Altiris Client Agent shows information about an old/previous Notification Server

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

For some reason, the Altiris Agent on a client machine, is showing an old/previous NS server that existed on the customer environment. 

There is an entry in the registry for:

http://Server1.mydomain.lcorp.com/Altiris

Which is not valid. It should not have “lcorp” on it. The right reference exists and it is used primarily but in occasions the agent on the NS tries to reach the invalid FQDN.  

We looked at the client policy and it doesn't have a reference on it. When you look at the registry, the following references were found in the registry for this invalid FQDN:

1. Ref 1:
2. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Servers\Server1.mydomain.lcorp.com] "Web"="http://Server1.mydomain.lcorp.com/Altiris";

 

1. Ref 2:
2. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Communications\Server Profiles\Servers]

 

1. Ref 3:
2. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\eXpress\NSClient\NSs\Server1.mydomain.lcorp.com] "NSWeb"="http://Server1.mydomain.lcorp.com/Altiris";

We deleted those 3 regkeys and after restarting the SMAgent service those came back (with the exception of key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\eXpress\NSClient\NSs).  

No other client machines has that "lcorp" reference. As well we couldn't find an alternate URL on policies that refers to it.  

You may see entries in the Agent logs were this invalid server name is referenced and failed to reach to it.

Environment

ITMS 7.x and later

Cause

On the affected client machine, under the Queue folder (under .../Program Files/Altiris/Altiris Agent/), there was still a folder named as the invalid server name.

Invalid server reference under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Servers and HKLM\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Communications\Server Profiles\Servers

Resolution

In order to clean this bad reference from the registry, please follow these steps:

1. Look under the .../Program Files/Altiris/Altiris Agent/Queue/ and find a folder called "Server1.mydomain.lcorp.com/Altiris". 
   1. Stop the SMAgent service. 
   2. Delete the content (if any) of this folder
   3. Delete the "Server1.mydomain.lcorp.com/Altiris" folder
   4. Delete one more time all the registries that have a reference for "Server1.mydomain.lcorp.com/Altiris"
   5. Restart the SMAgent service
   6. Check if the 'lcorp' reference is recreated in the registry. 

 

Changes done for ITMS 8.5 release:

The significant changes have been made into network monitor module of SMA.
SMA does not ping servers anymore.
"Communications\Servers" registry key is populated with the active server usage statistics (current state, connections attempt and errors and speed) and if server is not being connected to for 2 weeks, it will be removed from the registry.
The names from that registry key are not used to initiated any kind of connection, they merely use to get the statistics and get the connection method for future connections (via CEM or not).