Symantec ALTIRIS CLIENT MANAGEMENT SUITE 7.0 SP2 -... User manual

Altiris™Client Management
Suite from Symantec User
Guide
Version 7.0 SP2

Altiris™Client Management Suite from Symantec User
Guide
The software described in this book is furnished under a license agreement and may be used
only in accordance with the terms of the agreement.
Documentation version 7.0 SP2
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Technical Support
Symantec Technical Support maintains support centers globally. Technical
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and functionality. The Technical Support group also creates content for our online
Knowledge Base. The Technical Support group works collaboratively with the
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fashion. For example, the Technical Support group works with Product Engineering
and Symantec Security Response to provide alerting services and virus definition
updates.
Symantec’s maintenance offerings include the following:
■A range of support options that give you the flexibility to select the right
amount of service for any size organization
■Telephone and Web-based support that provides rapid response and
up-to-the-minute information
■Upgrade assurance that delivers automatic software upgrade protection
■Global support that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
■Advanced features, including Account Management Services
For information about Symantec’s Maintenance Programs, you can visit our Web
site at the following URL:
www.symantec.com/techsupp/
Contacting Technical Support
Customers with a current maintenance agreement may access Technical Support
information at the following URL:
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Before contacting Technical Support, make sure you have satisfied the system
requirements that are listed in your product documentation. Also, you should be
at the computer on which the problem occurred, in case it is necessary to replicate
the problem.
When you contact Technical Support, please have the following information
available:
■Product release level
■Hardware information
■Available memory, disk space, and NIC information
■Operating system

■Version and patch level
■Network topology
■Router, gateway, and IP address information
■Problem description:
■Error messages and log files
■Troubleshooting that was performed before contacting Symantec
■Recent software configuration changes and network changes
Licensing and registration
If your Symantec product requires registration or a license key, access our technical
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Customer service information is available at the following URL:
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■Information about the Symantec Buying Programs
■Advice about Symantec's technical support options
■Nontechnical presales questions
■Issues that are related to CD-ROMs or manuals

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please contact the maintenance agreement administration team for your region
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Select your country or language from the site index.

Technical Support ............................................................................................... 4
Chapter 1 Introducing Client Management Suite ............................. 9
About Client Management Suite ....................................................... 9
Components of Client Management Suite ......................................... 10
Where to get more information ....................................................... 13
Chapter 2 Using Power Scheme Task ................................................. 15
About Power Scheme Task component ............................................. 15
Preparing target computers for power scheme management ................ 16
Installing the Power Scheme Agent ........................................... 17
Upgrading the Power Scheme Agent .......................................... 17
Uninstalling the Power Scheme Agent ....................................... 18
Collecting power scheme inventory data ........................................... 18
Creating a Power Scheme Task ....................................................... 19
Editing and deploying power scheme settings .................................... 19
Viewing power scheme inventory data ............................................. 20
Index .................................................................................................................... 21
Contents

Contents8

Introducing Client
Management Suite
This chapter includes the following topics:
■About Client Management Suite
■Components of Client Management Suite
■Where to get more information
About Client Management Suite
Client Management Suite combines the necessary tools that help you deploy,
manage, secure, and troubleshoot your desktop computers and laptop computers
throughout their entire lifecycle.
The solutions that are part of the Client Management Suite help you discover the
resources in your network, and let you check their state. The reporting tools help
you identify problems and take immediate action to fix them. Client Management
Suite lets you automate time-consuming and redundant tasks to reduce the effort
of managing your client systems.
Client Management Suite is a collection of solutions that run on the Symantec
Management Platform. The platform and solutions of the Client Management
Suite provide the following key features:
■Discovery and inventory
The suite lets you gather comprehensive inventory of all hardware and software
on your client systems. The collected inventory data helps you optimize
software licenses and reduce the costs that are associated with operating
system deployments and software rollouts.
■Imaging and deployment
1
Chapter

The suite lets you deploy standardized and hardware-independent images on
your managed computers. You can migrate to the latest operating system or
hardware with fewer interruptions to users.
■Software distribution and patch management
The suite lets you control the software configurations of your client systems.
The automated policies for software and patch management help you distribute
the latest software and operating system updates. Software management
capabilities let you ensure that the required software remains installed, is
always in a working state, and is correctly configured on the client systems.
■Remote management
The suite lets you troubleshoot and remediate client computers remotely. You
can remote control your client systems with pcAnywhere technology, or use
Real-Time System Manager techniques to fix the problems of users.
See “Components of Client Management Suite”on page 10.
See “Where to get more information”on page 13.
Components of Client Management Suite
Client Management Suite is a collection of solutions that run on the Symantec
Management Platform.
See “About Client Management Suite”on page 9.
Introducing Client Management Suite
Components of Client Management Suite
10

Table 1-1 Components of Client Management Suite
DescriptionComponent
Symantec Management Platform provides a set of services
that IT-related solutions can leverage. By leveraging these
services, the solutions that are built on the platform can
focus on their unique tasks. They also can take advantage
of the more general services that the platform provides. The
platform services also provide a high degree of consistency
between the solutions, so that users do not need to learn
multiple product interfaces.
Symantec Management Platform includes the following
components:
■Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
■Notification Server
■Symantec Management Console
■Altiris Agent for Windows, and for UNIX, Linux, and Mac
■Network Discovery
■Software Management Framework
■Reports
Symantec Management
Platform
Deployment Solution helps to reduce the cost of deploying
and managing servers, desktops, notebooks, and thin clients
from a centralized location in your environment. It offers
operating system deployment, configuration, personality
migration of computers, and software deployment across
different hardware platforms and operating systems.
Deployment Solution provides integrated provisioning, disk
imaging, and personality migration from the Symantec
Management Console. Using Symantec Ghost™, you can
perform initial computer deployment using standard images
and migrate user data or application settings to new
computers.
Deployment Solution includes a 7.x version that runs on
the Symantec Management Platform and a license for the
latest 6.x version that can be installed separately.
Deployment Solution
11Introducing Client Management Suite
Components of Client Management Suite

Table 1-1 Components of Client Management Suite (continued)
DescriptionComponent
Inventory Solution lets you gather inventory data about the
computers, users, operating systems, and installed software
applications in your environment. You can collect inventory
data from the computers that run Windows, UNIX, Linux,
and Mac.
After you gather inventory data, you can analyze it using
predefined or custom reports.
Inventory Solution
Inventory for Network Devices gathers inventory data from
the devices that are not managed through the Altiris Agent.
You can gather inventory on the devices that are already
discovered and exist as resources in the Configuration
Management Database (CMDB).
Inventory for Network
Devices
Out-of-Band Management component lets you discover
computers with ASF, DASH, and Intel AMT in your
environment and configure them for out-of-band
management.
Out-of-band management lets you manage client computers
regardless of the state of their power, operating system, or
management agents. You can remotely change the power
state of the computer and collect hardware inventory. You
also can perform other management tasks that normally
would require a visit to a client computer.
Out-of-band management
Patch Management Solution for Linux lets you scan Red Hat
and Novell Linux computers for security vulnerabilities.
The solution then reports on the findings and lets you
automate the download and distribution of needed errata,
or software updates. The solution downloads the required
patches and provides wizards to help you deploy them.
Patch Management Solution
for Linux
Patch Management Solution for Mac lets you scan Mac
computers for the updates that they require. The solution
then reports on the findings and lets you automate the
downloading and distribution of needed updates. You can
distribute all or some of the updates.
Patch Management Solution
for Mac
Introducing Client Management Suite
Components of Client Management Suite
12

Table 1-1 Components of Client Management Suite (continued)
DescriptionComponent
Patch Management Solution for Windows lets you scan
Windows computers for security vulnerabilities, and view
the results of the scan. The system lets you automate the
download and distribution of the security patches. You can
create filters of the computers and apply the patch to the
computers that need it.
Patch Management Solution
for Windows
pcAnywhere Solution is a remote control solution. It lets
you manage computers, resolve help desk issues, and
connect to remote devices.
pcAnywhere Solution
The Power Scheme Task component helps you discover and
remotely configure the power settings of your Windows
computers.
See “About Power Scheme Task component”on page 15.
Power Scheme Task
Real-Time System Manager provides you detailed real-time
information about the managed computer, and lets you
remotely perform different administrative tasks. You can
run the tasks immediately, or on a schedule.
Real-Time System Manager also lets you run some of the
management tasks on a collection of computers.
Real-Time System Manager
Software Management Solution provides intelligent and
bandwidth-sensitive distribution and management of
software from a central Web console. It leverages the
Software Catalog and Software Library to ensure that the
required software gets installed, remains installed, and runs
without interference from other software.
Software Management Solution supports software
virtualization technology, which lets you install software
into a virtual layer on the client computer.
Software Management Solution also lets users directly
download and install approved software or request other
software.
Software Management
Solution
Where to get more information
Use the following documentation resources to learn and use this product.
13Introducing Client Management Suite
Where to get more information

Table 1-2 Documentation resources
LocationDescriptionDocument
http://kb.altiris.com/
You can search for the product name under
Release Notes.
Information about new features and
important issues.
This information is available as an article in
the knowledge base.
Release Notes
■The Documentation Library, which is
available in the Symantec Management
Console on the Help menu.
■The Product Support page, which is
available at the following URL:
http://www.symantec.com/business
/support/all_products.jsp
When you open your product’s support
page, look for the Documentation link
on the right side of the page.
Information about how to use this product,
including detailed technical information and
instructions for performing common tasks.
This information is available in PDF format.
User Guide
The Documentation Library, which is
available in the Symantec Management
Console on the Help menu.
Context-sensitive help is available for most
screens in the Symantec Management
Console.
You can open context-sensitive help in the
following ways:
■The F1 key
■The Context command, which is available
in the Symantec Management Console
on the Help menu.
Information about how to use this product,
including detailed technical information and
instructions for performing common tasks.
Help is available at the solution level and at
the suite level.
This information is available in HTML help
format.
Help
In addition to the product documentation, you can use the following resources to
learn about Altiris products.
Table 1-3 Altiris information resources
LocationDescriptionResource
http://kb.altiris.com/Articles, incidents, and issues about Altiris
products.
Knowledge base
http://www.symantec.com/connect
/endpoint-management-virtualization
An online magazine that contains best
practices, tips, tricks, forums, and articles
for users of this product.
Symantec Connect
(formerly Altiris Juice)
Introducing Client Management Suite
Where to get more information
14

Using Power Scheme Task
This chapter includes the following topics:
■About Power Scheme Task component
■Preparing target computers for power scheme management
■Collecting power scheme inventory data
■Creating a Power Scheme Task
■Editing and deploying power scheme settings
■Viewing power scheme inventory data
About Power Scheme Task component
The Power Scheme Task component helps you discover and remotely configure
the power scheme settings of your Windows computers.
The Power Scheme Task component includes predefined tasks with different
power scheme settings. According to your requirements, you can change the
settings of the predefined tasks, or you can create custom power scheme
management tasks.
When the power scheme management task runs, it creates and activates the Altiris
Power Scheme on target computers.
See “Editing and deploying power scheme settings”on page 19.
The Power Scheme Task component is installed as a part of the Client Management
Suite.
The Power Scheme Task component requires that you install the Power Scheme
Agent on your managed computers.
See “Installing the Power Scheme Agent”on page 17.
2
Chapter

Table 2-1 Power Scheme Task features
DescriptionFeature
You can edit and deploy different predefined
power schemes.
See “Editing and deploying power scheme
settings”on page 19.
The Power Scheme Task that you run does not
change the power schemes that Windows or other
applications install. It creates the Altiris Power
Scheme with the power scheme settings that you
specify.
Edit and deploy power schemes.
You can create custom power scheme
management tasks, and you can specify the power
scheme settings according to your requirements.
See “Creating a Power Scheme Task”on page 19.
Create power scheme management
tasks.
You can collect information about the power
scheme settings that are currently active on your
Windows computers.
See “Collecting power scheme inventory data”
on page 18.
Inventory power schemes on client
computers.
You can use a predefined report to see the power
scheme settings that are currently active on your
Windows computers.
See “Viewing power scheme inventory data”
on page 20.
View power schemes data.
Preparing target computers for power scheme
management
To run power the scheme management tasks, you must install the Power Scheme
Agent on the target computers. The Power Scheme Agent lets you configure the
power scheme settings on your managed Windows computers. The Power Scheme
Agent also lets you collect information about the power scheme settings that are
currently in use on the managed computers.
The Power Scheme Agent works with the Altiris Agent to perform the power
scheme management tasks.
See “About Power Scheme Task component”on page 15.
Using Power Scheme Task
Preparing target computers for power scheme management
16

Installing the Power Scheme Agent
The Power Scheme Agent lets you configure the power scheme settings on your
managed Windows computers. The agent installation process can take some time
to start, depending on the update intervals that you set for the Altiris Agent.
See “About Power Scheme Task component”on page 15.
To install the Power Scheme Agent
1In the Symantec Management Console, on the Actions menu, click
Agents/Plug-ins >Rollout Agents/Plug-ins.
2In the left pane, click Power Scheme >Power Scheme Agent Install.
3In the right pane, make any wanted changes.
For more information about policy configuration options, press F1 or click
Help >Context.
4Turn on the policy.
At the upper right of the page, click the colored circle, and then click On.
5Click Save changes.
Upgrading the Power Scheme Agent
If you upgrade from a previous version of the Client Management Suite, you must
also upgrade the Power Scheme Agent to the latest version. To upgrade the Power
Scheme Agent, you must turn on the upgrade policy.
See “About Power Scheme Task component”on page 15.
To upgrade the Power Scheme Agent
1In the Symantec Management Console, on the Actions menu, click
Agents/Plug-ins >Rollout Agents/Plug-ins.
2In the left pane, click Power Scheme >Power Scheme Agent Upgrade.
3In the right pane, make any wanted changes.
For more information about policy configuration options, press F1 or click
Help >Context.
4Turn on the policy.
At the upper right of the page, click the colored circle, and then click On.
5Click Save changes.
17Using Power Scheme Task
Preparing target computers for power scheme management

Uninstalling the Power Scheme Agent
If you do not perform the power scheme management tasks on your computers
over an extended period of time, you can uninstall the Power Scheme Agent.
Uninstalling the unused agents helps to eliminate the unnecessary network traffic.
To uninstall the Power Scheme Agent, you must turn on the uninstall policy.
Note: Before you uninstall the Power Scheme Agent, make sure that you turn off
the Power Scheme Agent Install policy.
See “About Power Scheme Task component”on page 15.
See “Installing the Power Scheme Agent”on page 17.
To uninstall the Power Scheme Agent
1In the Symantec Management Console, on the Actions menu, click
Agents/Plug-ins >Rollout Agents/Plug-ins.
2In the left pane, click Power Scheme >Power Scheme Agent Uninstall.
3In the right pane, make any wanted changes.
For more information about policy configuration options, press F1 or click
Help >Context.
4Turn on the policy.
At the upper right of the page, click the colored circle, and then click On.
5Click Save changes.
Collecting power scheme inventory data
The Power Scheme Inventory task lets you collect power scheme settings inventory
from managed computers.
See “About Power Scheme Task component”on page 15.
To perform this task, you must install the Power Scheme Agent on the target
computers.
See “Installing the Power Scheme Agent”on page 17.
After you run the inventory task, you can use the predefined report to view the
collected power scheme settings data.
See “Viewing power scheme inventory data”on page 20.
Using Power Scheme Task
Collecting power scheme inventory data
18

To collect power scheme inventory data
1In the Symantec Management Console, on the Manage menu, click Jobs and
Tasks.
2In the left pane, click Client Tasks >Power Scheme Tasks >Power Scheme
Inventory.
3Select the target computers and run or schedule the task.
Creating a Power Scheme Task
You can create custom power scheme management tasks, and you can specify the
power scheme settings according to your requirements.
See “About Power Scheme Task component”on page 15.
For more information, see the topic about creating a task in the Symantec
Management Platform Help.
To create a Power Scheme Task
1In the Symantec Management Console, on the Manage menu, click Jobs and
Tasks.
2In the left pane, click Client Tasks.
3Right-click the Power Scheme Tasks folder, and then click New >Task.
4In the Create New Task dialog box, in the left pane, click Power Scheme
Settings Task.
5In the right pane, specify the power scheme settings.
6Click Ok.
Editing and deploying power scheme settings
Power Scheme Tasks let you create and activate different power scheme settings
on your managed Windows computers.
See “About Power Scheme Task component”on page 15.
To perform the power scheme management tasks, you must install the Power
Scheme Agent on target computers.
See “Installing the Power Scheme Agent”on page 17.
When you select the target computers, be mindful that only one power scheme
can be active on a computer at a time. When you run more than one Power Scheme
Task on a target computer, the task that runs last sets the active power scheme.
19Using Power Scheme Task
Creating a Power Scheme Task

For example, you may run the Always On Power Scheme task on all your
computers. Later, you can run the Portable/Laptop Power Scheme task on your
notebook computers.
Note: The power scheme that the specified Power Scheme Task creates and
activates, is always named Altiris Power Scheme on the target computers. For
example, when you run Always On Power Scheme task, the created and activated
power scheme is named Altiris Power Scheme on the target computers.
For more information, see the topic about running a task in the Symantec
Management Platform Help.
To edit and deploy power scheme settings
1In the Symantec Management Console, on the Manage menu, click Jobs and
Tasks.
2In the left pane, click Client Tasks >Power Scheme Tasks.
3Select a Power Scheme Task that you want to run.
4(Optional) In the right pane, configure the power scheme settings.
5Click Save changes.
6Select the target computers and run or schedule the task.
Viewing power scheme inventory data
You can use a predefined report to view the power scheme inventory data. The
report lets you see the power scheme settings that are active on the client
computers.
To collect the power scheme inventory data, you must run the Power Scheme
Inventory task on target computers.
See “Collecting power scheme inventory data”on page 18.
To view power scheme inventory data
1In the Symantec Management Console, on the Reports menu, click All
Reports.
2In the left pane, click Power Scheme >Power Scheme Settings.
For more information, see the topics about using reports in the Symantec
Management Platform Help.
Using Power Scheme Task
Viewing power scheme inventory data
20