Disable docker service or remove from installation

[Ronny_OO7]

Dear Flexera,

We have many customer with no docker containers, but they do get the extra service installed. Is there an installation/configuration paramater that prevents the Docker inventory service from being installed? 

I have checked the documentation but it is not listed.  Can the documentation agent components also please be updated with the docker components?

Ofcourse it would be possible to edit the MSI with Orca or other MSI edition tools. But I am looking for an default configuration/installation paramater provided by Flexera.

Thanks and Regards

Ronald 

[joshstechnij · Accepted solution]

You can either use the ADDLOCAL property when installing the agent, omitting the 'docker' feature, or use a transform to set the install level of the 'docker' feature to 0.

Using ADDLOCAL, specify the features to install. To install all features except 'docker':

msiexec.exe /I "C:\PathToMsi\FlexNet Inventory Agent.msi" ADDLOCAL="client,etc,aua,lnc,plc,sca,trk,upl,vdiendpointagent,Licensing" /qb

Note that running with full UI will modify the feature selection if a complete install is selected. Using /qb (basic UI) or /qn (silent) is recommended to avoid this.

Alternately, using an MSI editor that can create transforms, you can create a transform that is applied during installation with the TRANSFORMS property. Change the Level column of the 'docker' feature to 0 in the Feature table. This will disable the feature from being installed and prevent it from being displayed in the feature tree on the custom install dialog when running with UI.

[joshstechnij · Accepted solution]

You can either use the ADDLOCAL property when installing the agent, omitting the 'docker' feature, or use a transform to set the install level of the 'docker' feature to 0.

Using ADDLOCAL, specify the features to install. To install all features except 'docker':

msiexec.exe /I "C:\PathToMsi\FlexNet Inventory Agent.msi" ADDLOCAL="client,etc,aua,lnc,plc,sca,trk,upl,vdiendpointagent,Licensing" /qb

Note that running with full UI will modify the feature selection if a complete install is selected. Using /qb (basic UI) or /qn (silent) is recommended to avoid this.

Alternately, using an MSI editor that can create transforms, you can create a transform that is applied during installation with the TRANSFORMS property. Change the Level column of the 'docker' feature to 0 in the Feature table. This will disable the feature from being installed and prevent it from being displayed in the feature tree on the custom install dialog when running with UI.

[dennis_reinhardt]

@joshstechnij, thanks for this update. Is there any way to disable this feature afterwards (e.g. Group Policy, Registry Update, ...).

There is already an IDEA to control different agent functions afterwards in the FNMS UI. This would be another great feature if you could e.g. control the Docker services with appropriate targets

[Ronny_OO7]

Thanks Josh, this is very helpfull! Would be great if it can be controlled afterwards like Dennis is asking.

Regards

Ronald

[pm6dwnoc]

I've tested installing the agent on a system in our environment using the command line to install all features except docker. The installation succeeds and the docker component is excluded. However, because we have agent auto upgrade enabled, it seems that when the agent attempts the auto upgrade, the docker component is reinstalled. Is this expected behavior or a bug with the auto upgrade process or agent? 

[joshstechnij]

The auto upgrade process does not make any attempts to control feature selection when installing an agent upgrade. This will result in the default feature selection from the agent MSI being used (which is all features to be installed). I've submitted issue FNML-75073 to address this behavior. At this time I don't know when this might be addressed.

You can use the msiexec command lines with the REMOVE property to uninstall the docker feature after an agent is installed as outlined in this thread. Alternately, if possible, it would be recommended that third party deployment software be used to work with deploying agents in your environment, as this would allow for the greatest control and flexibility in the deployment process, including working with upgrades.

[pm6dwnoc]

Thank you, @joshstechnij! Hopefully this is addressed in a later release. 

[lclute]

I tried to find this Ideal request and was not able to.  Was it removed?   Would be a good Ideal to be able to control feature selections via the UI when performing upgrades.

[ChrisG]

Are you referring to the change that @joshstechnij described above? This change was implemented and is available in agent versions from 2022 R1.1 (18.1) onwards.

I don't know of any ability to use the UI to control agent features that are installed.

[joshstechnij · Accepted solution]

In terms or installing or removing the docker feature after the agent is installed, standard MSI functionality can be used to do so.

To remove the feature if it is already installed: 

msiexec /I {ProductCode} REMOVE=docker /qb

To add the feature after the agent is already installed:

msiexec /I {ProductCode} ADDLOCAL=docker /qb

Again, use /qb to run with basic (minimum) UI or /qn to run silently. All MSI operations will need to be run from an account with admin privileges.

Note that the {ProductCode} from the above examples differs based on which version of the agent you are working with, as each version has a unique product code. You can look up the product code using Orca and looking for the ProductCode entry in the Property table, or you can use a tool such as MsiSleuth from InstallShield or the WiLstPrd.vbs script provided in the Windows Installer SDK. Either will be able to list installed MSI products are provide additional information such as their product codes. Once you have located the product code for the agent you are working with, you can substitute the string in the above command line examples.