FlexNet manager suite false positives

[johnkelly20]

Good afternoon

I am currently experiencing a problem of false positives, and I am not sure what is causing the issue. When we scan/discover servers in our network, it generated a list of servers, and the software installed on them. Upon inspection of these servers, the software is not actually installed. This is inflating our installation numbers and could negatively impact an audit. Has anyone experienced this issue in the past, or know how to fix it?

[ChrisG]

It is not uncommon for installation footprints of software to be left on servers. For example, files which are related to the software may be left on the filesystem, or files may be deleted off the filesystem but details of the package retained in the package repository.

The following post describe recently introduced capability to help answer some common questions about why particular software has been recognized as installed: Ever question why a software installation in FNMS is showing up?

[kclausen]

@johnkelly20 :

If you are on FNMS Cloud, there is an "Evidence" tab available on the Inventory Device details.  This tab shows all of the raw Installer and File Evidence that was captured, and if it is recognized you can see the Normalized publisher and software title.  With this view, you can find the Software Title that FlexNet Manager shows as installed and then see the raw evidence that FNMS is using to show that it is installed.  In the case of File Evidence, it can show the File Path of where the raw evidence exists so that it can be deleted in the case where it did not get completely deleted during the normal "Uninstall" package.

If you have FNMS On-Premises 2018 R1 (or higher), you can download an 'upgrade' package that when installed will also provide the new "Evidence" tab for an inventory device.  The  "evidence" tab is included in the upcoming 2019 R2 release in November.

Kirk

[JeffVoss]

False positive may be a misnomer. Systems indicated to have software that is not readily evident, is a more likely case. 

In most cases FNMS uses Installer Evidence to identify installations. The issue is most engineers only think in terms of Windows Add/Remove programs. On Nix types of devices just home the use uninstallation instead of RD to remove software. If you are On-Prem go to this path /Suite/Help/webhelp/index.html#topics/Evid-InstallerGeneralTab.html and look at the Type field. This is a list of all the different installers that are looked at. IBM and Oracle do not rely on the add remove programs. They have there own installers and depending on how the vendor specific installer was loaded, you will get evidence from those specific sources. IBM's mix and match pieces they put together have to be downloaded from the correct license. It will always report from the license downloaded. Oracle's installer uses over 300 xml files to store the data and Flexera can give you instructions on how to find which one it is in.

I have seen a lot of vendors uninstalls not clean everything up correctly and you have to use the evidence for the application to find what is still there flagging the install. 

It can be a lengthy process to find the evidence that is still present. I have been able to find mine after lots of work and support tickets.