Dell OpenManage IT Assistant Version 8.9 Owner's Manual

Dell OpenManage IT

Assistant

Version 8.9

Release Notes

What’s New

New major features



Now, you can launch the warranty support site and view the current warranty information.



In addition to the Express Service Code for PowerEdge servers; now, IT Assistant displays Chassis Express
Service code and Chassis Service Tag for PowerEdge Blade servers running OpenManage Server
administrator version 6.5 or later. You can also see Enclosure specific Express service code in the Details
tab.

New OS Support



Microsoft Windows 2008 Standard Server

NOTE: These operating systems must be WoW64 enabled.

Deprecated features

The following features are not supported in IT Assistant:



Topology view



Volume Information Report—As IT Assistant does not support Volume Info Report, this will be removed if

you upgrade from previous version to IT Assistant 8.9.

Installation

For information on Installation, see the Dell OpenManage IT Assistant version 8.9 on support.dell.com/manuals

Prerequisites

For more information on Operating system, Browser & Consoles, and Minimum hardware Configuration see the
Dell Systems Software Support Matrix Version 6.5 on support.dell.com/manuals

Database (SQL Server)



SQL Server 2008 R2 (This is part of IT Assistant install).

Also supports:



SQL Server 2000



SQL Server 2005 SP1/SP2

Additional Softwares



Navisphere(R) Secure CLI
For Dell/EMC storage arrays inventory, ensure your array is FLARE(R) version 19 or above. You should

also install Navisphere(R) Secure CLI (version 19 or above) on your management station.

NOTE: This CLI software is part of the IT Assistant install.

Recommended Requirements

Minimum Supported Operating System Requirements for IT Assistant (by Enterprise Size)

For the Small (up to 500 Managed Systems):



Windows 7 Professional



Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional with SP2



Windows Vista(R) (Business and Enterprise Editions)



Windows Server(R) 2003 with SP2



Windows Server 2003 R2 (Standard, Enterprise, and Web Editions)



Windows Server(R) 2008 (includes Standard, Enterprise, and Web Editions)

NOTE: If you run Internet Explorer in Protected Mode on Windows Server 2008, Internet Explorer cannot gain write access to
the files in a user's profile or system locations. Due to this reason, the exported data from IT Assistant to these locations is not
visible in the expected location. You can view files created by IT Assistant on the user's profile from the virtualized "UserProfile"
folder ("%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Virtualized\{system drive
letter}\Users\{username}").



Windows Server(R) 2008 R2 (Standard and Enterprise editions)

For the large (500+ Managed Systems):



Windows Server(R) 2008 (includes Standard, Enterprise, and Web editions

NOTE: If you run Internet Explorer in Protected Mode on Windows Server 2008, Internet Explorer cannot gain write access to
the files in a user's profile or system locations. Due to this reason, the exported data from IT Assistant to these locations is not
visible in the expected location. You can view files created by IT Assistant on the user's profile from the virtualized "UserProfile"
folder ("%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Virtualized\{system drive
letter}\Users\{username}").

For more information on this issue, see:
"http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/IETechCol/dnwebgen/ProtectedMode.asp"



Windows Server(R) 2008 R2 (Standard and Enterprise editions)



Windows Server 2003 with SP2



Windows Server 2003 R2 (Standard and Enterprise Editions)

NOTE: IT Assistant can be installed on Dell systems running Windows 2008 R2 x64 and Windows 7.0 x64 operating systems with
WOW64 component enabled.

NOTE: On 64 bit operating systems with WOW64 component, IT Assistant can be launched only in 32-bit Web browsers.

NOTE: If you have a problem when launching any URL using an IPv6 Link Local address, see the browser and/or Operating System
documentation.

Recommended Minimum Hardware Configuration for IT Assistant (by Enterprise Size)

For small, up to 500 managed systems:



Processor: 1 processor (1.8-GHz minimum)



Memory: 1-2 GB



Disk Space: at least 4 GB

For the large, 500+ managed systems:



Processor: 2 to 4 processors (800-MHz minimum)



Memory: 2-4 GB



Disk Space: as much as 10 GB

Note: The disk space needed may increase based on the following:

 Number of Dell Update Packages you import for software update.

 Number of MSI files you import for software deployment

 Amount of performance monitoring sample data you collect

Recommended Operating System Updates



If you have set up WMI discovery and enter incorrect credentials, the memory consumed by the IT
Assistant services keeps increasing. After running for a few days, this could cause IT Assistant services to
crash due to insufficient memory. This has been traced to memory leaks in the underlying COM libraries.

Affected operating system:

 Windows 2000 SP4

For more information, see the Microsoft KB articles at:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=891861
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891861/en-us



If you have set up WMI discovery/performance monitoring, the memory consumed by IT Assistant services
keeps increasing. If performance monitoring is run for a few days, it could cause IT Assistant services to
crash due to insufficient memory.

Affected operating system:

 Windows Server 2003 SP1
 Windows XP SP2

For more information, see the Microsoft KB at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911262/en-us

Recommended SQL Server Updates

IT Assistant 8.9 supports SQL Server 2008 R2 as the default database.
IT Assistant 8.9 is backward-compatible with the following SQL Servers:



SQL Server 2000



SQL Server 2005 SP1



SQL Server 2005 SP2

Open Issues and Resolutions

Fixed Issues/def



ITA 8.x "RAC Console" Application Launch will not be visible for the PExx1X (11G) servers when
discovered via SNMP in-band. IPS has a SQL script available to provide this functionality and it is available
as per customers request via an RFI.



The processor count in IT Assistant will differ for managed systems that contain processors with multiple
cores or HyperThreading enabled. The count differs based on whether the managed system is discovered
using the CIM or SNMP protocol. The systems discovered using SNMP will report physical processors, and
the systems discovered using CIM will report logical processors.



IT Assistant can receive and process alerts from systems with IPv4 address format.



If you have configured the Navisphere CLI port different from default, EMC console launch from IT
Assistant fails. You have to manually launch the EMC console in a new web browser window, specifying
the newly configured port.



If you attempt to update the BIOS from version A05 or earlier on a Dell PowerEdge(TM) 1500SC that has 4
GB of system memory installed, the system stops responding on the BIOS post screen. BIOS will not be
updated even if you manually reboot the system. To avoid this issue, either use the diskette flash method or
temporarily remove some memory before performing the update.[148580]

Remote Server Administrator command line task may not respond for Server Administrator running on

Microsoft Windows 2008 and Microsoft Windows 2008 R2.

To enable the successful functioning of remote Server Administrator CLI and software updates/deploy
features, ensure the following (applicable to Microsoft® Windows® only)

The managed system and the management station must be on the same domain or there should be a trust
relationship between the two domains.

If you have a Windows Firewall configured on the management station or the managed system, make the
following configuration changes to enable remote Server Administrator CLI and software updates to work
successfully.

Management Station:

1. Open TCP port 135.

2. Add the application "omremote.exe" (located in ITAssistant\bin) to the Firewall exception list.
If you have the Windows firewall configured, enable remote administration by running the following

command in the command prompt:
"netsh firewall set service RemoteAdmin"
For more information on connecting through the Windows firewall, see Microsoft's MSDN website for

Platform SDK: Windows Management Instrumentation (Connecting through Windows Firewall) at

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa389286(VS.85).aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875605

For Windows Server 2008 onwards, see the following link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa822854(VS.85).aspx [312918]



When running Firefox on Red Hat(R) Enterprise Linux(R) versions 3.0 and 4.0, the focus on a component
may disappear when you hide a Modal Dialog. This is a known issue with Java(TM). [6274378]

To regain the application focus, click outside the context of the browser in which IT Assistant is running,
and then click back within the IT Assistant user interface (UI).[146975]



The preference and help pages on the IT Assistant browser will be active only after IT Assistant has loaded
completely. [145205]



Dell PowerEdge systems with DRAC III, DRAC III/XT, ERA, or ERA/O will be displayed in the IT
Assistant Device tree under modular systems if the out-of-band SNMP agent property is enabled with
"racadm." This property is not supported on the DRAC III family and is likely to be disabled in future. If
you see systems with a DRAC III card under modular systems, use the racadm command-line utility to
disable the property with the following command:

Locally on the server with the DRAC card:
"racadm config -g cfgOobSnmp -o cfgOobSnmpAgentEnable 0"
Remotely from a management station with the RAC management software installed:
"racadm -r <ipaddress of RAC card> -u <RAC username> -p <RAC password> config -g cfgOobSnmp -o

cfgOobSnmpAgentEnable 0" [139394]



On Windows 2000, you may see an error message when you launch the Remote Desktop Connection
application using the right-click menu option on the Device tree. This issue may occur because older
versions of the client do not get installed in the system path. To correct this problem, install a later version of
the Remote Desktop Client (6.0.2600.0 or later). You can download the client from Microsoft's website at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/tools/rdclientdl.mspx. [139630]



When running Mozilla(R) on Linux, Using the "View | Reload" (Ctrl + R) command in Mozilla results in
unpredictable behavior. IT Assistant may reload in some cases, but at other times you may see the following
message:

To address this issue, close the browser session and open a new session. [132635]



When the name resolution on an IP address to a host name fails using DNS, IT Assistant attempts to resolve
the name using the NetBIOS name query. This action may cause the device to appear in IT Assistant with
the NetBIOS name even if it does not have a DNS entry. [138013]



The IT Assistant UI supports the Mozilla browser only on systems running the Linux operating system. On
systems running the Windows operating system, the supported browser is Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Multiple instances of IT Assistant on Windows Server 2008 with the Firefox browser is not supported and a
valid message is not displayed.[150687]



The IT Assistant UI cannot be launched using Firefox 3.0 on Windows Server 2008 x64 and Windows
Server 2008 x86 systems.[231656]



If you use a special character font (for example, Wingdings(R) or a similar font) for your report name, the
report is saved correctly but the name will be displayed as question marks instead of the special character
font. To avoid this issue, use only standard fonts for report names. [135701]



If you have Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) versions 1.3 and 1.5.0 installed on your IT Assistant UI
client, and you uninstall an older version of the JRE, the IT Assistant UI may request that you reinstall JRE
version 1.5.0. To correct this problem, uninstall JRE version 1.5.0 and then reinstall it by launching the IT
Assistant UI. [137304]

For more information on this issue, see bug ID 4994468 on http://bugs.sun.com.



IT Assistant does not work well with operating system schemes that use very large fonts (for example,
various "High Contrast" schemes in Windows). Changing the display settings to use such a scheme may
cause text in various parts of IT Assistant to appear incomplete or truncated. If you notice this issue, change
the display properties.

To change the display properties on Windows systems:

1. Click the "Start" button, click "Settings"-> "Control Panel"-> "Display Settings," then select the
"Appearance" tab.

2. Select a scheme with smaller fonts.

3. Close the browser and restart IT Assistant to implement the new settings.

On Linux systems, similar issues may occur if the selected system font size is too large. To correct this
issue, select smaller fonts ("Start"-> "Preferences"-> "Fonts") and restart the application. [102193]



To disable mnemonics at the operating system level, close and restart the IT Assistant browser session.
Doing so allows the JRE to re-load and implement the new settings. [120978]



When managing an environment with more than 2000 devices, increase the amount of memory allocated to
the JRE heap.

Open the Windows Control Panel and click the "Java" icon to display "Java Control Panel." Select the
"Java" tab. Then click "Java Runtime Environment Settings | View..." Enter -Xmx384m in the "Java
Runtime Parameters" section. [123581]



Changing the display "Scheme" option under "Preferences," on the topmost IT Assistant menu bar, is not
supported in IT Assistant 8.8. [123829]



When viewing the Network Interface Card (NIC) information of Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems on the
"Details" page, the information may not be aligned correctly. IP addresses may not align with the correct
MAC addresses, or the IP and MAC addresse may not be displayed at all. This issue has been fixed in the
Red Hat net-snmp package. To correct this issue, install the latest Red Hat net-snmp package on the
managed system. [131619,74483]



If you try to open a second session of IT Assistant on the same system while using the Mozilla browser, an
error message is displayed stating that only one browser session at a time may be used. Close the second
browser session using the Mozilla "File | Close" command or by clicking the "X" in the top right corner of
the browser window. Do not click the IT Assistant "Logout" hotlink on the top Global Navigation bar on the
top right of the window. Since only one session is allowed per client, clicking "Logout" would have the
effect of logging out of the first browser session as well. [131954]



A registry editor error occurs while opening the IT Assistant UI on a system with less than the required
space. The IT Assistant client requires at least 25 MB of available hard-drive space. [132615]



The reporting system generates the output in Unicode format ("http://www.unicode.org"). To open the CSV
reports in Microsoft Excel, open Microsoft Excel and run the "File | Open" command. Select the "comma
delimited" option to open the report with the data in the correct columns. [132619]



"Device Name" is a default field and is present in all reports. [134260]



For Remote Access Controllers (RACs) that have instrumentation installed and that are running on the host
operating system, the RAC IP addresses are shown in the "RACDevice" table. [134365]



If the intensity of an alert storm increases beyond 5 traps per second, it could take IT Assistant several
minutes to process all the alerts. New alerts that are received in the interim are not displayed on the UI until
all the alerts in the storm are processed.



Pressing "Next," "Previous," or "Refresh" on the "Alerts" page of the UI, while a constant stream of alerts is
being processed by IT Assistant, may cause the counters in the "Alerts" page of the UI to fall short. To
correct this problem, click "Refresh" when the constant stream of alerts has subsided. The refresh action
does not impact any alert actions. [134862]



When creating or updating a task, the stamp for the creation or update time is that of the IT Assistant UI.
The "Last Run Time" displayed on the summary report, however, is the time of the IT Assistant Services

system. If there is a significant variation in the UI and Services system time, it is possible that a scheduled
task may not execute or show that it was executed before it was created.[137997]



For NIC information on systems, IT Assistant uses the operating system's provider(s) to retrieve data rather
than Server Administrator. This behavior can result in discrepancies in reporting NIC information between
IT Assistant and Server Administrator. For example:

1. On Linux systems, adapters may be named differently between IT Assistant and Server Administrator.
For example, IT Assistant may report a NIC adapter as "eth0," while Server Administrator shows the
actual manufacturer name of the NIC.

2. If more than one NIC card is not configured with an IP address, IT Assistant may show only one of the
cards with an IP address of 0.0.0.0.

3. IT Assistant may not report disabled NIC adapters.

4. On Novell(R) NetWare(R) systems, since NetWare reports each NIC port as a NIC interface entry, IT
Assistant may show more NIC interfaces than are actually present in the system.[138454]



While performing discovery, if a device is discovered using "host name," and if its IP Address changes at a
later time, IT Assistant will display two devices after the next discovery cycle. One device will display the
old IP address and status as Power Down, while the other will display the new IP Address. This problem is
likely to affect systems that have DNS-DHCP IP addressing and for which the IP addresses frequently
change. A workaround to eliminate duplicate device is to delete the device with the old IP address. [148069]



IT Assistant will discover a RAC under the RAC group only if IT Assistant can communicate out-of-band
(bypassing the operating system) with the SNMP agent on the controller. DRAC III does not have this
capability, and hence would not be grouped under the RAC group. DRAC 4 (and above) support out-of-band
communication with the SNMP agent and are discovered under the RAC group. [151535]



The choice of protocols specified for discovering and managing the devices can result in varying levels of
manageability. For instance, if you choose to manage devices in your network using only CIM, the devices
with only SNMP agent (example DRAC) are classified under the "Unknown" group and consequently, you
may not get application launch (example RAC console) functionality for the device. To avoid such issues,
make a careful choice of the protocols while configuring discovery ranges, keeping in mind the devices (and
protocols supported by agents running on those devices) that you are going to manage. [153729]



After installing IT Assistant, if you reinstall the database application (Example: Microsoft SQL Desktop
Engine (MSDE) 2000/SQL Server 2000 etc, which is used by IT Assistant) the IT Assistant database will be
detached from the database application. Run the following command manually to attach it back to the
application.

NOTE: The command mentioned below shows the default location of SQL Server. Use the exact path to locate the database files.

EXEC sp_attach_db @dbname = 'ITAssist', @filename1 = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL
Server\MSSQL\Data\ITAssist_Data.MDF", @filename2 = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL
Server\MSSQL\Data\ITAssist_Log.LDF"

 This command can be run directly in SQL Query Analyzer. Or on the command prompt, run this

command by using "OSQL -E."

 After executing the command, ensure that IT Assistant services ("DSM IT Assistant Connection

Service" and "DSM IT Assistant Network Monitor") are up and running.



IT Assistant incorrectly associates a stand-alone Dell PowerConnect(TM) 3448 switch with a modular
chassis, as the switch firmware incorrectly reports a non-blank chassis service tag. This issue will be
corrected in the next firmware release for the 3448 switch.



The password changes on a Windows managed system will not have any effect on the performance
monitoring task if the connection to the managed system has already been established.[71103]



If you are managing a Dell/EMC AX100i (iSCSI) array, see the EMC PowerLink website and view the
information in the Knowledge Base article emc136753 for obtaining a FLARE patch. This patch will fix an
issue with discovering the AX100i devices.



NIC information is not displayed in the device details screen for Dell/EMC arrays. Use Navisphere Manager
to view these details.



When using the Broadcom ASF client utility to change Administrator or Operator permissions on your client
machine, re-discover the device in IT Assistant to apply the changes before creating any new ASF power
control tasks.



The time displayed in the reports generated by IT Assistant and the "Device Summary/Details" page are in
the time zone corresponding to the management station. [75603]



If you are managing a Dell/EMC storage array, note that you need to enter the IP address for only one of the
storage processors (that is, either SPA or SPB, and not both) in the discovery range. The storage processors
are redundant and return the same inventory data to IT Assistant. If you enter both SPs in the discovery
range, only one SP will be displayed in the device tree.



On Dell PowerEdge x8xx systems (IPMI 1.5 systems) discovered through IPMI, system health will not
reflect any redundancy information. For example, if one of the redundant power supplies is unavailable, the
system health will still indicate green. [78500]



While browsing the SNMP MIB in the "Device Details" tab, the timeout values may have to be changed to
enable retrieval of large entries from the MIB. The timeout value that controls the MIB retrieval is for the
range applicable to the device. (SNMP configuration timeout in step 3 of the Edit Discovery Wizard.) The
request timeout values may also need to be changed. [80132]



It is not recommended to provide an IP address in multiple ranges, especially when you are using the IPMI
Protocol. This could result in duplicate devices being displayed on the device tree. [78710]



For discovering systems running SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server and using SNMP, add the following to
the snmpd.conf:

com2sec mynetwork 192.168.1.0/24 public
group MyRWGroup v1 mynetwork
view all included .1 80
access MyRWGroup "" any noauth exact all all none

Ensure that you retain the trapsink and the smuxpeer lines in the existing conf file. You can delete all other
content. In the line containing "com2sec mynetwork...," substitute the existing address with the subnet
address your management station is on. For example, if the IT Assistant system has an IP address of

143.166.29.117, then substitute it with 143.166.29.0. Make sure to retain "/24." Restart /etc/init.d/snmpd.
[81249]



For IPMI-based discovery or inventory, the maximum length for the host operating system name is 62
characters. Any character beyond that limit will be truncated. [91210]



Initialization of ML6000 may take a few minutes to give accurate information on the slot count/drive count
on IT Assistant.[66838]



You may experience problems while performing resource-intensive operations in IT Assistant if you keep
the same browser session open for a couple of days. These operations include working with Software
Deployment tasks and Performance and Power Monitoring features. To recover, close the browser and
launch IT Assistant in a new browser window. [156726]



A first-time catalog update on the Online Repository Synchronization Wizard, may not populate the tree. To
workaround this issue close and re-run the wizard.[162862]



If IT Assistant is running on a Windows Vista system, a first-time Catalog update on the Online Repository
Synchronization Wizard may cause the session to expire. If the session expires, close the browser and launch
IT Assistant in a new browser window [162315].



On Vista and later operating systems, the Microsoft telnet client may not be installed by default. Due to this,
IT Assistant may not show application launch point for SOL Proxy and telnet. Microsoft Telnet Client must
be installed on the system where the IT Assistant UI is running. [157301]



If you set the task start or end time to a time in Daylight Saving Time (DST) shift period, IT Assistant will
change the task start or end time to the closest valid time. A workaround to eliminate the changing of start or
end time is to set a valid start/end time. [165393]



Changing time zone on the IT Assistant Management Station could lead to fatal errors being displayed. This
could happen if you have date/time related data (for example, an Alert Filter) that is applicable to a
particular date and time, configured on one time zone. If you change the time zone to another one that
happens to be observing daylight saving time, and, if the date-time combination corresponding to your data
is invalid, then launching IT Assistant would result in the above error.

To recover from this error:

 change back the system time zone to the previous one
 edit the data values such that they would translate into valid date and time combination in the other

time zone

 change the system time zone and restart IT Assistant.

[165919]



When opening the IT Assistant UI, respond to the security certificate challenge box and Microsoft User
Access Control pop-up messages within approximately 2 minutes; otherwise the UI will time-out and fail to
load. To correct this issue, close the current UI and re-open it. [102193,163732]



Power monitoring agent shows unknown status for devices if you have selected only the Peak Amperage or
Peak Power counters for the task running on these devices. [171464]



By default, root login through SSH is not enabled on VMware ESX Servers. As a result, all IT Assistant
tasks that use the root account would fail. To enable the SSH root login on the ESX Server, set the option
"PermitRootLogin=YES" in "/etc/ssh/sshd_conf" file.[174023]



For systems with a Trusted Computing Group (TCG) 1.2-compliant Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip,
software updates for BIOS will fail if all of the following are true:

 The Microsoft Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption feature is enabled.
 The TPM feature is set (using BIOS) to ON with Preboot Measurement.

For information about TPM security settings, see the "Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Online
Help" or the "Dell OpenManage Server Administrator User's Guide" available on the Dell Support
website at "support.dell.com" and on the appropriate media supplied by Dell.

For software updates for BIOS to function, perform the following steps:

1. Disable the Microsoft Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption feature. For information on disabling
this feature, see the Microsoft documentation at www.microsoft.com.

2. Update BIOS.

3. Re-start the system.

4. Re-enable the Microsoft Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption feature.

You can use IT Assistant to view the TPM information in the Device Details page.



You may not get appropriate privileges in the IT Assistant GUI if:

a) you are part of an Active Directory group, which is in turn part of another group and
b) you launch Server Administrator using the desktop icon and Single Sign-on is enabled. [167801].



In the Online Repository Synchronization wizard, while testing Internet connectivity, if the test passes, IT
Assistant may use the same Internet Connection settings and continue to report further tests as successful
even if you provide different proxy settings. This issue can be overcome by restarting the DSM IT If the
CPU throttles, the following message in the Hardware System



Event Log (SEL) will be displayed with an unknown severity: System Board Power Optimized:
Performance status sensor for System Board, unknown event. This would be displayed in the "Hardware
Logs" tab when you select the system in the Devices view.[175331]Assistant Connection Service. [174323]



SNMP connectivity from IT Assistant may fail if the SNMP ports on the management station and managed
system are different. If some management applications change the default SNMP port, it could lead to
SNMP connectivity failure from IT Assistant.[175442]



Server Administrator Deployment task requires dependent components (example libc++) to be installed on
the target systems running the Linux operating system. If these components are not installed, the task will
fail with the following error message:

"omexec must be installed on the remote node for the task. See the help and ensure remote node
requirements are met before executing the task." [175296]



When IT Assistant is launched using the Internet Explorer 7 browser, it may present a page displaying
"Certificate Error." On clicking "Continue to this website (not recommended)," it may fail to load the
application and redirect to the "res://ieframe.dll" page.

To work around this problem, enable "Active Scripting" in the "Internet" security zone. Perform the below
steps to do this:

In Internet Explorer,

1. Go to "Tools"-> "Internet Options"-> "Security."

2. Select "Internet" zone.

3. Click "Custom Level" button.

4. Go to "Security" -> "Active Scripting."

5. Select "Enable."

6. Close the browser and launch IT Assistant in a new browser window. [189345]



Software Deployment on a managed server running Linux operating system with only Online Diagnostics
tool installed will upgrade only the components of the Online Diagnostics tool. OpenManage Server
Administrator components will not be installed. Running the task again will install OpenManage Server
Administrator components. [167175]



IT Assistant Virtual Machine Report will provide information of Guest Virtual Machines running on
VMware ESX Servers only. This will not report the information of Guest Virtual Machines running on a
Microsoft® Hyper-V Server or Microsoft® Windows Server 2008 Enterprise servers [230058].



The IT Assistant alerts will not be processed for about an hour if you upgrade to IT Assistant 8.8 on a
management station running on certain time zones such as "AUS Eastern Standard Time," "Tasmania
Standard Time" and so on.

This will affect only those alerts that are:

1. already there in IT Assistant

2. received within an hour before upgrading to IT Assistant 8.8.[227869]



Following issues will be seen when IT Assistant is upgraded to IT Assistant 8.8 in AUS Eastern Standard
Time (Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney), Tasmania Standard Time (Hobart) and New Zealand Standard Time
(Auckland, Wellington) time zones.

1. Alert Logs: In DST period, an already existing alert will be ignored from the same device for one hour.

2. Scheduled tasks: In DST period, all the:

 Hourly tasks (tasks scheduled to run every 'n' hours) will skip the next schedule cycle.
 Periodic tasks (tasks scheduled to run every 'n' minutes) will resume after one hour.

In non-DST period, all the hourly and periodic tasks run immediately after upgrade and continue normal
cycle.
To fix the issue in DST period, edit the tasks manually to start them in the next schedule cycle.

To fix the issue in non-DST period, remove the tasks manually before starting the upgrade. After upgrade,
add the tasks manually to start them in the next schedule cycle. [240902]



If "Log On" account of "DSM IT Assistant Connection Service" or "DSM IT Assistant Network Monitor"
services are changed, the following user rights must be assigned for the "Log On" account –

 "Adjust memory quotas for a process"
 "Replace a process level token"

If the "Log On" account is missing the above user rights, the IT Assistant tasks will fail to execute.
To assign user rights to an account on the local computer-

1. From the "Start" menu, point to "Administrative Tools," and then click "Local Security Policy.

2. In the "Local Security Settings" dialog box, double-click "Local Policies", and then double-click "User
Rights Assignment."

3. In the details pane, double-click "Adjust memory quotas for a Process."

4. Click "Add User or Group," and, in the "Enter the object names to select box type the user or group
name" to which you want to assign the user right and click "Ok."

5. Click "Ok" again and double-click "Replace a process level token" in the "Details" pane.

6. Click "Add User or Group" and in the "Enter the object names to select box type the user or group name"
to which you want to assign the user right and click "Ok".[239550]



Launching IT Assistant on two or more tabs in a single browser window is not supported. First instance of
IT Assistant on a tab will stop working if second instance of IT Assistant is launched on another tab in the
same browser window. Close the browser and launch IT Assistant in a new browser window.[187750]



If user manually changes the hostname of the server which has already been discovered in IT Assistant, then
duplicate entries will appear in the device list corresponding to the IP address of the device whose hostname
has been changed. The new hostname also corresponds to same IP address and the duplicate entry of the
earlier hostname is not automatically deleted. ITA will display both the new and the old hostnames.[247879]



If a server is discovered using both SNMP and IPMI (in-band and out-of-band IP addresses respectively) IT
Assistant will correlate the two and display a single device under the "Servers" group in the devices view. If
IPMI is then disabled, a new device would appear under the "Unknown" group, corresponding to the out-of­band interface.
The device details under the Servers group will continue to display the out-of-band IP address as well. After

you re-enable IPMI, the device under Unknown group can be removed by right-clicking it and selecting
"Remove". [262869]

On RAC devices, the "Firmware Enclosure ID" column of the "Firmware Information" table may not reflect
the correct "Firmware Enclosure ID." It is recommended that you use the "Firmware Enclosure ID" column
in the "Firmware Information" table for the server on which the RAC device is hosted. [296511]



When a "Power Monitoring Capable" Server is discovered through the CIM protocol, on the "Device
Details" screen, IT Assistant may display "No" under the "Power Management" column in "Power Supply
Information" section. To display the correct information, discover the server with either SNMP, or both
SNMP and CIM protocols. [300080]



If you create an Alert Ignore/Exclude Filter to ignore alerts with Normal severity, IT Assistant continues to
log alerts and execute any Alert Action associated with them, if the alert severity is defined as Informational
in the MIB. [324693]



When you launch Dell OpenManage Server Administrator for managed systems with Server Administrator
agent only installations, using a remote web server; provide the user name, password, and IP address of the
managed system. [390431]



IT Assistant does not support Chassis Management Controller (CMC) package & bundles. If you are using
IT Assistant which is older than v8.9, You may see CMC packages/bundles as part of the Software
Repository catalog downloaded from Dell FTP site. These packages are not supported by IT Assistant and
will give following error message when selected to view their details or tried to import. IT Assistant v8.9
will not show these packages in the tree itself.

Error Code: 0
Error Message: The package manifest file in <cmc_package_name> is invalid or cannot be read. This may

be due to invalid/corrupted package or an older unsupported package version.

Updates

Software Updates

NOTE: IT Assistant does not support the software update task on the management station. This is because a software update may
require are boot that may affect other scheduled tasks that are run on the management station. You can perform software updates
using the "Dell Systems Management Tools and Documentation" DVD after closing the IT Assistant application.

Software Updates for Linux

To perform a remote Linux software update, IT Assistant uses Plink for SSH communication. By default, IT
Assistant passes your password as a command-line parameter to Plink.

NOTE: This occurs only on the IT Assistant management station. Passwords are always encrypted when transferred to the managed
system.

If passing passwords through the command line on the IT Assistant management station is of concern, you can
configure the updates to use RSA keys instead of passwords. A blank password in IT Assistant will trigger SSH
authentication using the RSA keys.

To create RSA keys, perform the following steps:

NOTE: It is assumed that you are running an SSH2 server and are using the RSA2 keys.

1. Run PuTTYgen (or your preferred mechanism) for generating public/private key pairs. You can save your
private keys (".ppk" files) to any location on your system.

The following is a sample public key that you would put in a file that you create called "authorized_keys2 for

RSA2 keys."

ssh-rsa

AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAIEAxfMzTwS4Cwnua61h7kiad9l3HvlSeFIYPsZOrCYMuA++

9mPRraUEtrKNkwdaPKqPnc2/JFHyAxOu31jfUgQqgM2CSqwdr7fuowjseVVPTuG5JdVR1BwUAXlJK/
Hy1BM+mkKHMuNe0jTrN/gUxcmlA0lHFaFNRjV++AeM15upJsk= rsa-key-20050209
Linux ships with other utilities for creating public/private key pairs. You can download PuTTYgen from the

following Web address: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

The public keys are saved in the following configuration file on the Linux system.~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

2. Create this file, if it is not present.

3. You can store the private keys in the directory of your choice. For security reasons, it is recommended that
you set the appropriate permissions for your private key files.

This is a sample "sshconfig.pro" file where you can configure the names and location of your private keys:
#server[.user]=<path-to-file>
#A server-name of global would be appropriate to accommodate a network where all or most systems are set
up using the same key.
#global[.user]=<path-to-file>global.root=C:\SSH Private Keys\root\global_root_privatekey.ppk
global.fred=C:\SSH Private Keys\fred\global_fred_privatekey.ppk192.168.157.149.root=C:\SSH Private
Keys\root\system1_root_privatekey.ppk192.168.157.151.fred=C:\SSH Private Keys\fred\
system2_fred_privatekey.ppk

4. Copy "sshconfig.pro" to the bin folder of IT Assistant. By default, this folder is located at:
"C:\Program Files\Dell\SysMgt\ITAssistant\bin directory

NOTE: A blank password in IT Assistant triggers SSH authentication using the RSA keys instead of using passwords. IT Assistant
then attempts to find the entry in the "sshconfig.pro" file. If IT Assistant finds the system and user or global key in "sshconfig.pro",
it uses the ".ppk" file for establishing an SSH connection to the server. However, if IT Assistant cannot find this information, it
assumes that you meant to enter a blank password.

Dell recommends that SSH version 2 or above be used on the managed system for better security.

For more information on the usage of public keys for SSH authentication, see

http://www.tartarus.org/~simon/puttydoc/Chapter8.html

Reports

1. When you install IT Assistant, an in-built utility generates a report on the applicable software updates on the
systems that IT Assistant discovered. This report is generated by comparing the versions of the
packages/bundles imported into the IT Assistant repository (in the Software Updates) and the versions
installed on the managed systems. The utility is present under the folder ―<ITA Installation Directory\bin>"
and is named "itacompliance.vbs". The report is generated in Microsoft Excel(C) format.

Usage:
Run this utility on a system where the IT Assistant database is installed. By default, IT Assistant and the IT

Assistant database are installed on the same system. However, if you use a remote database, copy the
following files from the IT Assistant bin folder to the system running the remote database.

 itacompliance.vbs
 compliance.xml

Create a folder "Reports" under C:\. The report will be saved in a folder. Run the compliance utility from
"Windows Explorer" or from the command line. If the utility prompts for the name of the report file, specify
only the file name with a ".xls" extension. It will then connect to the IT Assistant database and generate the
report. The report is saved in the "C:\Reports". You can view this file using Microsoft Excel.

The report contains the following columns: Computer Name, Service Tag, Server Model, Patch Name,
Software Type, Customer Hardware, Current Version, Patch Version, and Patch Level. The patch level
indicates the severity of the update.

Modular Disk Storage Manager

You

must install DirectX 8.1 on the system to run IT Assistant with

the Modular Disk Storage Manager on Windows

2000 Server.

Documentation Errata

In the Dell OpenManage IT Assistant Online Help, the following section:
Introduction -> Existing Features From Earlier Releases of IT Assistant, the row titled Microsoft Windows 7,

reads:
IT Assistant can discover and manage devices that are running on the Windows 7 operating system. Install the

required Dell OpenManage software from the OpenManage product suite to discover and manage devices.
It should be read: IT Assistant can be installed on the system running on the Windows 7 operating system.

Corrected Problems

The following problems were reported in the 8.9 A00 version and have been corrected in this release:

1. DF457727 – In a 64-bit operating system, the Dell Life Cycle Controller and the Dell 32-bit Diagnostics

Applications are not inventoried in the ITA compliance report.

2. DF458570: The inventory collection installation hangs and fails to install on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

6.0 operating system.

Global Support

For information on technical support, visit www.dell.com/contactus.

Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
© 2011 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

Reproduction of these materials in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden.
Trademarks Trademarks used in this text: Dell™, the DELL logo, Dell Precision™, OpenManage™,OptiPlex™,PowerEdge™, PowerVault™,

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THIRD PARTY DISCLAIMER
The following disclaimer applies to the "TreeTable" control code in IT Assistant:
Copyright 1997, 1998 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided the following conditions are met:

 Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
 Redistribution in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the

documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution

Neither the name of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or the names of contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
without specific prior written permission.

This software is provided "AS IS," without a warranty of any kind. ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND
WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR
NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE HEREBY EXCLUDED. SUN AND ITS LICENSORS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OR
LIABILITIES SUFFERED BY LICENSEE AS A RESULT OF OR RELATING TO USE, MODIFICATION OR DISTRIBUTION OF THIS
SOFTWARE OR ITS DERIVATIVES. IN NO EVENT WILL SUN OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOST REVENUE, PROFIT OR
DATA, OR FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, HOWEVER CAUSED
AND REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN
IF SUN HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

You acknowledge that this software is not designed, licensed, or intended for use in the design, construction, operation, or maintenance of any
nuclear facility.

2011-03 Rev. A01