FNMS Agent Troubleshooting

[joshua_neadow]

We have begun agent deployment to our companies devices and are looking for best practices, automation potential, and tips on how to keep the agents up and running as much as possible.  Some background information for those who are willing to help.  My team is a team of two.  We manage both FNMS and Flexera Data Platform for a company of about 16000 +/- employees.  We have 4 domains that we manage within this company as the company comprises of multiple entities.  We have been leveraging SCCM, BMC Discovery, and Remedy for our inventory needs.  We have been given the approval to install agents to all Windows, AIX, Linux, and MacOS devices.  

We are looking for ways to manage the agents to maximize the uptime and inventory accuracy.  below are listed the steps we have taken so far:

For Windows devices we have written a Powershell Script that does the following:

Attempts to connect the device (check Network Connection)

Verify the Services are running.  If they arent, restart them.

Check the C:\ Drive for space issues

Device Up time.  Does the device need to be restarted due to last restart was 3 weeks ago?

Verify port 443 is open and the device can connect to the Beacon assigned.

verify the inventory files are being generated.

We are doing something similar for our Linux, AIX, and Mac devices as well. 

Where can we modify or add steps to ensure troubleshooting/triage will allow us to handle the 22000 devices we have?  

[durgeshsingh]

Hi,

Agent installation steps are correct on your document. You need to keep good tracking on inventory health.

You can export report of agent not reported for more than 15 days & take required action. This will help you a lot on good healthy Data quality.

Agent deployment on windows platform, you can use your SCCM & it will quick & easy. Also Gold image must be updated with latest fnms agent to avoid gap in new server build process.

[joshua_neadow]

We are using SCCM to deploy our windows agents.  Our biggest concern is we havent had to troubleshoot the agents yet and we want to make sure we are taking the necessary steps to fix any down agents.  Majority of our issues will be devices not connecting to the network like laptops.  But we will have agents that will go down for a myriad of reasons.

[durgeshsingh]

you can make 2 type of strategy 

One is for datacenter device --15 days health check report for all Devices.

Another one is for EUC devices-->30 days health check report & as beacon will be intranet server so Laptop devices must connect VPN once in a week.

Agent level troubleshooting 

You need to ensure firewall port should be allowed in entire subnet to communicate agent to beacon

Beacon Services should be up & running

If beacon is configured with IIS along with ssl certificate then you must keep a track on certificate renewal & IIS services must be working.

During Agent deployment, all required configuration file must be correct.

[mfranz]

Hi,

I've seen customers covering one ore more of the following topics regarding the FNMS inventory agent:

• Coverage: Is the agent installed on all devices? What are the gaps?
• Disassembly: How to decide whether a device has been disassembled or is just missing.
• Bugs: Where is the agent not working as intended and why?

There's really not a single solution fitting all customers, because infrastructures are so different. Most approaches include custom data gathering and reporting, just like you mentioned.

I recently created a script looking up missing machines via AD, DNS and ping for reporting results in a custom FNMS report in the WebUI.

Best regards,

Markward