www.dell.com/powersolutions Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, February 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. DELL POWER SOLUTIONS 1

SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

Administrators can use the Dell OpenManage IT Assis-

tant 8.0 favorite application launch feature to create

launch points for management applications and tools for

networked devices such as servers, switches, and printers.

They can also launch specific applications on selected

managed nodes.

Creating favorite application launch points

The Dell OpenManage IT Assistant systems management

console is a multitiered application consisting of a ser-

vices tier and a client user interface (UI) tier. The services

tier consists of the IT Assistant Network Monitoring Ser-

vice, Connection Service, and database. The client UI is

the console view for managing and monitoring devices.

Multiple client UIs can connect to a single services tier.

Figure 1 illustrates an IT Assistant environment.

Note: Unless otherwise specified, in this article IT

Assistant refers to the IT Assistant services tier, the t man-

agement station is the system on which IT Assistant is

installed, and managed nodes are discovered devices

in the IT Assistant Devices tree. Launch points are the

applications displayed when right-clicking on a managed

node in the IT Assistant Devices tree and viewing the

Application Launch submenu.

BY MANOJ POONIA

Configuring Favorite Application Launch Points in Dell OpenManage IT Assistant

Dell OpenManage™ IT Assistant 8.0 enables administrators to configure launch points

for management applications and tools for discovered networked devices, such as

servers, switches, and printers. This article discusses how administrators can set up,

customize, and use this feature in their environment.

Related Categories:

Dell OpenManage

Dell PowerEdge servers

Scripting

Systems management

Windows management

instrumentation (WMI)

Visit www.dell.com/powersolutions

for the complete category index.

Figure 1. Example Dell OpenManage IT Assistant environment

G1 G2

Dell OpenManage

IT Assistant UI

(administrators launch

applications here

to connect to

managed nodes)

Printers Notebooks

Dell OpenManage

IT Assistant

management station

Switches

Servers

M a n a g e d d ev i c

es

SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

DELL POWER SOLUTIONS Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, February 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. February 20072

IT Assistant includes many predefined launch points, including

Dell OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA), the remote access

controller (RAC) console, Serial Over LAN (SOL) Proxy, and RAC

Telnet. These launch points cannot be edited by the administrators.

The launch points displayed for a managed node are determined

by the device type, available software on the managed node and UI

layer, connectivity between the management station and managed

node, and so on. For example, the OMSA launch point is only dis-

played if IT Assistant can fetch the launch information (the URL to

launch OMSA) from the managed node during its inventory cycle;

the same is true for the RAC console launch point.

When creating favorite application launch points, administrators

should ensure that the specific executable is available on the client

UI system. For example, launching the Remote Desktop applica-

tion to connect to the selected devices requires that the Remote

Desktop application be installed on the client system. If it has not

been installed, IT Assistant displays an error saying it cannot find

the specified application.

In addition, if the client UI is being used from multiple systems,

then any file used in the favorite application launch definitions must

exist in the same location on each node. Alternatively, administra-

tors could place all files on a network share accessible to anyone

using the client UI.

Configuring the favorite application launch featureAdministrators can configure the favorite application launch fea-

ture to launch device management applications (such as printer

consoles, switch consoles, or storage device consoles) or other

stand-alone applications that connect to managed nodes. They

can create two types of favorite application launch points: execut-

able and URL. When creating these launch points, IT Assistant

supports two parameters, which are replaced with the appropriate

data during application launch: $IP (for the managed node’s IP

address) and $NAME (for the managed node’s host name). These

parameters are case sensitive.

For example, to launch the printer console for a printer discov-

ered by IT Assistant with the IP address 10.11.12.13 using port 123,

administrators could specify a URL command as “https://$IP:123.”

Launching this application then opens a browser with the URL

https://10.11.12.13:123.

Creating launch points for the Microsoft Management ConsoleAlthough the Microsoft® Management Console (MMC) does not sup-

port IP addresses or host names as command-line arguments, sev-

eral of the Microsoft-provided .msc files (such as compmgmt.msc,

fsmgmt.msc, and services.msc) do accept /computer=IP address

or host name as an argument. This allows administrators to create

a generic launch point that can be applied across all Microsoft

Windows® OS–based systems, as shown in Figure 2.Figure 2. Configuring the Microsoft Management Console as a favorite application in

Dell OpenManage IT Assistant

SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

www.dell.com/powersolutions Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, February 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. DELL POWER SOLUTIONS 3

Note: For comprehensive functionality when managing Microsoft

Windows Server® 2003 OS–based systems, administrators should

install the Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack on sys-

tems running the IT Assistant client UI.

In addition to an existing MMC, administrators can also use a

custom MMC as a favorite application. To do so, they must create

their own generic .msc files that include snap-ins for the specified

devices, save them on the client UI system, and configure them as

favorite applications. To use these files generically, administrators

should name them with the IP address or host name of the managed

node. (For example, to launch them for a computer named c74h71s

with the IP address 10.98.112.227, they would create a file named

either c74h71s.msc or 10.98.112.227.msc.) Although MMC files do

not support IP address or host name parameters in command-line

arguments, by following this naming convention, administrators can

use the $IP and $NAME parameters in the Add Favorite Application

Wizard (see Figure 3).

Note: In step 2 of the Add Favorite Application Wizard shown

in Figure 3, clicking the Browse button shows only .exe files by

default. Administrators can select the All Files filter to see other

types of files.

Using favorite application launch points

This section describes how administrators can use Dell OpenManage

IT Assistant favorite application launch points on managed nodes:

viewing system event logs, issuing Network BIOS (NetBIOS) queries,

issuing batch TCP/IP commands, launching applications or install-

ing packages, launching device- or vendor-specific applications,

launching remote access tools, using Wake-on-LAN (WOL), per-

forming shutdown operations, and opening ipmish sessions.

Viewing system event logs. Administrators can use favorite

application launch points to launch the system event logs viewer

for managed nodes. To do so, they should enter the eventvwr.exe

file path in the Executable field and either “$IP” or “$NAME” in the

Arguments field of the Add Favorite Application Wizard.

Issuing NetBIOS queries. Administrators can launch

NBLookup.exe, a Microsoft utility for NetBIOS queries, on remote

devices using the $IP parameter in the Arguments field of the Add

Favorite Application Wizard.

Issuing batch TCP/IP commands. Administrators can write their

own batch files that include specific TCP/IP commands and expect IP

addresses or host names as input parameters. They can launch these

batch files on remote nodes using the $IP or $NAME parameters in

the Arguments field of the Add Favorite Application Wizard.

Launching applications or installing packages. Using their

own programs or Microsoft Windows Management Instrumenta-

tion (WMI) scripts, administrators can launch a particular appli-

cation or install Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) or MSI patch

(MSP) files on remote nodes. For example, they could use the code Figure 3. Configuring a custom Microsoft Management Console as a favorite applica-

tion in Dell OpenManage IT Assistant

SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

DELL POWER SOLUTIONS Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, February 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. February 20074

snippet shown in Figure 4 to perform this type of task. This script

uses four parameters: IP address or host name, the command to

run, username, and password. Instead of using this script, admin-

istrators can also use their own program that internally performs

specific operations on the remote node.

To run this script during a favorite application launch, adminis-

trators can copy it and save it as a commands.vbs file. Then, in the

Add Favorite Application Wizard, they can enter the path to this file

in the Executable field and “$IP command username password” in

the Arguments field, where command is the file path for an appli-d

cation such as an antivirus scanner (to start virus scanning on the

remote node) or msiexe.exe (to install an MSI or MSP file on the

remote node) and username ande password are the authentication d

credentials for the remote node.

When using this script, administrators should follow these best

practices:

• For the command option in the Arguments field, administra-d

tors should ensure that the executable, MSI, or MSP files are

present on the remote node. • The password will be visible when provided in the Argu-

ments field. To avoid this, administrators can follow the

commented instructions in the script to request the username

and password at application launch. • The script can be used in the IT Assistant Task module to

perform the same operation on multiple devices; a schedule

option is also available. For more information, see the Dell

OpenManage IT Assistant User’s Guide.

Launching device- or vendor-specific applications. Admin-

istrators can create their own custom groups in IT Assistant to

logically combine devices from a particular vendor, then config-

ure favorite application launch points for applications specific

to those devices. For example, a network may include Hewlett-

Packard servers or devices that, after discovery, IT Assistant

categorizes as unknown devices. Administrators could configure

IT Assistant to launch an application such as Web Jetadmin (a

Web-based printer management tool from Hewlett-Packard) on

these devices. For IBM® devices, administrators could configure

IT Assistant to launch an application such as IBM Tivoli® Web-

based applications.

Figure 5 shows an example of configuring a favorite application

launch point for the Web Jetadmin application in the IT Assistant

Add Favorite Application Wizard. This configuration uses the $NAME

parameter and runs on the default port (8000).

After completing the wizard, administrators should ensure that

Web Jetadmin is installed on the managed node and that its cor-

responding service is running. They can then launch the application

on the managed node by right-clicking the node in the Devices tree

and selecting Application Launch>Launch Web Jetadmin.

Launching remote access tools. Administrators can install vari-

ous remote access applications, such as DameWare Mini Remote

strComputer = WScript.Arguments.Item(0)

strCommand = WScript.Arguments.Item(1)

strUserName = WScript.Arguments.Item(2)

strPassword = WScript.Arguments.Item(3)

“ To prompt for username and password at launch time,

“ comment the above two lines and un-comment the below two.

“ strUserName = inputbox ( “Enter Username:”, “Username”)

“ strPassword = inputbox ( “Enter Password:”, “Password”)

Set objSWbemLocator = CreateObject(“WbemScripting.SWbemLocator”)

Set objSwbemServices = objSWbemLocator.ConnectServer(strComputer,“root\cimv2”, strUserName , strPassword)

Set objSWbemObject = objSWbemServices.Get(“win32_Process”)

errReturn = objSWbemObject.Create(strCommand,null,null,intProcessID)

if errReturn = 0 then

Wscript.Echo strCommand & “ was started with a process ID of “ & intProcessID & ”.”

else

Wscript.Echo strCommand & “ could not be started due to error “ & errReturn & ”.”

end if

Figure 4. Example WMI script to install MSI or MSP files on remote nodes or launch a particular application to connect to a remote node

SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

www.dell.com/powersolutions Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, February 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. DELL POWER SOLUTIONS 5

Figure 5. Configuring Hewlett-Packard Web Jetadmin as a favorite application in Dell

OpenManage IT Assistant

Control and PuTTY, and launch them to connect to and remotely

control managed nodes.

Using WOL. Administrators can use WMI scripts to include a

WOL option for managed nodes. Figure 6 shows an example script.

To run this script during a favorite application launch, admin-

istrators can copy it and save it as a WOLScript.vbs file in the

C:\ drive of the UI system. Then, in the Add Favorite Application

Wizard, they can enter the path to this file in the Executable field

and the following text in the Arguments field:

“C:\Program Files\Dell\SysMgt\ITAssistant\bin\wol32.exe”

$NAME

When using this script, administrators should follow these

best practices:

• In the script, administrators must replace c74h71s with the

IT Assistant server name. • IT Assistant installs the wol32.exe file in the bin folder,

which expects the system Media Access Control (MAC)

address, IP address, subnet mask, and WOL port number

(68 by default) as input parameters. Administrators can

download their own WOL tools and modify the script

appropriately. Other common script examples are available

at www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/default.mspx. • If IT Assistant is launched as the UI, then wol32.exe should

be present on the local system, and the full path should be

included in the Arguments field.

Performing shutdown operations. Administrators can con-

figure WMI scripts or their own tools as favorite applications to

perform shutdown operations on managed nodes.

Opening ipmish sessions. Administrators can use the favor-

ite application launch feature to open interactive sessions with

baseboard management controllers (BMCs) on managed nodes

using the ipmish utility (part of the BMC Utilities component of

the Dell OpenManage IT Assistant Management Station CD). They

can launch a session with the following command:

ipmish.exe –cfg configuration file name -interactivee

Administrators can configure the appropriate parameters in

the configuration file and use this file with the favorite application

launch feature by using the managed node’s IP address or host

name as the .cfg file name.

Creating custom groups

In Dell OpenManage IT Assistant, administrators can create

custom groups to logically combine discovered devices and

SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

DELL POWER SOLUTIONS Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, February 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. February 20076

“ The first parameter is the wol.exe path, the second is the

“ device IP address, and the third is the port number (optional)

strCommand = WScript.Arguments.Item(0)

strComputer = WScript.Arguments.Item(1)

if Wscript.Arguments.Count >= 3 then

strPortNumber = WScript.Arguments.Item(2)

else

strPortNumber = “68”

end if

“Find the network mac address

set myconn = createobject(“adodb.connection”)

connection = “Driver={SQL Server};Server=c74h71s;DATABASE=ITAssist”

myconn.open (connection)

Set result = createobject(“adodb.recordset”)

sql = “select NICIPAddress,NICNetMask,NICMACAddress from NIC where NICIPAddress in ( select ipaddress from

DeviceNICView where name like ‘%” & strComputer & “%’ )”

Set result = myconn.execute(sql)

do while not result.eof

strDeviceMAC = result.fields(“NICMACAddress”)

strDeviceSubnetMask = result.fields(“NICNetMask”)

strDeviceIP = result.fields(“NICIPAddress”)

strFullCommand = “.”

strFullCommand = strCommand & “ -m ” & strDeviceMAC & “ -ip ” & strDeviceIP & “ -p ” & strPortNumber

& “ -s ” & strDeviceSubnetMask

strComputer = “.”

Set objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts:” & “{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\” & strComputer

& “\root\cimv2”)

Set objStartup = objWMIService.Get(“Win32_ProcessStartup”)

Set objProcess = GetObject( “winmgmts:root\cimv2:Win32_Process”)

errReturn = objProcess.Create(strFullCommand, null, null, intProcessID)

if errReturn = 0 then

Wscript.Echo strFullCommand & “ was started with a process ID of “ & intProcessID & ”.”

else

Wscript.Echo strFullCommand & “ could not be started due to error “ & errReturn & ”.”

end if

result.movenext

loop

result.close

Figure 6. Example WMI script to use Wake-on-LAN on managed nodes

SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

www.dell.com/powersolutions Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, February 2007. Copyright © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. DELL POWER SOLUTIONS 7

configure favorite application launch points to run on these devices

by carrying out the following steps:

1. Right-click on the All Groups item in the Devices tree and

select New Group.

2. In the Add Group Wizard, enter the group name and click

the Next button.

3. Select the devices for the group and click the Next button.

To create the group based on a query rather than by select-

ing devices, select a query from the drop-down list or create

a new one by clicking the New button. Note that unknown

devices may not contain asset tag information.

4. Click the Finish button to complete the wizard. The group

should now appear in the Devices tree.

5. To associate favorite application launch points with the

group, select the group while creating a new favorite

application.

Simplifying device management

Dell OpenManage IT Assistant 8.0 enables administrators to

easily launch applications and other tools related to managed

nodes. Using this feature in enterprise data centers helps simplify

the management of networked devices such as servers, switches,

and printers.

Manoj Poonia is an engineering analyst with the Dell OpenManage Group

at the Dell Bangalore Development Center. Manoj has a B.E. in Computer

Science from Maharshi Dayanand University.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Dell OpenManage IT Assistant User’s Guide:

support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smitasst