Scanner Options Page

Saves the scan file to the local machine.

By default, the local scan file is called local$.xsf. This default name can be changed by using the -l scanner command line option.

The Windows scanner uses the Hewlett-Packard\Universal-Discovery subdirectory of the application data directory for all users.

• Enable delta scan files. Enables delta file scanning, where the scanners first save the complete scan files offsite by copying the local scan files.

  Instead of sending a full scan file to a server after every scan, the scanners calculate the difference (the delta) between the last full scan and the current one - and transfer just this data. This can dramatically reduce the amount of network bandwidth used when using Universal Discovery. By default, delta scanning is enabled.

  The XML Enricher re-assembles the full scan files based on the previous scan and the delta scan. No other Universal Discovery component uses the delta scan file. The re-assembled scan can however, be used in the Viewer and Analysis Workbench inventory tools.

  Note To set up the scanner to handle delta scan files in Manual Deployment mode, see How to Set up the Scanner to Handle Delta Scan Files in Manual Deployment Mode.

Saves the scan file to a remote (offsite) disk (such as floppy disk or network drive).

Click Advanced to specify the file path or URL:

• File. Saves the results to the specified file path. In the File Path/URL field, specify the path as follows:

  • Normal file path. The full path name, beginning with the drive letter.

    For example: c:\Inventory\Scans.

  • UNC file path. The UNC path.

    Use the following format: \\servername\sharename\path\

    For example: \\DataFlowProbe\ScansIncoming

    Note  

    • The specified UNC path must have write access. Do not specify a file name here.

    • The offsite save location can be overridden by using the -p: or /p: command line option. For example: Scanwin32-x86 -p:C:\Scanners\

    • A UNC path can also be entered as the argument to this option. The format for the UNC path is: \\servername\sharename\path\

      For example: Scanwin32-x86 –p:\\DataFlowProbe\ScansIncoming

    • In Windows, if the UNC name specified is visible to the machine, the scan file will be saved to the specified location, even if it is not mapped to a drive letter.

    • On UNIX and macOS machines, the UNIX/macOS save path is used instead, allowing UNIX-style syntax for specifying directories to be used. On UNIX/macOS, do not use drive letters, and the save path must instead start with ‘/’ (root) and point to a directory writable by the scanner.

• FTP/FTPS. The scanner saves the scan file to the FTP or FTPS server specified in the File Path/URL field. If necessary, provide the username and password to access the specified path.

  When an FTP location is specified with the -p scanner command line option, the user name and password can be encoded into the URL as follows:

  ftp://user:password@host:port/dir

  For detailed information, see the description of -p:<path> in Scanner Command Line Parameters Overview.

• HTTP/HTTPS. The scanner saves the scan file to a Web server specified in the File Path/URL field, if it has been configured to allow writing to a particular directory. If necessary, provide the username and password to access the specified path.

  Ensure that the web server has been configured to allow saving to it using HTTP. For details, see Web Server Configuration for Saving Scan Files via HTTP.

  By default both the Incoming and Original directories of the XML Enricher are shared via HTTP. This can be changed to HTTPS by adjusting the Data Flow Probe configuration. See Processing Scan Files.

  Note (For Manual Deployment Mode only) If you select Save result to network (off-site) and use HTTPS for the generated scanner in the Windows platform, make sure that the following DLL files from the Universal Discovery agent installation folder (for example, C:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\Discovery Agent\bin32) are copied to the same folder where the generated scanner locates:

  • libeay64-disc-v09.dll
  • ssleay64-disc-v09.dll

The log file stores progress messages for scanner hardware detection, indicates what directory data is scanned, how long the software scanning took, and contains the status of the scan file saving.

A log file is always created if this option is selected. If this option is not selected, a log file is only created if an error is encountered.

Depending on the saving options chosen, the log file is saved to the following locations:

• The same location as the local scan file.
• The same location as the off-site scan file (if an off-site location has been specified).
• In the scan file itself (as a stored file).

The name given to the log file is the same as the name of the scan file. For example, if the scan file is called: XSF014.xsf, then the log file generated will be called: XSF014.log.

When Run scanners at low priority is selected, the scanners can be set to run at slower than normal speed, so that they do not impact on the users' work.

Use the slider control to specify how slow or how fast the scanner should run.

On different target platforms, the Run scanners at low priority setting has different impacts:

• On UNIX and macOS, the scanner impacts CPU utilization by performing a renice of itself to run at a lower process priority. For example, if CPU is available when the scanner is set to run at Normal speed, the scanner will always utilize what it needs. If the scanner is set to run at Slow speed, on UNIX endpoints the NICE flag is specified for the process, which means that if there are other processes with higher priority than the scanner, they will utilize the CPU, but if there are no such processes active, then the scanner will utilize the CPU.

• On Windows, the scanner's process priority is not adjusted. Instead, the scanner proactively sleeps during the scanning process. The duration of the sleep is tied to the slider setting - the slower the setting is, the longer the sleep delay:

  • For software scanning: the duration of the sleep is 100 milliseconds, but how often the scanner sleeps depends on the priority slider and the scanner settings. For example, if the scanner is collecting signatures, at the slowest setting it will sleep 100 milliseconds after opening/processing one file, while at the fastest setting it will sleep 100 milliseconds after opening/processing 9 files.
  • For hardware scanning: the longest the scanner would sleep for is 1.5 seconds (between hardware tests) at the slowest setting.

  Note The software scanning logic is single-threaded, so the scanner will never use more than one logical CPU. As most modern servers have multiple logical CPUs available, on machines with two or more CPUs this would represent 50% or less usage overall.

When Run scanners at low priority is not selected, the scanners on Windows platforms will not sleep and on UNIX/macOS platforms the scanners' process priority will not be changed when the scanning process is running. On Windows platforms, the CPU utilization consumed by the scanners depend on a number of factors - how fast the CPU is compared to the speed of the disk, the scanner configuration (for example, whether file signatures/identification is done or not), etc.

If you select Increase scanning speed when the screen saver is running (Windows), the scanner increases its speed to normal as long as it detects that the screen saver is running. As soon as the screen saver disappears, the scanner runs slower again.

• Retry off-site save after error. The scanner attempts to retry off-site scan file saving if an error occurs the specified number of times.

• Delay before retrying off-site save. The scanners wait for the specified amount of time (in hours, minutes and seconds) before retrying the off-site scan file saving, if an error previously occurred in this process.

• Maximum random delay before scan. (Windows scanner only.) The scanner waits for the specified amount of time (in hours, minutes and seconds) before doing anything on the machine.

  Default: 00:00:00 hh:mm:ss

  Maximum value: 23:59:59 hh:mm:ss

  If the scanner is launched via a login script, using this option allows the saving of scan files to be spread over a longer period to avoid overloading the network at busy periods. For example, in the morning, when all users come to work, power up their computers, and start the scanners at approximately the same time.

• Maximum software scan run time. Sets the maximum amount of time (in days, hours, minutes, and seconds) that the scanner runs. This setting is useful in protecting the scanner from scanning large volumes which were inadvertently included into the software scanning scope. If the scanner reaches the configured maximum time, it saves the scan files with the partial software details recorded right to that moment, and exists with the exit code 7.

  Default: 00:00:00:00 dd:hh:mm:ss (No limit applies.)

• Software scan cut-off time. Sets the local time of the day on the managed computer (using the 24-hour clock) when the software scan has to stop. This setting is useful as a safety feature in cases when there are certain periods of the day during which the scanning must not be performed. When the cut-off time is reached, the scanner saves the scan file containing the partial software inventory, and exits with the exit code 7.

  Note This option must be used with great care to avoid incomplete results being saved regularly. The inventory has to be scheduled early on during the day to allow the scanner to complete the full software inventory.

  Default: 00:00:00 hh:mm:ss, meaning the scan is not stopped. If, for example, you want to stop the scan before midnight, enter 23:59:59.

Leave at least this amount of space in the Temp directory. Enables you to set the amount of the disk space (in MB) the scanner must reserve to be available in the Temp directory before failing.

During software scanning the scanner stores the partial software scan result in the temp directory. If the amount of disk space available in the Temp directory is too low, normally the scanner uses all the available space and when none is left, it fails. However, during the time when no Temp space is available, other processes running on the system may start failing as well. This setting ensures that at least the specified amount of space is left reserved for other processes to continue their normal operation.

For example, if 5 MB is specified, the scanner uses the space in the Temp directory until there is 5 MB of free disk space left, and when this limit is reached, the scanner fails.

Default: 0, meaning no limitation.

When the scanner is run inside a virtual environment, you may not want a full software scan to take place because this would scan the server for every virtual machine.

When the scanner detects the selected virtual environment, the scanner exits without doing any processing with a special error level 20, allowing a script that launches the scanner to handle this situation and launch another scanner tailored for the virtual environment, if required. 

Defines whether to impersonate the currently logged in user.

When this option is cleared, the scanner will run under the Windows LocalSystem account and will not try to impersonate any logged in user. The scanner then assumes that the LocalSystem account has the necessary privileges to capture all the software on that system.

By default, this option is selected.

Defines the action to take if there is no user logged into the computer (Windows scanner only).

• Scan immediately. Forces the scanner to run under the LocalSystem account. It will not be able to collect the environment information for a particular user. The environment settings for the LocalSystem account will be detected. Also any program running under the LocalSystem account does not have access to network resources, so the scanner will not be able to access any files or directories on the network.

• Wait until someone logs in. Instructs the scanner to wait until an interactive user logs into the system. When this is detected, the scanner impersonates this user and executes using this user’s account. This allows the scanner to collect environment information for the user.

  Note This setting is not suitable for standalone servers where interactive users rarely log in.

• Exit the scanner. The scanner simply exits without scanning the computer.

Enable the use of the pfiles command. Enables the use of the pfiles command on the Solaris and HP-UX platforms.

Default: No.

You can specify additional content for the override files here. Although the options for the scanner are normally set using the Scanner Generator, it may be necessary to change some settings to allow better operation on some machines. The operation of a scanner can be modified with the use of the various command line parameters.

Additional file scanning configuration specified in the override.ini (Windows) file and the .override.ini file (UNIX/macOS) can be entered in this field. The content specified here is processed by the scanner before processing the content of the override file (if available on the system where the scanner runs).

You can override the settings of the file systems, directories, and files during the software scanning process by specifying additional settings in the override file. As indicated, on Windows systems, the name of this file is override.ini. On UNIX and macOS systems, the name of this file is .override.ini. The override file must be located in the same directory as the scanner executable.

• File Systems

  Because it is always possible, particularly on UNIX and macOS systems, that some file systems are not in the list, you can create a file where you can specify any additional names of file systems that you want to include or exclude during scanning.

  You can also specify names of existing file systems in case you want to change the inclusion/exclusion of such file systems after the scanner has been generated.

  The format of the file is as follows:

  [include]
  fs=<name of a file system>
  [exclude]
  fs=<name of a file system>

  There can be several fs entries in each section.

  For example, to ensure that all afs mount points are scanned, and that nfs and swap volumes are not, create the override file with the following contents and place it in the same directory as the scanner prior to running:

  [include]
  fs=afs
  [exclude]
  fs=nfs
  fs=swapfs

  Note  

  • The name of the file, the sections and the files systems are case-sensitive

  • For the feature to work correctly, the override file must be present in the directory in which the scanner resides.

• Directories and Files

  The override file can also be used to exclude specific directories or files from being scanned without regenerating the scanner.

  Note Files can only be excluded; they cannot be included.

  To make use of this file, add one or more

  dir = <name>

  or

  file = <name>

  entries to the [exclude] section of the override file. Excluded directory names must be fully qualified. Excluded file names can contain wild cards.

  Note When excluding files using the override file, the scanner may still store information about the excluded files in the scan file. Adding file entries to the override file ensures that the file will not be opened for any reason, so no file identification, signatures, or archive processing will happen for excluded files.

  • Example 1

    Exclude a specific file system, two directories and all files with exe extension.

    [exclude]
    fs=autofs
    dir=/temp
    dir=/etc
    file=*.exe

  • Example 2

    This runs a scan without software on a Windows machine.

    [exclude]
    fs=FAT
    fs=NTFS

  • Example 3 Virus Warning

    Since the scanner opens files on the computer, if real-time antivirus software is in operation, it may detect a virus being present in a file.

    Depending on the virus product being used, actions will have been defined to deal with an encountered virus. Some will try to deal with the problem and immediately disinfect the file. Others will try to move the infected file to a quarantine directory and rename its file extension. In this case, the quarantine directory may be scanned by the scanner later during its scan.

    To prevent this from happening, use the override file with *.vir specified for exclusion (where .vir is a typical quarantine file extension). Check the specific virus product to find the extension for this type of file.