ZENworks for NetWare 5

Novell's NetWare 5 release introduced the company's entry in the zero administration marketplace—Zero Effort Networks (ZENworks—known as Z.E.N.works until recently). NetWare 5 includes the ZENworks Starter Pack, which is distinct from the more comprehensive ZENworks package. You can find information about the installation process for the new Novell client and the ZENworks Starter Pack in "Novell's New NT Client," July 1999. Also, you can read more about Novell's latest version of ZENworks in the sidebar "What's New with ZENworks 2?" page 80.

In this article, I cover some of the features of the full ZENworks package in detail for organizations committed to the Novell Directory Services (NDS) environment. The ZENworks package includes five free licenses for Greenwich Mean Time's (GMT's) Check 2000. This software lets administrators monitor Year 2000 (Y2K) compliance on every workstation on their network.

What Is ZENworks?
Novell bundled the NetWare Application Launcher (NAL), Workstation Administrator, and Remote Control Administrator products together and called the resulting product ZENworks. NAL implements what Novell calls a just-in-time (JIT) application-distribution solution. This solution gives users at workstations almost instantaneous access to the applications they request.

Workstation Administrator stores configuration parameters in NDS for individual workstations. These parameters include hardware and software specifications, printer settings, and policies. Using these parameters, Remote Control Administrator can aid Help desk personnel and administrators in reducing the time it takes to resolve workstation problems. If the problem is software-related, an administrator can correct the problem remotely through NDS.

ZENworks' Inventory Feature
Using ZENworks, NDS maintains a workstation object for every PC on the network. The ZENworks Inventory feature gives you a complete hardware and software inventory, and memory and environmental information for all managed workstations. Centralized database support gives you quick access to inventory information with the ability to query the database from the console. You can generate predefined reports through the Tools menu in NetWare Administrator. By querying NDS through the ODBC interface, you can get reports on the types of processors (e.g., 386, 486, Pentium) and the amount of RAM each workstation is using.

Platform-dependent scan programs gather software and hardware information from each workstation. The NetWare server's SYS:\Public\ZENworks directory contains two inventory scan programs: Ntscan32.exe scans Windows NT workstations over IP or IPX, and winscan.exe scans Windows 9x computers over IP or IPX. The Scheduler lets you set up event scheduling and the scanning time and frequency. The Scheduler doesn't automatically update Inventory information as changes occur; you must periodically run the inventory scanner to check for updates on managed workstations.

To do a workstation inventory, first set up a workstation inventory collection. To do so, register and import each workstation to create workstation objects within NetWare Administrator. You can define how NDS will name the workstation objects when it creates them. You can also choose from multiple options for naming the workstation. For example, you can give the computer object a combination of the computer name and username. You can choose from the following for naming the workstation:

• Computer: The Windows computer name for an NT or Win9x workstation.
• Container: The place where an object resides within NDS.
• CPU: The CPU type that resides in the workstation.
• DNS: The DNS name, which is the logical name related to the IP address.
• Network Address: The workstation network address—either the media access control (MAC) portion of the IPX address or the IP address that the preferred network address specifies.
• OS: The workstation's OS (NT, Win9x, Windows 3.1).
• Server: The workstation's preferred server.
• User: The name of the logged-on user.
• <User Defined>: User-defined names using characters that are valid in a Directory Service (DS) object name.

First, create a workstation policy package to enable the workstation inventory policy. Then, associate the policy package with the workstation objects you want to inventory.

Finally, you're ready to conduct an inventory of the workstations. From within NetWare Administrator, select Details for the Workstation Policy Package. Then, check the Workstation Inventory box. Edit the Policy Schedule to make any necessary changes in scheduling for the inventory scan program. The inventory database stores the frequency information for hardware and software scanning. Software scanning takes longer than hardware scanning, so you might not want to scan for software as often as for hardware.

The predefined list of hardware components that the scan inventories includes disk drives, hard disks, BIOS, buses, mouse devices, keyboards, display adapters, network cards, memory, serial ports, and parallel ports. The hardware and software information resides in the ZENworks inventory database, zeninv.db. The SYS:\Zenworks\ Database directory on the NetWare server stores zeninv.db.

The software scan checks for applications on workstations, reports information about the scanned software—such as the name and version of the software and the file size of the scanned application files—and collects configuration file information to report the contents and details of the system files. To enable the software scan inventory feature, set up a Software Scan Policy within NetWare Administrator. The scan policy lets you customize the scanning of workstation applications. The Software Scan Policy displays the list of applications the inventory feature will scan according to the applications you select in the Software List Editor. You can find the Software List Editor in the Software Scan Policy.

The Software List Editor contains a predefined software list of up to 6000 software applications. The Software List Editor maintains this list in a text file, ldappl.ini. Novell advises administrators not to risk corrupting the ldappl.ini file by manually editing it. Instead, use the Software List Editor to modify the settings of this file. In the Software List Editor window, select the applications you want the Software Scan Policy window, which Screen 1 shows, to display. The file extensions you specify in the Software List Editor will determine the types of files the inventory feature will scan on the managed workstations. By default, the Software List Editor lists applications by their product names. You can use the File name view option to list applications by filename.

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