Altiris Diagnostic Tasks

Products

• Client Management Suite
• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

The attached tasks can update settings on Managed computers and the SMP server, to collect additional diagnostic information, and to reset the same settings to their default values.

 

Resolution

To use these tasks, you need to import the attached file into the Altiris console, possibly under Jobs and Tasks. To import this XML,

• Save the attached XML to your local drive
• Select the folder where you wish the folder and its contents to be imported,
• Right-click on the folder and select Import
• Select the XML on your local drive

This XML contains an Altiris console folder zz.Altiris Diagnostic Tasks that contains the following groups of tasks:

Tasks for use on Microsoft Windows computers:

• Agent Logging: Enable trace level
• Agent Logging: Reset level
• Agent Logging: Set log size
• Agent NSE Capture: Disable
• Agent NSE Capture: Enable
• Agent: Request Current Policies
• Agent: Reset Task Agent
• Agent: Return IP Configuration
• Agent: Send Basic Inventory

The task for use on the SMP server:

• NS Event Queue: Disable Bad Events Folder
• NS Event Queue: Enable Bad Events Folder
• NS logging: Enable trace level
• NS logging: Reset to default level

The task for use on Task Servers:

• Enable Task Server Trace-level Logging
• Disable Task Server Trace-level Logging

Tasks for use on ULM (Unix, Linux Macintosh) computers:

• ULM: Client Task: show Task Server
• ULM: Client Task: show task history
• ULM: Logging: Enable Error level
• ULM: Logging: Enable Info level
• ULM: NSE Capture: Disable
• ULM: NSE Capture: Enable
• ULM: Request Current Policies
• ULM: Return IP Configuration
• ULM: Send Basic Inventory

All of these console items are tasks and depend the task server and client task agent for their success. If the task server and client task agent are not communicating, or are not running properly, then none of these tasks will be successful. Some of these tasks contain batch scripts to update Windows Registry Values. If the account used by the Altiris agent does not have permission to modify these values, then these tasks will no be successful. For internal diagnosis, many tasks show the registry value prior to the update and after the update, to help confirm whether the task was ultimately successful.

You can use the "Agent: Return IP Configuration" task  or "ULM: Return IP Configuration" task  to check whether the computer of interest is accepting tasks and return tasks results to the SMP server.

You can use the "Agent NSE Capture: Enable" task or the "ULM: NSE Capture: Enable" task to start saving on the computer of interest of the NSE files that the agent sends to the SMP server. After capturing the NSE files of interest, you should use the "Agent NSE Capture: Disable" task or the "ULM: NSE Capture: Disable" task to stop saving NSE files. By default NSEs are saved to "c:\NSEs" on a Windows computer and to "/tmp/nse" on ULM computers.

A few other tasks are also included which may be useful in some situations.

These tasks were created based on the following KB articles.

Attached to this KB is an XML file that can be imported into the Altiris console, possibly under Jobs & Tasks. 

How to configure logging on the Notification Server and an Altiris Agent computer

Trapping NSEs Client-side

NS Agent for Unix, Linux and Macintosh commands and command-line parameters

How to enable trace logging for Task management (task server) on a site server