Scanned Applications
Scanned application information
BMC Client Management - Inventory automatically discovers tracks, collects, maintains and manages inventory of client systems assets from miscellaneous sources:
- On Windows operating systems the software inventory scans executable files on the disk and collects Win32 header information to have complete information about installed software. On UNIX operating systems the software inventory is collected through the respective operating system APIs, that is, RPM and DEB for Linux, for MAC OS a system command is used to find all installed packages. Any software which was not installed through these will not be shown in the list. It is also possible to specify in-house or un-discovered applications by listing their characteristics in the.XML translation file.
- All recovered information is then filtered through an.XML file, independently of the operating system, to make sure only the data requested by the administrator is uploaded. You will find more information about this file in the appendix under chapter Software Inventory in the technical reference manual.
The software found on the device and shown in the table can be filtered according to the following criteria via the Type drop-down box on top of the table:
- Add/Remove Programs - only the software found via this functionality (Windows only)
- MSI Database - only those applications that were installed via an MSI file (Windows only)
- Application - all types of software that are of type Application
- Web Browser - only the applications of type web browser are displayed
- All - all software of all types and discovery types are displayed
The software inventory displays in tabular version and shows the following information about all software found on the device:
Attribute | Description |
---|---|
Name | The name of the application as extracted from the installed software translation file. This is usually the complete product name, not including manufacturer or version information, for example, FinePrint 2000, InstallShield, Adobe Acrobat. |
Version | The version string for the application as extracted from the translation file. This is a text string and contains generally a mixture of digits and letters as required by the entry, for example, 3.0 Rev. B. |
Software Manufacturer | The name of the manufacturer of the application as extracted from the translation file. This is a free-form field and may contain the name by which the company is known or its complete registered name, such as Microsoft Corporation, Adobe Systems Incorporated, BMC Software, Inc. |
Type | This field defines the type of the software, which may be Application, Web Browser, Communications, and so on. |
Installation Date | This field shows the date at which the original installation took place, in the default format defined in the user preferences. |
Installation Directory | The fields of this column display the full path of the respective installation directories. |
File Count | This field displays the number of files of the software. |
To add as managed application
Applications can be managed in BMC Client Management via the Application Monitoring node. This means, software applications can be monitored when they are used and how often, they can be prohibited from starting and they may be protected, that is, they will heal themselves if they become corrupted in any way. You can add a software directly from this view to the list of managed applications. Only applications of type Application or Browser, which contain all required information to be managed, can be added. If an application listed in the software inventory does not provide all necessary information, or its type is MSI or Add/Remove Programs, this option will not be available. To add an application for managing proceed as follows:
- In the list of applications select the application(s) to be added to the list of managed applications.
- Select Edit > Add as Managed Application
.
A confirmation window appears. - In this window you can define the folder into which the application is to be added. By default it is added directly under the main application list node. To add it to another folder click the icon to the right (...). The Select Folder window appears displaying the folder hierarchy. If the desired target folder does not yet exist you can also create new folders. To do so first select the parent folder of the new one and then select click New Folder below the hierarchy. The Properties dialog box appears. Enter the desired data into the respective text boxes and then click OK at the bottom of the window to confirm the new application list folder. Select the target folder and click OK to confirm and to close the window.
- An Information window will now appear in which you can also directly add the selected application to an existing application list. Click Yes to do so, No to only add the application to the application catalog.
- If you selected Yes, the Assign an Application List dialog box appears providing the list of existing application lists.
- Select the desired application list from one of the lists available in the window.
- Click OK at the bottom of the window to confirm.
- If the application list is already assigned to a device or group, a Confirmation dialog box appears, in which you can define to directly reactivate the application list for its assigned objects.
To create a software inventory filter definition
A new filter definition may be created directly for a specific software application. Be aware, that you can only add this new filter definition to an existing software inventory filter, no new inventory filter can be created here. To do so, proceed as follows:
- Select the software application for which a new filter definition is to be created in the table in the right window pane.
- Click Edit > Software Inventory Filter Definition.
The Software Inventory Filter Definition Wizard is displayed on the screen. - In the first window you need to select the software filter to which the new filter definition is to be added, then click Next.
- In the next window a name for the filter must be specified and the action. Click Next to continue.
The next wizard window defines the MATCHFILE tag conditions. - Click Next to continue.
The next wizard window defines the CREATE tag conditions. - Click Finish at the bottom of the window to confirm all settings and directly create and apply this new filter definition.