Installation - The Comprehensive Guide to the NS Agent for Unix

Prerequisites

1. Long, colored and multi-line shell prompts on the client will cause a push install to fail.
2. Name resolution is required either via a naming service (DNS, BIND, etc.) or via manually updating each client's /etc/hosts file with the name & ip address of the NS server and package server(s), if used in your environment.
3. Computers do not need to be discovered (via Network Discovery Solution) prior to doing a push install to them.

Push from the NS Console

A Push installation is initiated in the NS Console. The agent installation screen can be found in the Notification Server Altiris Console. Navigate to the configuration tab, expand the left-pane menu to Altiris Agent, Altiris Agent Rollout and click on 'Altiris Agent Installation'. Note that this screen can have from one to three tabs, depending on the solutions installed – one each for Windows, UNIX and Macintosh. Be sure to select the appropriate tab for the desired client computer platform you will be working with.

The push installation will attempt to connect to a specified client computer and download a bootstrap file that will setup the client environment, download and run the aex-nsclt package.

The basic steps for a Push installation are:

1. Required: Ensure that name resolution is setup, either via dns are by adding the Notification Server's hostname and IP address to the client's /etc/hosts file. There is an option to use the Notification Server's IP address but this requires reconfiguration of the Notification Server's codebase and snapshot settings and affects Windows, Unix and all other clients reporting to the reconfigured NS server. See knowledge base article 22966 for details.
2. Required: Ensure that SSH or telnet is enabled on the client. SSH is preferred, of course.
3. On the 'Install Altiris UNIX Agent' tab, add the IP address or hostname of the client.
4. Highlight the client's entry on the main window and click the Install Settings button.
5. Add the root password. As of the 6.x release, the user must be root.
6. Save the settings and close the window.
7. Ensure that the computer is still highlighted.
8. Click the Install Altiris Agent button. A new window should appear showing the status of the push install.
9. When it states that the bootstrap has started, that's the last message you will get. The agent should shortly be found in the /opt/Altiris/notification/nsagent directory on the client. It should report basic inventory and shortly appear in the 'all platforms' collection, as well as other appropriate collections. If the push fails for any reason, it will be indicated in this window. You can view the installation logs for clues as to why and correct them.
   
   

   Flowchart of the Push installation process:

   Click to view.

Pull from a browser on the client machine

1. On the Notification Server Console's Configuration tab, expand Altiris Agent, Altiris Agent Rollout, and select Altiris Agent Installation. Then, click the Install Altiris UNIX Agent tab.
2. Toward the bottom of the page, there is a section titled URL of download page for UNIX users.
3. In that section, select the appropriate platform and allow the page to refresh. The URL in the next line will update with the appropriate platform ID value.
4. Copy that URL and browse to it from each client computer. (It may be possible to use curl or wget to download the package.)
5. Follow the instructions on the download page to download the aex-bootstrap file, the .aex-agent-install-config.xml file, set permissions and run the aex-bootstrap file.

The URL listed on the above page can be distributed via email or other method to all applicable recipients. Be sure that the URL contains the appropriate platform ID value as there is a separate package for each platform.

Manual using the aex-bootstrap file

1. Required: Ensure that name resolution is setup, either via dns are by adding the Notification Server's hostname and IP address to the client's /etc/hosts file.
   
   Note: the aex-agent-install-config.xml file is optional. If not found by the bootstrap, the default settings will be used. If you do not wish to use the aex-agent-install-config.xml, you may start at step 9 below.
2. On the Configuration tab, expand Altiris Agent, Altiris Agent Rollout, and select Altiris Agent Installation.
3. Click the Install Altiris UNIX Agent tab.
4. Select the appropriate Operating System from the platform drop-down list farther down the right-hand screen. Allow the screen to refresh.
5. Click the Show me this page link. A new window will open.
6. Click .aex-agent-install-config.xml link in the middle of the page.
7. Go through all three tabs. Ensure that the proper values have been selected or modified. It is recommended that you accept the defaults.
8. The last tab has a save button. Save the file to a specific location.
9. Download the aex-bootstrap.gz or aex-bootstrap.Z file, depending on the platform, to the same location as the aex-agent-install-config.xml file.
10. "Gunzip" the aex-bootstrap.gz file or "uncompress" the aex-bootstrap.Z file.
11. Use the command chmod u+x aex-bootstrap to ensure the aex-bootstrap is executable.
12. Set any desired environment variables if not using a config.xml file.
13. Run the command ./aex-bootstrap <ns server hostname> to begin the installation. The server name is required to avoid subsequent configuration.
14. The agent should soon install to the /opt/Altiris/notification/nsagent directory on the client. It should report basic inventory and appear in the 'all platforms' collection, as well as other appropriate collections, after collection update runs on the Notification Server. At that point, you can enable inventory policies or whatever solution you are working with.

Manual using the aex-nsclt package

This is the most direct method of installing the agent but requires configuration. All other methods have a default configuration.

To install the aex-nsclt package:

1. Copy the platform-specific aex-nsclt file from the NS server.
2. Setup appropriate environment variables, if desired.
3. Run the installer for the current platform. For example, on a Linux computer, the command line would be: "rpm –i aex-nsclt-6.2-1378.i386.rpm"
4. If environment variables were not used, configure the agent by either of the following methods:
   
   1. Copy a .aex-agent-install-config.xml to an appropriate location and run 'aex-configure –configure'
   2. Run 'aex-configure –iconfigure' and answer all prompts. The NS server name must be entered. All other values can be defaulted by pressing 'enter'.