Installing ServiceNav Agent

Information

The ServiceNav supervisor works as follows:

• 1 service Viadéis Services Agent that runs on the supervised machine
• 1 service NSClientpp that runs on the supervised machine
• 1 server SNM (Shared ServiceNav) which collects monitoring data from ServiceNav Agent, and sends it to the monitoring website

Viadéis Services Agent

The Viadéis Services Agent service is installed manually through a .msi file that can be downloaded from your platform. Once the .msi is installed, the Viadéis Services Agent service will download and install the second service: NSClientpp.

The role of the Viadéis Services Agent service is to update the following elements:

• Updating the NSClientpp configuration (NSC.ini file)
• Updating the Coservit plug-in library
• Updating the NSClientpp service
• Park inventory (optional)
• Updating its own service: Viadéis Services Agent
• Supervision of the good start of the NSClientpp service (restart the service if possible)

NSClientpp

The NSClientpp service is installed by the Viadéis Services Agent service. Its role is :

• The execution of control scripts
• Sending data to the ServiceNav monitoring platform

SNM

The SNM server retrieves the data sent by the NSClientpp service.

Security management

The communication initiated by the Viadéis Services Agent can be filtered at the supervision platform level by IP address.

The filtering principle is based on the following elements:

• IP companyThe public IP address specified at the company level in the Organization > Companies
• IP equipmentThe public IP address of the equipment, indicated in the equipment details sheet (tab General informationfield Public IP address)
• IP source the IP address presented to the supervision platform by the Viadéis Services Agent

The following rules are executed:

• If the address IP company is equal to 0.0.0.0, no check is made: communication from Viadéis Services Agent is allowed

• If the address IP company is not equal to 0.0.0.0, and if the IP source and IP equipment corresponding, communication from Viadéis Services Agent is authorized

• If the address IP company is not equal to 0.0.0.0, and if the IP source and IP equipment do not match, communication from Viadéis Services Agent is not allowed

Prerequisites

In order to install an agent on a Windows server, the following prerequisites must be met:

• Supported operating systems
  • Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012 in 32/64 bit versions
  • Windows Small Business Server 2003, 2008, 2011 in 32/64 bit versions
• DNS configured
• Opening of TCP port 443 to the Internet address of the supervision platform (servicenav.io)
• Open TCP port 5667 to the SNM server's Internet address
• Synchronizing the server time with an NTP server
• .NET Framework 2.0

The prerequisites are checked by the installation program. The installation is aborted if the prerequisites are not checked.

To test the various prerequisites manually, simply follow the steps below:

1/ Checking the operating system version

Go to Start > right click on Workstationand then Properties and read the version of Windows that is installed in the "System" section.

2/ Checking the operation of DNS

In the command prompt (Start > Run > cmd) type the following command:

Ping www.google.fr

If you get this message: "Ping request could not find the host www.google.fr. Check the name and try again", change the DNS configuration.

3/ Checking the https port opening

In the command prompt (Start > Run > cmd) type the following command:

telnet servicenav.io 443

If you have a timeout or "Connect to servicenav.io ... " is that you need to open the port.

4/ Checking the opening of the supervision data port

To find the Internet IP address of the SNM server, connect to ServiceNav, navigate to Configuration > General > Box, list mode then click on the SNM server: the public IP address is included in the Public IP address.

At the command prompt (Start > Run > cmd), type the following command:

telnet <SNM server IP address 5667

If you see special characters or the back slider at the top of the page, the port is open. Otherwise, you should get a timeout message or "Connecting to ... " : you must proceed to the opening of the port.

N.B.: in a Windows 2008 environment, install the telnet functionality or use a utility such as putty.

5/ Checking the time synchronisation

In the command prompt (Start > Run > cmd) type the following command:

Net time \NameOfServer /QUERYSNTP

The command must answer on which server the server to be supervised is synchronized. If the time server is local, you must make sure that this server is configured on an external NTP server.

N.B.: this command is not valid on a Windows 2008 environment. Use the w32tm /query /source /verbose command instead.

6/ Presence of the .NET 2.0 framework

When installing the ServiceNav agent, if the .NET framework is not installed or up to date, it will suggest you to download it from the Microsoft website.

N.B.: in a Windows 2012 environment, install the framework via the list of features.

Installation of an agent in a new company

Creating the company in ServiceNav

Log in as administrator (RPC_Admin) on the monitoring interface: https://servicenav.io

Then go to the "Organization" > "Companies" section. Then click on "Add".

Then fill in the following fields:

Fill in the fields as follows:

• Managed or resale mode (stand-alone customer)
• Company name
• Public IP (if filtering desired)
• Email address used to send alerts for this customer.

Then validate the addition.

To create a site under a company, you have to go to the tab Sites then click on "Add".

Creating the equipment in ServiceNav

In order to install the monitoring agent, you need to have its token. This token is generated when adding a device to the supervision in ServiceNav.

Select the desired company. Then go to the section: " Configuration " > " Equipment " > " List ".

Go to the tab " Mode : Agent ".

Then add new equipment by clicking on "Add".

Equipment configuration

Put the name of the equipment (ex : SRVDATA)

Enter the public IP address of the equipment. If unknown or dynamic then enter the following value: 0.0.0.0

Choose the Windows Server equipment model.

Then go to the "Availability and controls" tab.

Set the script execution timeout (by default enter 60) and choose the interval of the information feedback (by default enter 5).

Then validate.

After validation, you should have a line with your server name like this:

The displayed ID is unique and is intended for the agent that will be installed on the client's server. This ID will be kept on the ServiceNav configuration interface.

The executable to install on the supervised server can be downloaded from the interface by clicking on the arrownext to the token. This executable contains the identifier and the address of the ServiceNav update site. It is customized for each server.

Connection to the client server

In order to install the agent you need to connect to the client server. For this, please refer to your knowledge base.

Downloading the agent

On the client server, download the latest version of the agent by going to the ServiceNav application and clicking on the arrownext to the configured server.

Once the agent is downloaded, run it to start the agent installation.

If the SSL certificate is not signed by a certification authority, click on the link: "Continue with this website (not recommended)".

Click directly on Save the file as below.

Then extract the items from the archive packageVSAgentInstaller. Do not extract the archive to a directory located on the server/workstation desktop.

Run the file VSUpdateAgent.exe on the disc.

Confirm the installation by ignoring the Windows alert messages about the verification of the software publisher.

Installing ServiceNav Agent

Follow the instructions of the installer:

Updating the supervision server

In order to inform the supervision server of the addition of a device, its configuration must be generated.

Go to the "Configuration" > "General" > "Generation" section.

The list of boxes to be updated appears. You just have to click on the "Apply" button for the modifications to be taken into account.

Verification of correct operation

Wait 5 minutes for the agent to retrieve a first set of data.

Go to the "Supervision" > "Technical operation" section and check that the data is coming up.

Debugging Guide 

Viadéis Services Agent installs, but NSClient++ does not

Check the event log:

• If connection errors occur, start the Viadéis Services Agent service with an administrator user of the machine or domain. If the problem persists, check that the IE configuration for this user is in automatic (except in case of proxy).

• If it indicates that it could not install NSClient++ but does not indicate an error message with respect to the identifier, the TCP/443 port is not open. Proceed to open it and restart the Viadéis Services Agent service.

Viadéis Services Agent is installed, but incorrect login

If the event log indicates that it could not install NSClient++ and it also indicates an error message about the token, the token is incorrect. Uninstall then reinstall Viadéis Services Agent after re-downloading the archive from ServiceNav.

Viadéis Services Agent does not install at all

If the agent does not install at all, retrieve the following information and contact product support:

• What is the operating system (Version, Release, Service Pack, Architecture)?
• What is the exact step where the installation is not done properly?
• What is the exact error message, if any?
• Are there any error messages in the event log? What do they say?
• Are the files on the server's hard drive (C:/ProgramFiles/Coservit) present?
• Is the registry information present (see debugging documentation)?
• What is the version of the .NET 2.0 framework?

Viadéis Services Agent has already been installed and refuses to be reinstalled

Before attempting a manual uninstall, you should test the following method:

• Remove the NSClient++ service if it is not already done. The NSClient++ service is removed by going to the command line in the installation directory and running the command: "NSClient++ -uninstall",
• Delete the NSClient++ directory,
• From the msi or the Windows program manager, launch a repair of the Viadéis Services Agent,
• If it worked (no error messages), run the uninstall again. The service should uninstall correctly.

If this method fails, a manual server purge must be performed.

The items to be cleaned (in order) are:

• Remove the NSClient++ service if it is not already done. The NSClient++ service is removed by going to the command line in the installation directory and running the command: "NSClient++ -uninstall",
• Delete the VSupdateAgent service if it still exists. To do this, issue the command line command: "sc delete VSupdateAgent". If a message is displayed indicating that the service has already been marked for deletion, a reboot of the server is necessary, and may solve the installation problem.
• Files: delete the installation directory,
• The registry.

Cleaning the registry can be very tedious. Care should be taken to clean up the following items (with regedit):

• HKLMSoftwareVSUpdateAgent: remove the complete key. It contains the old configuration.
• in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTinstallerAssemblies, the entries corresponding to the exe of the agent (do a search on VSUpdateAgent),
• still using the search, delete the key in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTInstallerProducts
• in HKLMSoftwareClassesInstallerAssemblies, delete the entries corresponding to the agent's exe,
• HKLMSoftwareClassesInstallerProducts, delete the key corresponding to the agent,
• in HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInstallerUserDataComponents, we will find 11 keys corresponding to the two executables and to the 9 configuration values of the application (adminvalidation, directory, periode_MAJ_conf, periode_MAJ_prog, periode_Watchdog, attempts_restart_nsclientpp, token, URLProvider and version). These keys should be deleted.

Example for one of them: the complete HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInstallerUserDataS-1-5-18Components329BAC96E762FD2666485A7D804FB43A key should be deleted.

• In HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInstallerUserDataProducts, remove the key corresponding to the VSUpdateAgent product (use search)
• In HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall, remove the key corresponding to the VSUpdateAgent product (use the search)