Best way to add multiple Beacon Policy download (ManageSoftDL) endpoints on a Windows agent?

[anttimustonen]

Hi,

An environment I am working on has 20+ Beacons and using the bootstrap method has proven now to be slow as the agent tries to connect and forcefully download settings for each endpoint. This is not apparent when the agent is deployed with a methods like SCCM or GPO, but when installing interactively from a .bat file the installer window stays on for long time due to several download attempts to each endpoint which may take several minutes altogether before finishing.

If single "universal" package is to be used for all Windows machines what would be the best (and even better - official) method?

1) The boostrap method, which is slow but any method - but maybe there is a way to get the interactive installation speeded up:
https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Forum/FNMS-Inventory-Agent-Deployment/td-p/96439

2) The method where Beacons are added to mgssetup.ini, any caveats here?DEPLOYSERVERURL=https://yourbeacon1.com/ManageSoftDL/;https://yourbeacon2.com/ManageSoftDL/;https://yourbeacon3.com/ManageSoftDL/;

3) Adding registry entries to using an installation batch script with REG ADD command to add several andpoints? "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ManageSoftCorp\ManageSoft\Common\DownloadSettings"

4) A method that's proven unreliable/not working - but has this changed?
mgssetup.ini file with following rows for separate files:
HKLM\Software\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Common

desc0 = DownloadSettings\Bootstrap Server 2\Protocol
val0 = http
desc1 = DownloadSettings\Bootstrap Server 2\Host
val1 = test.testi.com

5) Some other unlisted method?

[erwin_lindemann]

Hi Anti,

In the 'bootstrap' (mgssetup.ini) file, you can use the following parameter:

; Wait for policy to finish before finishing
WAITFORPOLICY=0

This should prevent the agent installer from waiting for the agent policy. It should speed up the interactive installation considerably.

Would this help?

[anttimustonen]

Hi @erwin_lindemann based on my experience, the WAITFORPOLICY =1 does not exit the policy download pop-up at all if the policy download fails and I believe the default (if commented out) is . WAITFORPOLICY=0 in any case. Setting is also (officially) retired/obsolete.

1) The boostrap method:
WAITFORPOLICY has no effect. According to installation.log the download is attempted in any case from endpoints, also INSTALLMACHINEPOLICY has no effect on the hanging MSI installer screen, the policy download screen is already suppressed. Also tried adding them to MSIEXEC command line WAITFORPOLICY=NO etc. The MSI popups can be disabled by "start /min" but then user might log off thinking installation is complete while the installation is not regarded actually complete.

2) The method where Beacons are added to mgssetup.ini:
WAITFORPOLICY has no effect on the policy downloads itself. However, there is no MSI pop-up left hanging using this method in any case. INSTALLMACHINEPOLICY does work to prevent the actual download but this is not good as then we would have to rely on the depcrated BOOSTRAP schedule method to initiate the policy download sometime in the future, which is guesswork we want to avoid. Also I've noticed while the installation would seem to complete, the policy download is running in the background. At this stage if the user logs off and logs back in, the installation.logs on both under user profile and C:\windows\temp\Managesoft are not progressing, and may not progress unless machine is rebooted or the bootstrap schedule kicks in.

BR, Antti

[mfranz]

There is also a (no longer documented and probably unsupported) method from 2018 (Reference Implementation). It included ready to go policy and schedule files being included with the installer, which were then called in the MSI parameters during installation. As far as I can remember, it also included a minimal transform-based (mst) fix to make the installer not run the mgssetup.ini, but be happy with the other files provided. This had the major advantage that the agent had a schedule and was retrying regularly, even when at the time of the installation, there was no network connection to any Beacon available.

[adrian_ritz1]

Hello @mfranz ,

Yes, you are right about that package, I actively using it and is very robust.

I attached the package here, for windows there is also a short documentation on how to use it.

I deployed this package on multiple devices, where the firewall was closed or we had issues with the certificate, as soon as the networking issues where resolved the agent started to report automatically, and you can put in the package as many beacon servers you want.