though it were a single machine. The machine set page has four tabs:

Tab	Description
Members	Displays the machines currently in the set. You can remove machines from the set here.
Permissions	This is identical to a single machine's Permissions page, except that changes made here apply to all machines in the set.
Settings	This is identical to a single machine's Settings page, except that changes made here apply to all machines in the set.
Compare	Displays a table of software differences between machines in the set.