Overview

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.

ldms_client.exe runs as an inventory extension on Windows clients, gathering additional information for use in inventory. Its configuration is read at runtime from a configuration file on the core server. That configuration file is produced and edited with the ldms_client_core.exe program.

ldms_client_mac is the equivalent for Macintosh.

This structure allows administrators to turn "extra" inventory scanning components on and off throughout the environment on an as-needed basis.

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.

How it works

Execution details

Windows: LANDesk's ldiscn32.exe reads ldscnhlp.ini and sees it's supposed to launch ldms_client.exe. ldms_client.exe uses LANDesk's sdclient.exe to pull down ldms_client.ini from the core, reads what it should scan, and scans for it. It then deletes the local copy of ldms_client.ini and writes the scan results into ldms_client.dat, which ldiscn32.exe reads and sends to the core as part of its inventory update. To complicate matters, some things that ldms_client.exe scans for need to run as local user, so it may use the LANDesk startasuser.exe utility to launch ldms_client_regreader.exe. Logging is written to ldms_client.log.

Macintosh: LANDesk's ldcron launches ldms_client_mac whenever you tell it to. ldms_client_mac uses LANDesk's sdclient to download ldms_client.ini from the core, reads what it should scan, and scans for it. It then deletes the local copy of ldms_client.ini and writes the scan results into ldms_client.xml, which LANDesk's ldscan reads and sends to the core as part of its inventory update. ldscan runs every four hours and on IP address change, by default, so it's advisable to run ldms_client_mac on a similar schedule if data is to be updated. Logging is written to ldms_client.log.