How Can I Confirm that the Agent is Running on Mac or Linux?

November 7, 2018 at 8:00 AM

How can I tell if the client is running on a Mac or Linux machine? On Windows, I look for the SnowInventoryClient service to be running.

Can I do something like ps -ef | grep -i snow, etc.?

Thanks.

Detlev Eufinger (Flexera Software)
8 years ago
Hi David, on Linux or Unix and Mac the Agent is not running constantly. it will only run on the configured schedule ! normaly 1 Day at 21 pm (crontab Job) or when you start it manually with sudo ./snowagent
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- DavidH
  8 years ago
  In the past I have used the top command to get some details about the linux agent, like here . So I guess the command you posted would work if you did it at the right moment :-) But ... following on from ‌ comment, I suppose you might be able to look in the /opt/snow/data folder and check the timestamps to see if some scans have been carried out. It's not exactly the same, but might tell you if the agent has been running recently . Just a thought in case that helps. Regards, David
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  - D&BITSMDelivery
    8 years ago
    Sure; makes sense. Thank you. I looked on my Mac, and it has no snow folder in /opt, but then you said Linux. I'll have to get one of our security guys to try looking in /opt/snow/data on a Linux machine.
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    DavidH
    8 years ago
    Interesting! I think our Macs have the agent in the same place, like this post here . Maybe you need elevated rights to see it?
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    D&BITSMDelivery
    8 years ago
    Hm. Well, I tried this [secure data removed]: [machine]:~ [userid]$ sudo cd /opt/snow Password: /usr/bin/cd: line 4: cd: /opt/snow: No such file or directory [machine]:~ [userid]$ Still looks like the directory doesn't exist. I have admin rights, but not root. Any suggestions? I can ask our desktop support folks to try it. They certainly should have root privileges.
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    DavidH
    8 years ago
    It's got to be worth trying it as root, just in case, see what results the desktop support folks get. What version of the agent do you have? We're on v5, I was wondering if you have an older version?
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    D&BITSMDelivery
    8 years ago
    Yes. Our Linux agent is 1.9, and our Mac agent is 2.3.05. We are in the process of upgrading, but that’s what we are running today.
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Community Manager (Flexera Software)
8 years ago
Hi, The mac agent uses LaunchDaemons for scheduling. In addition to checking for files in /opt/snow for Inventory 5/6 agent or /usr/bin/xClient for older clients, you can run the following command from the terminal: sudo launchctl list | grep com.snowsoftware? You should then see two or three daemons running. /Robin
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- D&BITSMDelivery
  8 years ago
  Thank you, Robin. This is what I got back: 120 0 com.snowsoftware.Metering 1335 0 com.snowsoftware.Inventory Can you help me interpret this? I assume this indicates that metering and inventory are scheduled jobs, but is there a way to get details, such as when they are scheduled to run. I'll look to see what user guide type information I can find for launchctl on the web.
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  - D&BITSMDelivery
    8 years ago
    Actually, I just figured this out. (I should know better than to get into a discussion like this first thing Monday morning!) Launch control is what gets the demons running, and the command you gave is confirming that the demons have been launched. Thanks again, and have a good day!
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How Can I Confirm that the Agent is Running on Mac or Linux?