Dell OPENMANAGE 7.6 User manual

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Dell™ OpenManage™
Client Instrumentation Version 7.6
User’s Guide

Notes and Notices
NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of
your computer.
NOTICE: A NOTICE indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data
and tells you how to avoid the problem.
____________________
Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
© 2008 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of these materials in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc.
is strictly forbidden.
Trademarksusedin this text:Dell,the DELL logo, OpenManage,Latitude,OptiPlex, andDell Precision
are trademarks of Dell Inc.; Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries;
Altiris is a registered trademark of Altiris Inc.; Microsoft, Windows, and Windows Vista are either
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Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming
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trade names other than its own.
June 2008

Contents 3
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CIM Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
WMI Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Data Sources Used by OMCI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
OMCI Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
CIM 2.6 Schema Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Dell LegacySelect 2.0 Support . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Remote Boot Device Select . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
WMI Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Event Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Remote Shutdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Remote Wake-Up Configurability. . . . . . . . . . 13
WfM Version 2.0 Compliance. . . . . . . . . . . . 13
What's New . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Supported Operating Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Latest Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Other Dell Documents You Might Need . . . . . . . . . 15
Other Resources Which Might Be Of Interest. . . . . . 15
Obtaining Technical Assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

4Contents
2 Installing Dell™ OpenManage™
Client Instrumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
User Account Control in Windows Vista . . . . . . . . 18
Local Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Installing the Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Uninstalling the Client. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Silent Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Installing the Client in the Silent Mode . . . . . . . 21
Performing a Complete Installation in
Silent Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Performing a Custom Installation in
Silent Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Upgrading the Client in Silent Mode . . . . . . . . 22
Uninstalling the Client in Silent Mode . . . . . . . 22
Administrative Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3 Windows Management
Instrumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
WMI Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
WMI Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Retrieving Dell Information With SMS 2.0. . . . . . . . 26
WMI Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Contents 5
4Alerts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
ASF Alerting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
WMI Alerting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5 Component Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6 Troubleshooting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Wakeup on LAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Remote Connection to WMI and Remote
BIOS Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Installation Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
A Sample Scripts and BIOS Settings . . . . . 49
WMI Sample Scripts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Clear Chassis Intrusion Status . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Disable Desktop Messages for All Alerts . . . . . 51
Remote System Shutdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Remote System Restart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Remote BIOS Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Enabling PXE Boot on the Next Reboot . . . . . . 61
Enabling Wakeup on LAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Retrieving Service Tag, Asset Tag, and
BIOS Revision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Changing BIOS Password . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
BIOS Settings Supported in OMCI 7.6 . . . . . . . . . . 70

6Contents
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Introduction 7
Introduction
The Dell™ OpenManage™ Client Instrumentation (OMCI) software enables
remote management application programs to access client system information,
monitor the client system status, or change the state of the client system; such
as shutting it down remotely. Through standard interfaces, OMCI exposes key
system parameters allowing administrators to manage inventory, monitor
system health, and gather information on deployed Dell client systems.
OMCI enables Dell client systems to be managed using the Common
Information Model (CIM) standard. CIM reduces your total cost of
ownership, improves security, and provides a holistic approach to managing
all devices in the enterprise, including clients, servers, storage, network, and
software devices.
CIM Overview
The CIM, created by the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) as part
of the Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative, provides a
unified view of physical and logical objects in the managed environment.
CIM is a systems management protocol defined by industry standards.
The following are important CIM details:
• CIM is an object - oriented data model for describing management
information. CIM describes the way the data is organized, not necessarily
the transport model used to transport the data. The most prevalent
transport method is the Microsoft
®
Windows
®
Management
Instrumentation (WMI).
•CIM
- capable management applications gather information from a variety
of CIM objects and devices, including client and server systems, network
infrastructure devices, and applications.
• The CIM specification details mapping techniques for improved
compatibility with other management protocols.

8Introduction
• The CIM data model abstracts and describes all elements in a network
environment. The CIM schema provides the actual data model
descriptions and arranges the network into a series of managed objects,
all interrelated and broadly classified.
• The CIM schema is defined by the Managed Object Format (MOF) file,
which provides a standardized model for describing management
information between clients in a management system. The MOF file is not
bound to a particular implementation, and it allows the interchange of
management information between many different management systems
and clients.
WMI Overview
WMI is Microsoft's implementation of CIM instrumentation. WMI supports
CIM and Microsoft-specific CIM extensions. The WMI management
infrastructure also includes the CIM Object Manager (CIMOM), which is
the interface and manipulation point for CIM objects and information.
It acts as a facilitator in gathering information and manipulating object
properties. OMCI provides data to WMI, which is the common interface
to WMI management applications. For more information, see "Windows
Management Instrumentation."
Data Sources Used by OMCI
OMCI contains the underlying driver set that collects system information from a
number of different sources on the client system, including the BIOS, CMOS,
System Management BIOS (SMBIOS), System Management Interface (SMI),
operating system, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Dynamic Link
Libraries (DLLs), and registry settings. OMCI exposes that information through
the CIMOM interface of the WMI stack and enables IT administrators to
remotely collect asset information, modify CMOS settings, receive proactive
notification of potential fault conditions, and be alerted to potential security
breaches.

Introduction 9
OMCI uses a variety of data sources resident on the client system which
includes:
• Microsoft Win32 WMI providers
•SMBIOS
• Device drivers
• Operating system registry
• Operating system Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
• WMI repository
OMCI Architecture
The OMCI architecture is based on a layered model that is tightly integrated
with the Microsoft WMI stack as shown in Figure 1-1.
• WMI application layer — C onsists of management applications such as
Dell Client Manager, Dell OpenManage Client Administrator (OMCA),
and other standards-based management tools and WMI applications
such as Microsoft SMS, LANDesk, and so on. This layer is not a part of
OMCI and the applications are consumers of systems management data
supplied from the client by OMCI. These applications request client
information and receive client alerts through the CIMOM.
• Dell WMI provider — Lies beneath the CIMOM and contains two CIM
providers which register with the CIMOM. When the CIMOM receives
a request for information, it routes the request to the appropriate
provider. Both Dell and Microsoft providers exist in this layer, and they
provide information on system devices. The providers
send management
application requests from the CIMOM to the data router.
•
Data router — C ollects information from system components in the
data provider layer and passes the information up to the Dell WMI
provider layer,
which then presents it to the CIMOM.
•
Data provider — Provides data to the data router. When it receives a
request from the data router, the data provider queries the client system's
hardware, drivers, and operating system to determine the available
instrumentation. It then applies all platform and customer overrides to the
data before returning it to the data router.

10 Introduction
For example, a management console in the WMI application layer requests
the available free space on the client system hard drive. The WMI application
layer makes the request over the network to the CIMOM (in the Dell WMI
provider layer) on the client system. The CIMOM routes the request to the
appropriate WMI provider, which, in turn, routes the request through the
data router layer to the disk data provider in the data provider layer. The
information is then returned (through the same path in reverse) to the
management console.
NOTE: OMCI 7.6 and later versions will not be supported by Dell OpenManage
IT Assistant (ITA) 8.x.
Figure 1-1. Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation Architecture