How to run FlexNet Manager Suite processing server on a workgroup computer

Summary

A registry setting allows operations when the processing server is not a member of an Active Directory domain.

Synopsis

This article applies only to inventory directly gathered by inventory beacons, either by

Installing the Flexera Inventory Agent on target devices (this process was previously called "adoption of managed devices"), or
Using zero-touch inventory.

Specifically, this is not relevant to the collection of inventory records from the databases of third-party inventory tools using inventory adapters.

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In a production environment, both the processing server (or application server, in a single server implementation) and the inventory beacon(s) are expected to be members of an Active Directory domain. They may be different domains, and membership is required for different reasons:

Inventory beacons can access Active Directory to upload information about sites, subnets, users and computers to the central operations database
The processing server may access Active Directory to find a default domain name when processing inventory directly collected from inventory devices.

In a demonstration or test environment:

An inventory beacon can be installed on a Workgroup computer (not a member of a domain) provided that you do not access functionality on its Active Directory tab, as you would expect.
A processing server can be configured to operate on a Workgroup computer, as documented here.

Discussion

When inventory resolvers process the uploaded software inventory for individual devices, they generally record in the operations database the domain name supplied by the inventoried device. Where the inventory record does not include a domain name, the resolvers attempt to "fill in the blank" with a default domain name. To get this default domain name, the resolvers do the following in order:

Examine a registry location for a value to use.
Try to access the Active Directory domain in which the processing server is running. If attempted, this step fails when the processing server is a Workgroup computer that is not a member of an Active Directory domain.

Note that the inventory resolvers perform this check even when the inventory record does identify a domain. Therefore, in the case where all of the following apply:

The mgsimport utility is run from the command line (so that errors are visible) (or you are running tracing)
The default domain name has not been recorded in the registry of the processing server
The processing server is not a member of an Active Directory domain

an error is displayed similar to the following:

"Processing file ndi-file-path-and-name: The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted."

Prevent errors such as those described above by recording a default domain name in the registry of the processing server for FlexNet Manager Suite, whenever this machine is not already a member of an Active Directory domain. The registry location [Registry] represents:

On 32-bit machines, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ManageSoft Corp\
On 64-bit machines, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\ManageSoft Corp\

The registry key is:

[Registry]\ManageSoft\Reporter\CurrentVersion\DefaultDomain
Value: DC=defaultName

Note that a single domain component (DC=defaultName) is sufficient. A second component (such as in DC=defaultName,DC=com) is not required. The name can be any ASCII string excluding white space, and the "DC=" prefix is mandatory.

Additional Information

This same registry setting can be used to supply a pseudo-domain name to devices that do not return a domain in inventory, such as UNIX-based machines. Where an operational system is in a stable state such that Windows devices are reporting their domains as expected, setting the registry key to a value like DC=UNIXdevice will write that value as the domain property of UNIX inventory devices that do not supply a domain name in inventory.

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