Altiris NS Client on Ubuntu

Altiris Notification Server is a product that allows organizations to manage IT assets. An agent is installed on the device that allows an administrator to run reports and push software to assets. Officially Altiris NS does not support Ubuntu workstations. Altiris seems to prefer the rpm based Linux variants instead of the .deb platform. However for the Altiris agent we can force and install and make it work with a little magic.

I tried these steps with Ubuntu 11.10 & 11.04 32 Bit editions. Currently Altiris NS only supports 32 Bit versions of Linux.

Procedure:

1. First go to your Altiris NS server and browse to the c:\program files\Altiris\Notification Server\nscap\bin\UNIX\Agent\Linux\x86\ folder. 
2. Copy the altiris ns client to your linux desktop (aex-nsclt.rpm) 
3. On the Ubuntu client open a terminal 
4. Enable the root account by typing "sudo passwd root" and set a password 
5. Type su - 
6. Now install a few prerequisite apps 
7. Type "apt-get install rpm2cpio" 
8. Type "apt-get install alien -y" 
9. copy the Altiris Client to the /root/nsclient/ directory 
10. Type "cd /root/nsclient/" 
11. Type the following command "rpm2cpio aex-nsclt.rpm | cpio -vid" to extract the files to that folder. 
12. Move /root/nsclient/opt/Altiris/ to /opt/Altiris/ 
13. Type "alien -i aex-nsclt.rpm --scripts" to perform the install 
14. cd /opt/altiris/notification/nsagent/bin/ 
15. Type "./aex-configure -iconfigure" to configure the Altiris NS Client 
16. When it ask you for the server name enter the URL. "http://servername/" 
17. Complete the rest of the questions based on the settings in your environment. 
18. Type mkdir /etc/rc.d 
19. Type mkdir /etc/rc.d/init.d 
20. Type ln -s /lib/lsb/init-functions /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions 
21. Type ln –s /etc/init.d/altiris /etc/rc2.d/S99altiris 
22. Type ln –s /etc/init.d/altiris /etc/rc3.d/S99altiris 
23. Type ln –s /etc/init.d/altiris /etc/rc5.d/S99altiris 
24. Type "/etc/init.d/altiris start" to start the agent 
25. Type "ps -ef | grep aex" to verify the agent is in the list of running processes 
26. Type "./aex-sendbasicinv" to send an inventory report to the NS server 
27. Login to the NS Server and verify that the workstation is showing up correctly.

Because the Altiris NS Client is not made for Ubuntu there may be some features that are not available, but basic inventory functionality should be available.

PowerShell Tips & Tricks (Select-String)

Are you familiar with grep in the Linux & Unix world and are looking for an equivalent Command in PowerShell to accomplish the same task? Well look no further than the Select-String Command-Let.

Select-String can be used to search files for folders for a particular string or regular expression.

Example:
To search all text files in the current directory to find the pattern Dog.
Select-string -path *.txt -pattern "Dog"

The output of this command will contain "FileName.txt:LineNumber:Pattern"

Now Lets say you would like to just return the file name that the pattern was found in so you can pipe that to another command. Use the following command:

Select-string -path *.txt -pattern "Dog" |  Format-list name