Dell Client Manager, Part 2: Dell Monitoring Policy

Filed under: Dell Client Manager Configuration

Submitted by trb48 on 7 July, 2008 - 15:15.

Last December I decided that it was high time to update the BIOS on our Dell computers. I taught my employees all the steps that they needed to take update each computer's BIOS. It took a lot of time, and it was pretty mindless work. When everything was said and don't most of the computers were updated. In the end, a lot of time and money was wasted on the project. There has to be a better way, right?

In my last article I talked about how I found a better way to manage my Dell computers. In Dell Client Manager - Part I, I talked about how to install the Dell Client Manager on a Notification Server. Once it was installed, I also talked about what policies needed to be enabled for the Dell Client Manager to start collecting data. Finally, explained how install the Dell Client Manager on a computer.

We have gone over the basics, its time to get our hands dirty. Lets talk about how to monitor your computer's health.

Resources:

There are some great resources on how to setup, configure, and use the Dell Client Manager. Here are some useful links:

Dell Client Monitoring Policy (The Health-check):

To find this policy, please do the following:

Open your Altiris 6.5 Console
Go to View >> Solutions >> Dell Client Manager

Click to view.
Now, go to: Dell Client Manager >> Tasks >> Dell Client Monitoring Policies >> Dell Client Monitoring Policies

Click to view.

Now that we have found the policy, we should clone it. It is a good idea to never tweak the canned policies that Altiris gives you (in case you want to go back to the default). Do the following to clone the Dell Client Monitoring Policy:

Right click on the "Dell Client Monitoring Policy"
Select the menu item named "Clone"

Click to view.
A new window will appear titled "Clone Item", in this window change the name of your policy to something like "Test"
You now have a policy that you can play with safely

Now we can enable the new "Test" policy

In the right pane, right under the title "Dell Client Monitoring Policy" you will see a check box next to "Enable", click that check box to enable the policy

Click to view.
At the bottom of the screen click the "Apply" button, now the policy is enabled

Click to view.

The policy is enabled when the title is green

Now, lets go through the settings that can be found in this policy:

Collections:

Clicking the pencil to the right of collections allows you to select what computers this policy applies to. By default this policy is applied to all computers that have the Dell Client Manager Agent. I decided that I would narrow the scope while I was testing. It did not cause unexpected problems for all of my users.
BIOS Setup Password:

If you have a BIOS password enter it here. If you have more than one BIOS password in your environment you can create multiple policies, if you need to do that see above.

Default actions:

This section allows you to specify how Notification Server sends you policy information

Server Actions: This feature is very powerful. This is where you tell Notification Server what to do with the information that is collected. For instance, you can have the server email you, create a Helpdesk ticket, or generate a report. For testing I decided that the server should email me if a problem occurs. There is an email template, but it is still useful to look at how to configure this part of the policy:
- Click on the pencil on the left of the "Server Actions" label
- A new window will appear, in the drop down menu next to "Add action type:" select "E-mail Automated Action"
- Now click on the "Add" button to the right of "Add action type:"
- In the "Automated Action" window, enter a name and description
- Check the box next to "Enabled"
- Enter an email address
- Enter a Subject line (e.g. Dell Client Manager: %DS:Alert Name% is received from %DS:Name% )
- Now you can enter a message so you know why you are getting the email
  
  Click to view.
  
  It appears that you can use Notification Server variables to help create dynamic emails. That makes the email useful
Client actions: You can tell the computer to keep a log of what the policy reports. I don't use this feature

Monitored Items:

In this section I will go over the items that I decided to monitor and why I decided to monitor those particular items. Each item gives you the ability to create a rule and to determine the server and client actions. The granular control of these features makes this policy very powerful.

Memory:
- Rule: Decreased
- Explanation: I decided that if the amount of memory in the computer changes I want to be emailed
Fan probe status:
- Rule: Any
- Explanation: If anything happens to the "Fan probe status" I want to know. Hot computers are not a good thing
Temperature probe status:
- Rule: Any
- Explanation: See "Fan probe status"
Voltage probe status:
- Rule: Any
- Explanation: We have had some problems with our power supplies. I decided that I wanted to know if anything happens with our electricity
Current probe status:
- Rule: Any
- Explanation: I want to make sure that I can monitor the computer's status
Chassis intrusion status:
- Rule: Any to Any
- Explanation: I want to know whenever someone opens a case.
Battery status:
- Rule: Any to Pred Fail
- Explanation: I want to know if the system battery is dead (we have had a few problems with that as well)
Fan status:
- Rule: Any to Any
- Explanation: If anything happens with the fans I want to know.

Click to view.

As you can see in the picture, you can also monitor the number of disks in the machine, how much free space you have on the computer, the operating system status, and more. Very soon I am going to start monitoring the docking status of a few laptops. I am convinced that we have some laptop users that don't need a laptop. All I need is some hard data to prove that. Another useful side affect of this policy is tracking warranty replacements. We had a few power supplies go bad. I had a technician come in to replace them. I was able to see when he opened a computer. I knew what computers he had worked on without any information from him. These two things will save us money and headaches. We can hold people responsible and keep better records.

You will also notice that most of rules above are set to any. When I was setting everything up I was not entirely sure what the different options did for me. I decided that I would watch and see what data came in before I really figured out what each and every option meant. Thankfully, our Dell computers have been running well, so it has not been a big deal.

Now you can decide what is important to you in your environment. Make sure you click the "Apply" button in the bottom left. If not you will lose all of your data.

View Report:

At the bottom right you can see a "View Report" button. There are a bunch of different ways to view the report:

Click to view.

The report will break out by computer:

Click to view.

You can see on the bottom the computer named "Testy" has been triggered twice. That is when I added more RAM to a machine.

Conclusion:

Dell Client Manager has allowed me to be proactive with the computers in my environment. At first I was scared to enable this policy. I thought that I would be getting hundreds of emails all the time. The only emails that I have received are when a case is opened. I have found that it takes between two and four minutes for the email to be sent after the event is triggered. I have also noticed that, in the case of the chassis intrusion rule, some computers are sensitive.

This free tool from Dell and Altiris was worth the effort of installing for this one policy. I now feel like I actually know what is going on with the computers I manage. This was really easy to setup and straight forward to understand.

In the next article I will talk about how to update the BIOS using the Dell Client Manager.

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