To open the Settings window, click the button on the toolbar or select the main menu item "Service - Settings". Settings are divided into several sections.
Collecting information
- WMI connection timeout (in seconds) - length of time, within which the program expects response from the remote computer's WMI service (30 seconds by default).
- Import data from this folder on startup – selecting this option will set the application to gather data through a public folder. When using the 10-Strike Network Inventory Client component on computers configured to dump data to that folder, on the application startup the gathered data will be imported to the public computers database. Along with using agents, this method of gathering data from clients is yet another alternative to the polling with WMI.
Background check
This section of the program's settings configures settings for background monitoring, which returns device status (active, inactive) in real-time, preventing you from connecting to offline computers and waiting for long timeouts. Offline computers are marked by grey color in the list of computers.
The background scanning helps to avoid the attempts of connecting to computers disconnected to network; thus, it cuts the load falling on the application and the computer when polling and saves administrator's time.
- Interval (in minutes) - default period of time, in which the program starts querying computers again. The default value is 5 minutes.
- Timeout (in milliseconds) - length of time, within which the program expects response from each computer. The default value is 1000 milliseconds.
- Ping (ICMP) - regular ping check (sending ICMP echo packets).
- Number of packets - if the number of packets is greater than one, if a negative response is received for the first packet, the remaining packets will be still sent to the remote host. This eliminates the possibility of false detection of object status when a single packet is lost.
- TCP port - TCP connection check. Please specify number of TCP port for checking. You can watch protocols in the drop down list. Since most hosts in modern networks are protected by firewalls, pinging those hosts regularly may not work out (if ICMP protocol is disabled). In such cases, checking by opening a TCP connection to a specific port of the host may help. In this case, we can check the availability of computers by attempting to connect to their TCP port 135 (DCOM) or 139 (NetBios).
Inventory
In this section, you can configure computer components for the inventory. These fields are displayed in the "Computer card" window.
Custom fields
In this section, you can configure additional information fields for computer inventory. These fields are displayed in the "Computer card" window.
In this section, you can configure remote agents for collecting information.
If you cannot use WMI for scanning remote computers for some reason (different domains, no administrator access, restriction on using DCOM/RPC via network, etc.), you can gather the required information with remote agents. The agent consists of a service and a program for configuring the service. The service locally collects the necessary information upon request and sends it to the main program via client-server technology (using TCP/IP connection).
Read more on configuring and using agents
The following security settings can be configured when using agents:
- Password - Set password for connecting to agents. Agents must have the same password as the main program in order for successful connection.
- IP filtering - Configure IP addresses of computers where the main program is installed (this settings is used for generating agent configuration files). If the "Use IP filter" option is selected, agents accept requests only from the specified IP addresses.
- TCP port - You can change the default number of the TCP port which is used for connecting to agents.
How to start using agents:
- Configure agents' security settings in the main program 10-Strike Network Inventory Explorer.
- Save the configuration file by clicking the "Save to file..." button.
- Download the installation package of 10-Strike Network Inventory Agent
- Put the configuration file named "nie_settings.cfg" to the same folder where agent's installation package is stored.
- Install agents on the remote computers. The settings from "nie_settings.cfg" will be applied automatically. You can apply other configuration files by running the configuration program Nie_Settings.exe /install "your_file.cfg".
After finishing installing the remote agents and allowing them in the firewalls, click the "Computers..." button and select computers with agents.
License information
In this section, you can configure registry paths for collecting license information from network computers.
You can Create, Edit, and Copy license templates. The program searches the specified registry paths on network computers and shows serial numbers, etc. in the "License information" section.
Click Import for importing license templates from a .cfg file.
Click Export for exporting the existing license templates to a .cfg file.
Read more on how to configure retrieving license information
Authorized software
In this section, you can configure the list of authorized software. Other software found on remote computers will be considered as nonauthorized and you will be able to view it.
Read more on how to configure the authorized software list