Other settings

Use these two options to fine-tune the way inactive agents are reported as offline in the console.

The defaults are five minutes and one minute, respectively. A higher value for “Update inactive agents means less interaction with the database server.

For example, setting the Period of inactivity of an agent to 3 and Update inactive agents to 2 will make the housekeeping Dispatcher check at every two minutes for agents that are inactive for more than three minutes, and report them as offline in the database.

Important: You must restart the dispatcher service for the housekeeping Dispatcher in order to get the new settings.

Synchronizes the clock on all Agents with the Datastore. This setting is disabled by default.

Specifies how Consoles, Dispatchers and Agents are identified in your Ivanti Automation environment. When you deploy a Console, Dispatcher or Agent, it receives a unique Ivanti Automation-generated GUID by which it is identified. In certain scenarios, this identification method can lead to obsolete Consoles, Dispatchers and Agents (e.g. when you reinstall the operating system on a computer, when virtual machines use the same image, or when you deploy Ivanti Automation components on multiple computers using imaging). To prevent this, you can change their identification method. The selected identification method applies to all Consoles, Dispatchers and Agents:

• Unique Ivanti Automation-generated computer GUID: Selected by default.
• MAC address of the first enabled network interface card: If a Console, Dispatcher or Agent has multiple network cards, Ivanti Automation will use the MAC address of the first enabled network card, based on the order as defined on the Console, Dispatcher and Agent by Microsoft Windows.
  
  Added in 2019.1: IPv6 enabled network interface cards are now taken into consideration when evaluating the identification method based on MAC address. These NICs are evaluated only if no IPv4 NIC is available/enabled.
  
• Computer domain name & NetBIOS name: Identifies a Console, Dispatcher or Agent by the domain name or workgroup name and NetBIOS name of the computer on which it runs.

Specifies which broadcast address should be used when selecting the option Use Wake-on-LAN when Job starts during Job scheduling.

• The default global IPv4 broadcast address is 255.255.255.255.
• However, using a subnet broadcast address may be useful in environments in which Wake-on-LAN does not function correctly when using a global broadcast address. When using the subnet broadcast address, Ivanti Automation will broadcast the "wake-up" packet to the last known subnet broadcast address of the Agent that executes the Job (for example, 172.31.255.255).
• The default global IPv6 broadcast address is set to ff02::1 (i.e. all nodes on the local network segment).
• The default port that Ivanti Automation uses for Wake-on-LAN is port 3163. However, you can select an alternative UDP port number if necessary.

Configures a message that console users see when the Ivanti Automation Console or Ivanti Automation Management Portal is opened.

In the Ivanti Automation Console, users have to click OK in the message box to access content. In the Ivanti Automation Management Portal, the configured message displays below the login fields.

• State: Disabled (no message displayed at startup, the default value) or Enabled (message is displayed at startup).
• Title: Enter the message box title.
• Message: Enter the message you want to display.
• Duration: Enter the time, in seconds, for how long the message should be displayed. The default value is 30. Use 0 if you want to keep the message active until the user clicks the OK button, otherwise the message box will be automatically closed after the configured time expires. This option is valid for the Ivanti Automation Console only.

Performance tuning, specifies whether to process and load some data automatically.

Disabled by default for compatibility. When set to Yes, information from tabs like Usage, Job History, Versioning, Trusts, and Permissions will no longer automatically process and load the corresponding data. When this is set to Yes, a message appears in the affected views: Auto load large data turned off. Pressing F5 loads the large data on demand.

Specifies whether Agents are automatically updated.

A Dispatcher manages all communication between the Datastore and an Agent by contacting the Datastore at regular intervals. If a new Job or a new version of Ivanti Automation is available for the Agent, the Dispatcher will download all necessary data from the Datastore and store it. In its turn, the Agent contacts the Dispatcher at regular intervals. If a new Job or a new version of Ivanti Automation is available, the Agent will download all necessary data from the Dispatcher and perform the Job or update to the latest version. This may lead to issues in large environments with many Agents that all update at the same time. With this setting you can manage this behavior. The options are:

• Enabled: at upgrade of Ivanti Automation, all Agents will be updated instantly.
• Disabled until Agent restart: at upgrade of Ivanti Automation, the selected Agents will not be updated until the Agents restart or reboot.
• Disabled entirely: at upgrade of Ivanti Automation, the Agents will not be updated after the Agents restart or reboot.

(2020.2 or newer) Configure a secondary database password when there is a plan to change the current database password. This will automatically distribute the secondary password to all Consoles and Dispatchers in the environment. When you change the current database password, these components will then try the secondary password. If a connection with the secondary password succeeds, the main password will be overwritten on these components with the value of the secondary password.

Note that any Console or Dispatcher that was offline between the moment when the secondary password was configured and the database password got changed, will not be able to make use of the fallback mechanism and will then need a repair from a functional Console in order to recover, or a new deployment if repair is not possible.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This functionality does not cover environments set to connect to the database using Windows Authentication mode.

(2020.2.1 or newer) Regenerates the dispatcher to agent certificate in case the current one is expiring soon. Clicking the Generate button generates a new certificate. This certificate won't be used by dispatchers until the current certificate expires. Clicking the Apply button applies the new certificate immediately. You don't need to repair agents when using these options.

For additional instructions on changing an expiring root certificate, see this Ivanti Forums article.

(2021.2 or newer) Configure a GitHub/GitLab connection. Version 2021.2 supports GitHub only. Versions 2021.3 and newer also support GitLab.

When using GitHub/GitLab, Console users with write access to the Library section will be able to export the current configuration to GitHub/GitLab source control.

For more information, see Source control.

(2021.3 or newer) Enables the Agents to collect a custom Agent name. This alternative Agent name can be located in a string registry value for the Windows Agents or a file on disk for the Linux/Unix Agents. Once the feature is enabled, the Agents will collect the alternative name within the first minute after log on. The Agent alias will be re-evaluated once every 24 hours.

The Agent alias will be present in the Agents view in Console. Agents can be searched by using this new value in all Console views that involve an Agent search (the Agents view itself, adding Agents to team, adding Agents to a Run Book job when creating one, or adding Agents to a job when scheduling one). The Agents are searchable by this new value, but once the alias is selected to be added to a Run Book job or to a scheduled job or a team, the original Agent name will be present in those views. The Job History will also report the alternative Agent name in the jobs list or in the details of a job.

IMPORTANT: If an Agent alias changes between Job executions, the job will still target the correct Agent. The Agent alias is handled as dynamic information, while the Agent NetBIOS Name is handled as static information that will have the value from the job execution time, just as before this version.

An Agent alias cannot be more than 50 characters long.