Domain name in Inventory

[anhpham1652]

Hello,

I inventory a UNIX machine (Ubuntu 20.04) by 2 methods:

- FlexNet Inventory Scanner returns correct domain name

- Agent 3rd deployment returns no domain name

Why does this happen? And is there any way to make Agent 3rd deployment get the domain (except editing the config.ini file)?

I found this link https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Forum/On-Unix-like-devices-the-domain-keeps-empty/td-p/97322 . And I'm using FNMS 2021 R1 On-premise, Agent version 17.0.1.

Thank you for your support.

[ChrisG]

I expect the agent will attempt to get domain details from the computer's hostname and NIS domain name.

Do you see any domain information in the output when you run either of the following commands on this computer?

1. hostname
2. domainname

[anhpham1652]

Hello @ChrisG 

When I type hostname, it returns full FQDN. But domainname returns (none) as attached picuture.

[ChrisG]

So I think the domain details from what you see in the hostname should be getting picked up by the agent, unless the domain is overridden in the agent's configuration - so if you're not seeing a domain appearing in returned inventory data that may suggest the default value is overridden in the agent's configuration.

Do you see any domain-related preference values appearing in the /opt/managesoft/etc/config.ini file? For example, what output to you see from:

grep -i domain /var/opt/managesoft/etc/config.ini

[anhpham1652]

Hello @ChrisG 

Computer domain is empty. But if I edit config.ini file, I will have to repeat on each UNIX machines?

[ChrisG]

So I suspect the empty value that is appearing in the config.ini file is taking precedence for the installed agent and causing the blank domain to be returned in inventory data. If you set the ComputerDomain preference to a non-blank value then I expect it will be returned in inventory.

You will need to do this on all computers where the agent is already installed. This could be done by arranging to run commands like the following on each computer with root rights:

cat <<EOF >tempconfig.ini
[ManageSoft\Common]
ComputerDomain=acme.corp
EOF

/opt/managesoft/bin/mgsconfig -i tempconfig.ini

rm tempconfig.ini

For new agent installations that are done in the future, you can bootstrap the preference to a value that you want by ensuring the desired value is specified in the MGSFT_DOMAIN_NAME setting that is in the mgsft_rollout_response file used when installing the agent. See some discussion about this on the following page: Agent third-party deployment: Configure the Bootstrap File for UNIX.

[anhpham1652]

Can UNIX Inventory Agent get the domain name automatically like FlexNet Inventory Scanner? Because if I have 3 domains, I will have to create 3 different mgs_rollout_response files and copy it to the suitable targets (or the domain will be wrong)

[ChrisG]

You could try removing the ComputerDomain setting from the config.ini file - the agent may then fall back to using the output from hostname to determine the domain, similarly to how the standalone scanner does it.

However some care may need to be taken to ensure the ComputerDomain setting was kept out of the config.ini file. I think you will find that the setting is always put in there by the agent installation process, so you would need to implement a post-installation process to remove it. You may also find that the setting is added back into the config.ini file when the agent is upgraded (I'm not sure if that will happen - you would need to try doing an agent upgrade test to verify.)

[mag00_75]

Maybe a longshot but we noticed that our Linux technicians sometimes did not use FQDN in /etc/hostname or /etc/hosts, that was the reason why we did not get the domain name imported into FNMS

[ChrisG · Accepted solution]

Related to this thread, check out the following page which provides some more detail around the FlexNet inventory agent gathering domain information on Unix-like operating systems: Known Issue: Computer domain is blank by default and does not reflect output from hostname/domainname commands in inventory & usage data returned by installed agent on Unix-like operating systems (IOJ-1832862)