LANDesk's client inventory system is very powerful in that it can be easily extended. On a Windows system, you just edit LDSCNHLP.INI to call your script/program/whatever, then read its BNF-formatted output. Simplicity itself, right?

Unfortunately, it gets a lot less simple when you've pushed out five different scripts and deployed some new clients, and who knows what system is scanning for what extension. This program attempts to solve that problem, by providing a single extension and dat file which implements all the handy extensions as subroutines. Its configuration is read at runtime from a configuration file on the core server, so the administrator can turn parts on and off centrally.

The installer program is here. The manual is worth a read as well, and you might have interest in the changelog. History, plans, and what have you at the blog.

There's obviously a lot of room for growth, which the infrastructure allows for. ldms_client now supports Mac clients as well. If you're interested in helping or just have an idea for a new chunk of data to gather, let me know.