When installing Dell OpenManage IT Assistant, it is important to see the latest readme.txt file on your Dell Systems Management Consoles CD or on the Dell Support website at support.dell.com. This file defines the most current supported operating systems and hardware requirements for IT Assistant. In addition to meeting these requirements, there are additional IT Assistant installation requirements as well as requirements for the systems that will be managed by IT Assistant. See "Planning Your Dell OpenManage™ IT Assistant Installation" for more information.
NOTE: The Systems Management Consoles CD is available for download as a Web Pack and an ISO image.
TCP/IP Protocol Support
For IT Assistant to function properly, your network must support the TCP/IP protocol.
Setting Up or Enabling Protocols for Agent Communication
Before installing IT Assistant, you must install your operating system's Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) service. Additionally, to ensure that systems are visible to IT Assistant discovery and inventory functions, make sure that agents and instrumentation on managed systems are accessible through the Common Information Model (CIM), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), or Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) protocol.
NOTE: CIM is installed by default on Microsoft® Windows® 2000, Windows Server® 2003, and
Windows XP Professional.
Installing SNMP on the IT Assistant System
The SNMP service must be installed and running on the IT Assistant system. SNMP (or CIM) must also be installed on the systems that you want to discover and manage.
NOTE: The following example uses Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
Click the Start button, point to Settings, and double-click ControlPanel.
Double-click the Add or Remove Programs icon.
This launches the Add or Remove Programs window.
Click the Add/Remove Windows Components icon on the left menu bar.
This launches the Windows Components Wizard window.
In the Windows Component Wizard window under Components, scroll to ManagementandMonitoringTools.
Select Management and Monitoring Tools, click Details, select Simple Network Management
Protocol, and click OK.
Click Next in the Windows Components Wizard window.
The Windows Components Wizard will install SNMP.
Once the installation is complete, click Finish.
Close the Add or Remove Programs window.
SNMP is now installed on your system.
IT Assistant can be installed only on systems running Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, or Windows Server 2003. For information on how to install and configure SNMP on managed systems running Microsoft Windows, Red Hat® Linux, or SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server operating systems, see "Configuring Protocols to Send Information to Dell OpenManage™ IT Assistant."
Enabling CIM
The CIM/WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) service is installed by default on Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP Professional. CIM discovery requires proper user ID and password credentials. Failure to supply proper credentials on a subnet configured for CIM discovery can result in account lockout.
IT Assistant supports role-based access control (RBAC) to define the specific operations each user can perform. However, the IT Assistant installation process does not require these user roles to be set up prior to installation. To set up RBAC users either before or after installing IT Assistant, see "Ensuring a Secure Dell OpenManage™ IT Assistant Installation."
You can install IT Assistant from the Dell Systems Management Consoles CD or download and install IT Assistant from the Dell Support website at support.dell.com. The Dell OpenManage Management Station installer program is used to install IT Assistant as well as other Dell OpenManage software. To install a product other than IT Assistant, refer to the installation instructions specific to that product.
To install IT Assistant for the first time:
Insert the Dell Systems Management Consoles CD into your CD drive.
If the installation program does not start automatically, navigate to the /windows directory and click setup.exe. The Dell OpenManage Management Station screen is displayed.
The installer automatically scans your system for any dependencies, such as whether you have SNMP installed or have a supported database application. If a missing dependency is found, an information window is displayed and you may be prompted to install the required package.
If no missing dependencies are found, click Install, Modify, Repair or Remove Management Station.
The Dell OpenManage Management Station install wizard is displayed. Click Next.
If you agree with the Dell Inc. software license agreement, click Next.
Select Typical or Custom installation from the Setup Type window.
Choosing Custom allows you to select specific Dell OpenManage applications to install and change the installation directory path and port settings for IT Assistant.
Choosing Typical installs all Dell OpenManage applications (including IT Assistant) that have passed dependency checking with pre-selected default settings for location and port. If you choose Typical, skip to the last step.
Ensure that IT Assistant is selected in the list of installable components, then click Next.
If you selected the Custom installation option, enter port settings or accept the defaults. If you
selected the Typical installation option, this dialog does not appear.
Click Next.
Ensure that IT Assistant is included in the installation summary window, then click Install to begin
the installation.
Upgrading from a Previous Version of IT Assistant
NOTE: Only IT Assistant versions 6.2 and later support upgrades from previous versions. The Dell OpenManage
Management Station installer program detects whether you currently have an upgradable version of IT Assistant
on your system.
NOTE: IT Assistant does not support a direct upgrade from version 6.x to version 8.0. You will be required to first
upgrade IT Assistant version 6.x to version 7.0 and then to IT Assistant version 8.0.
Insert the Dell Systems Management Consoles CD into your CD drive.
If the installation program does not start automatically, navigate to the /windows directory and click setup.exe. The Dell OpenManage Management Station screen is displayed.
The installer automatically scans your system for any missing dependencies, such as whether you have
SNMP installed or have a supported database application. If a missing dependency is found, an
information window is displayed and you may be prompted to install the required packages.
IT Assistant 8.0 installer removes all previous Management Station applications and re-installs the applications you select. All Dell OpenManage Server Administrator applications are also removed.
NOTE: If you have IT Assistant version 6.x, install IT Assistant 7.0 before installing version 8.0.
If no missing dependencies are found, click Install, Modify, Repair or Remove Management Station.
The Dell OpenManage Management Station install wizard is displayed. Click Next.
If you agree with the Dell Inc. software license agreement, click Next.
Select Typical or Custom installation from the Setup Type window.
Choosing Custom allows you to select specific Dell OpenManage applications to install and change the installation directory path and port settings for IT Assistant.
Choosing Typical installs all Dell OpenManage applications (including IT Assistant) with pre-selected default settings for location and port.
Ensure that IT Assistant is selected in the list of installable components, then click Next.
If you selected the Custom installation option, enter port settings or accept the defaults. If you
selected the Typical installation option, this dialog does not appear.
If you are upgrading from IT Assistant 6.x to 7.0, by default, Migrate IT Assistant Database Settings is
selected. When this option is selected, the following database settings in your existing IT Assistant
installation are preserved in your new installation:
Global configuration
Event stored action
Discovery configuration
NOTE: Migrate IT Assistant Database Settings is not available if you are upgrading from IT Assistant version 7.x
to version 8.0.
Click Next.
Ensure that IT Assistant is included in the installation summary window and click Install to begin
the installation.
NOTE: When upgrading from IT Assistant version 6.x to version 7.2, you have to qualify the CIM user names. This
qualification is necessary because CIM is enabled/disabled only per discovery range and requires each CIM user
to be qualified with a domain, or local host if no trusted domain is configured. It is critical to provide this qualification
when configuring CIM through a discovery range (for example: <domain\username>, or <localhost\username>) to
authenticate and use the CIM protocol.
Click the Start button, point to Settings, and double-click ControlPanel.
Double-click Add or RemovePrograms.
Select Dell OpenManage Management Station from the list of currently installed programs and click
the Change button.
NOTE: To uninstall the entire Management Station suite of products (including IT Assistant), select Remove
in the previous step. If you select Remove, the uninstallation may appear to be unresponsive for several
minutes if IT Assistant is performing discovery or polling.
The Management Station install wizard appears. Click Next.
In the Program Maintenance window, select Modify and click Next.
In the Custom Setup screen, deselect IT Assistant and click Next.
In the summary screen, ensure that IT Assistant is included in the list of applications to be removed.
Click Install.
When the uninstallation is complete, click Finish.
Reboot your system (optional).
Remote Microsoft SQL Server and IT Assistant
This section describes how to configure IT Assistant version 8.0 and later to use Microsoft SQL Server 2005 running on a remote server as the IT Assistant database.
Configuring IT Assistant to Use a Remote Database
IT Assistant ships with the SQL Server-compliant default database—SQL Server 2005 Express. The IT Assistant Network Monitoring Service and the IT Assistant Connection Service access the SQL Server-compliant default database—SQL Server 2005 Express that ships with IT Assistant.
When the database resides outside the IT Assistant management station, as in the case of a remote database, it is necessary to make the IT Assistant Network Monitoring Service and the IT Assistant Connection Service on the management station to access the remote database.
To do this, ensure that:
The SQL Server service (MSSQLServer) is running through the service control panel on the management station as well as the remote database. You can start the SQL Server 2005 services either through the SQL Server Service Manager on the system tray or through the SQL Server Enterprise Manager's SQL Server group.
The SQL Server-compliant database versions on management station and the remote database are the same.
SQL Server 2005 uses the same authentication that is used on the SQL Server 2005 Express on the management station.
The management station and the remote database use the same authentication with Administrator rights, are logged in with the same account, and that the SQL Server databases on both systems are configured to use this account. This is because IT Assistant services log into SQL Server 2005 Express using the Windows NT® Authentication.
In this example, let us assume that the user name is administrator on both servers with identical passwords and that both systems reside in the same NT domain.
Deploying the IT Assistant Database to the Remote Database
On the management station, stop the IT Assistant Connection Service and the IT Assistant Network Monitoring Service from the Service Control Manager. This stops the IT Assistant services from accessing the local IT Assistant database. Ensure that no other program is accessing the local IT Assistant database. If a database program such as the SQL Server's Enterprise Manager and/or Query Analyzer is running, close the program or ensure that the program is not accessing local IT Assistant database.
On the management station, detach the IT Assistant database from the local SQL Server by running the IT Assistant database management utility on the command line.
Run the following command from the IT Assistant bin directory:
dcdbmng /r
When the IT Assistant database has been successfully detached, the Detach database dialog box is displayed.
To ensure that the database is detached, perform the following steps:
Start the ODBC Data Source Administrator by clicking the Start button. Select Settings→ Control
Panel→ Administrative Tools→ Data Sources (ODBC).
Select the System DSN tab.
Ensure that there no system data source with the name ITAssist(local IT Assistant database).
If such a system data source exists, click Remove to delete this data source.
On the management station, navigate to the Data folder under the SQL Server installation directory. By default, the installation path is C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL. Copy the IT Assistant database file, ITAssist_Data.mdf to a location on the remote database system. For this example, let us consider the desired path to be DB_PATH.
On the remote database system, attach the database file, ITAssist_Data.mdf located in DB_PATH to the local SQL Server. You can do this by executing the following SQL statement against the local master database:
NOTE: The first argument @dbname specifies the name of the database and should always be ITAssist. The
second argument @physname specifies where the database file is located and you should always use the correct
location of file, ITAssist_Data.mdf.
If there are several instances of the SQL Server on the remote database system, then you can execute the above SQL statement and attach ITAssist to any one instance of your SQL Server. However, it is recommended that ITAssist be attached to the default instance of the local master database. This can be viewed in the SQL Server group of the SQL Enterprise Manager. All non-default instances of the SQL Server will have the instance name attached to it. For this example, consider MYINST1 and MYINST2 as the two non-default instances of the SQL Server. These SQL Server instances will be: REMOTE_DB_SERVER\MYINST1 and REMOTE_DB_SERVER\MYINST2. This can also be viewed in the SQL Server group of the SQL Enterprise Manager. If the remote database system's SQL Enterprise Manager does not have a complete list of all the SQL Server instances on the system, register these non-default instances so that they are displayed in the SQL Server group.
Connecting IT Assistant to the Remote Database
On the management station, navigate to the IT Assistant installation directory and edit the
configuration file, dconfig.ini, by replacing each (local) string with the name of the SQL Server
that resides on the remote database system. You can find the string under the sections
[ITAssist_Odbc_Attributes] and [Master_Odbc_Attributes].
If the IT Assistant database resides in the default instance of the SQL Server, IT Assistant database
will be <name of the database server>. If the IT Assistant database resides in a non-default instance of
the SQL Server, for example MYINST1, then the IT Assistant database will be <name of the database
server>/MYINST1. In other words,
Attribute3=Server, <name/IP address of the database server> -- in case of default instance
Attribute3=Server, <name of the database server>/MYINST1 -- in case of named instance
On the management station, change the IT Assistant services logon credentials from Local System
account to the common account used to log into the local SQL Server on both management station
and the remote database system. Let us assume that in this case, it is the local Administrator account.
You should change the logon credentials for the IT Assistant Connection Service and IT Assistant
Network Monitoring Service. To do this, right-click the individual services from the Service Control
Manager and select Properties. Select the Log On tab to change the logon credentials.
If you are configuring these services to run under a different user account, the user account used for Logon must have the following user privileges:
Act as part of the operating system (this privilege is required on the Windows 2000 system)
Replace a process level token
Log on as a service
To set these privileges, perform the following steps:
Run secpol.msc in the Command Prompt dialog box.
Select Security Settings→
Local Policies→ User Rights Assignments.
Right-click the policy and select
Properties (or Security, in case of Windows 2000).
Add the user name to this policy.
Restart the system to apply the settings.
This step is optional and is required only if you plan to stop the SQL Server service from running on
the management station.
During IT Assistant installation, IT Assistant services are created to depend on the SNMP service and the SQL Server's MSSQLServer service. You can remove the dependency of the IT Assistant services on SQL Server's MSSQLServer service by editing the registry for the IT Assistant services on the management station.
Before editing the registry, ensure that you save a copy of the registry and understand how to restore it if a problem occurs.
On the management station, open the Microsoft Windows Registry Editor by typing regedit on the command prompt. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\dcnetmon
Double-click the DependOnService value name to edit its properties. This registry value is a UNICODE multiple string and its initial Value Data is SNMP MSSQLServer.
Delete MSSQLServer and save the changes. This removes the dependency of the IT Assistant Network Monitoring Service on the SQL Server service.
Next, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\dcconnsvc Double-click the DependOnService value name to edit its properties. This registry value is a UNICODE multiple string and its initial Value Data is SNMP, MSSQLServer, dcnetmon
Delete MSSQLServer and save the changes. This removes the dependency of the IT Assistant Connection Service on the SQL Server service.
Check the dependencies of the IT Assistant Network Monitoring Service and the IT Assistant Connection Service on management station by right-clicking the individual services from the Service Control Manager and select Properties. Select the Dependencies tab. There should be no dependency on MSSQLServer Service. Restart the management station to let these changes take effect.
On the management station, start the IT Assistant Connection Service and IT Assistant Network
Monitoring Service. IT Assistant now connects to the IT Assistant database deployed on the
SQL Server of the remote database system.
NOTE: If the IT Assistant services dependency on the local SQL Server service has not been removed as
described in previous step, the SQL Server service on management station needs to be running for
IT Assistant services to be started, even if the SQL Server database is not actually used by IT Assistant.
To verify that the management station has successfully connected to the IT Assistant database on the
remote database system, start the ODBC Data Source Administrator from the Control Panel→
Administrative Tools on the management station. Select the System DSN tab. The ITAssist system
data source is displayed.
On the management station, open the IT Assistant user interface. The IT Assistant services on
management station are now ready to use the IT Assistant database residing on the remote
database system.
Configuring IT Assistant to Upgrade the Remote Database
IT Assistant does not upgrade the database which is configured on a remote system. This section discusses the steps required to upgrade the IT Assistant (version 7.0 and later) database.
Deploying IT Assistant Database to ITA_STATION
On the ITA_STATION, stop IT Assistant Connection Service and IT Assistant Network Monitoring
Service from the Service Control Manager. This stops IT Assistant services from accessing the remote
IT Assistant database. Also, make sure that no other program is accessing the IT Assistant database,
ITAssist, of REMOTE_DB_SERVER. If a database program such as SQL Server's Enterprise Manager
and/or Query Analyzer is running, close the program or ensure that the program is not accessing the
IT Assistant database named ITAssist.
On the REMOTE_DB_SERVER, detach the IT Assistant database from the local SQL Server by
executing the following SQL statement against local master database:
exec sp_detach_db @dbname='ITAssist'
To ensure that the database is detached, go to ITA_STATION system, start ODBC Data Source
Administrator from Start→ Settings→ Control Panel→ Administrative Tools→ Data Sources
(ODBC). Click the System DSN tab. Ensure that there is no system data source with the name
ITAssist. If there is, remove that data source by clicking on the Remove tab.
On the REMOTE_DB_SERVER, navigate to the Data folder under MSDE or SQL Server installed
location. By default this is C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL. Copy the IT Assistant
database file, ITAssist_Data.mdf to the desired path on the ITA_STATION. For this example, let us
consider the desired path to be DB_PATH.
On ITA_STATION, attach the database file, ITAssist_Data.mdf located in DB_PATH to the local
SQL Server. This can be done by executing the following SQL statement against the local
master database:
NOTE: Ensure that there are no ITAssist_Data and ITAssist_Log files on the ITA_STATION system.
First argument @dbname specifies the name of the database and must be kept as ITAssist. Second argument @physname specifies where the database file is located. You should customize it to reflect the correct location of ITAssist_Data.mdf. Ensure that there is no ITAssist_log.ldf file in the same path. If a file of the same name exists, delete it before executing this command.
Connecting IT Assistant to Database on ITA_STATION
On the ITA_STATION, navigate to the configuration directory where IT Assistant is installed. Edit
the configuration file, dconfig.ini, by replacing each REMOTE_DB_SERVER (name of the database)
string under the sections [ITAssist_Odbc_Attributes] and [Master_Odbc_Attributes] with (local).
On the ITA_STATION, change the IT Assistant services logon credentials from Common account to
Local System account. This operation should be done for both the IT Assistant Connection Service
and IT Assistant Network Monitoring Service. To perform these actions, right-click each service from
the Service Control Manager and select Properties. Now select the Log On tab to change the logon
credentials. Save the changes and start the IT Assistant services.
Launch IT Assistant.
Upgrading IT Assistant
Upgrade IT Assistant using the latest Dell OpenManage Installation and Server Management CD. After the upgrade is completed, launch IT Assistant.
Deploy the IT Assistant Database to REMOTE_DB_SERVER
