Dell KACE K1000 System Management Appliance Version 5.

Agent Release Notes

About these release notes

These release notes provide information about the Dell KACE K1000 Agent software, version 5.5. For serverrelated information, see the K1000 Version 5.5 Server Release Notes: http://www.kace.com/support/resources/documentation. Topics include:

New features and enhancements on page 1 End-of-life features on page 2 System requirements for managed machines on page 2 Upgrading Agent software on managed machines on page 2 Stopping and starting the Agent on page 4 Resolved issues on page 4 Known issues on page 5 Global support on page 6

New features and enhancements

This version includes the following new features and enhancements. These features and enhancements are available to managed machines with version 5.5 of the K1000 Agent installed:

New Software Catalog: The Software Catalog is a database that contains standardized information about more than 45,000 Windows, Windows Store, and Macintosh software applications. This information includes the applications name, version, publisher, and category, as well as the platform on which the application runs. For more information, see the K1000 Administrator Guide or the K1000 Version 5.5 Server Release Notes http://www.kace.com/support/resources/documentation. New software inventory discovery technique: This process leverages information in the Software Catalog to provide useful application information. For example, prior to version 5.5, the inventory collection process resulted in a list of discrete application versions, such as Adobe Reader XI - 11.0.00, 11.0.01, 11.0.02. The new technique provides a roll-up listing of applications, such as Adobe Reader 11.x. This makes it possible to apply actions to each logical group. This software inventory discovery technique is used only by version 5.5 of the K1000 Agent. Previous versions of the Agent continue to use the older inventory discovery technique. For more information, see the K1000 Administrator Guide or the K1000 Version 5.5 Server Release Notes http://www.kace.com/support/resources/documentation.

Dell KACE K1000 System Management Appliance, Version 5.5, Agent Release Notes

New software metering process and software management features: Other features related to the Software Catalog include the ability to easily enable and disable metering, and the option to mark software as Allowed or Not Allowed for fast compliance views and reports. These features are available only to version 5.5 of the K1000 Agent. For more information, see the K1000 Asset Management Guide or the K1000 Version 5.5 Server Release Notes http://www.kace.com/support/resources/documentation. Patch-related improvements:

Reduced patch definition file size: The size of the patch definition file that is retrieved by the Agent is reduced. Rather than retrieving an archive of all patch signatures, the Agent now receives incremental changes. This reduces the impact on network traffic. Reduced number of Agent calls for patch deployment: Using an improved deployment process, the Agent needs to contact the appliance only once to obtain the manifest required for patch deployment.

End-of-life features
Support for managed machines running the following operating systems has been deprecated in this release:

Windows 2000 SP4: Not supported by K1000 Agent version 5.5. Mac 10.4 and 10.5 PPC: Not supported by K1000 Agent version 5.5.

System requirements for managed machines

For system requirements, go to http://www.kace.com/products/systems-management-appliance/tech-specs.

Upgrading Agent software on managed machines

Version 5.5 of the K1000 appliance automatically checks with Dell KACE for Agent software updates at approximately 03:40 every day. In addition, the K1000 appliance checks with Dell KACE for Agent updates whenever the appliance is rebooted. When Agent updates are available, they are automatically downloaded to the K1000 appliance, provided that the appliance is connected to the Internet at that time. Note: For information about upgrading the K1000 server to version 5.5, see the K1000 Version 5.5 Server Release Notes: http://www.kace.com/support/resources/documentation.

Viewing Agent software updates

When an Agent update is available, an alert appears on the Home page of the K1000 Administrator Interface. To view more information about the update, click the link in the Alert, or follow the instructions in this section. To view Agent software updates: 1. Log in to the K1000 Administrator Interface, and go to the K1000 Settings: Control Panel page:

If the Organization component is not enabled on the appliance, click Settings. If the Organization component is enabled on the appliance: Log in to the K1000 systemui: http:// <K1000_hostname>/system, or select System in the drop-down list in the top-right corner of the page, then click K1000 Settings. The K1000 Settings: Control Panel page appears.

2. Click the Server Maintenance tab. The current Agent software bundle appears in the Automatic K1000 Agent Bundle Updates section.

Dell KACE K1000 System Management Appliance, Version 5.5, Agent Release Notes

3. (Optional) To check for updates: a. Click Edit Mode. b. In the Automatic K1000 Agent Bundle Updates section, click Check for New Agent Bundle. The appliance checks for updates, and the results appear on the K1000 Server Logs page.

Loading Agent updates and configuring update settings

You load Agent updates to the K1000 server as described in this section. After you have loaded the Agent updates, they become available for installation on managed machines. If you have multiple organizations, you load Agent updates and configure update settings for each organization separately. Note: Managed machines must be at Agent version 5.3 or 5.4 before they can be updated to Agent version 5.5. You cannot update managed machines from other versions directly to version 5.5.

To load Agent updates and configure update settings: 1. Log in to the K1000 adminui: http://<K1000_hostname>/admin. Or, if Organization Fast Switching is enabled, select an organization in the drop-down list in the top-right corner of the page. 2. Click Settings > K1000 Agent. The Agent Provisioning page appears. 3. Click Agent Updates from KACE. The Agent Updates from KACE page appears. 4. In the Loaded K1000 Agent Updates section, click Install New Agent Bundle. The update is loaded and the new Agent software version number appears next to each operating system. 5. View or specify the Agent software update settings. For more information, see the K1000 Administrator Guide. 6. If you have multiple organizations, repeat the preceding steps for each organization.

Updating Agent software manually

Manually updating Agent software is useful if you need to upgrade from older versions of the Agent software. Note: Managed machines must be at Agent version 5.3 or 5.4 before they can be updated to Agent version 5.5. You cannot update managed machines from other versions directly to version 5.5.

To download the software, you must obtain customer login credentials by contacting Dell KACE Technical Support at http://www.kace.com/support/contact.php. To update Agent software manually: 1. Using your customer login credentials, log in to the Dell KACE website, http://www.kace.com/support/ customer/downloads.php, download the Agent .kbin file for the 5.5 GA (general availability) release, and save the file locally. Note: The Agent software bundle that you upload to the K1000 server from this page should be an official Agent software release received from Dell KACE directly. 2. Log in to the K1000 adminui: http://<K1000_hostname>/admin. Or, if Organization Fast Switching is enabled, select an organization in the drop-down list in the top-right corner of the page. 3. Click Settings > K1000 Agent. The Agent Provisioning page appears.

Dell KACE K1000 System Management Appliance, Version 5.5, Agent Release Notes

4. Click Agent Updates from KACE. The Agent Updates from KACE page appears. 5. In the Upload K1000 Agent Update Files section, click Edit Mode. 6. Click Browse or Choose File and locate the update file that you downloaded in step 1. 7. Click Load Bundle File. The updated files appear in the Loaded K1000 Agent Updates section. The appliance installs the software update on managed machines according to the selected deployment settings. 8. If you have multiple organizations, repeat the preceding steps for each organization.

Stopping and starting the Agent

The procedures for stopping and starting the Agent service on machines running Mac OS X and Linux have changed. This section explains the new procedures. Note: Use these procedures for all versions of the 5.5 Agent for Mac OS X and Linux.

Stopping and starting the Agent on Mac OS X

To stop and start the Agent on Mac OS X: 1. Open a terminal window on the Mac. 2. To stop the Agent, type the following: sudo /Library/Application\ Support/Dell/KACE/bin/AMPTools stop 3. To start the Agent, type the following: sudo /Library/Application\ Support/Dell/KACE/bin/AMPTools start

Stopping and starting the Agent on Linux OS

To stop and start the Agent on Linux: 1. Open a terminal window from Applications > System Tools. 2. To start the Agent, type the following: /opt/dell/kace/bin/AMPTools start 3. To stop the Agent, type the following: /opt/dell/kace/bin/AMPTools stop

Resolved issues
The following issues are resolved in this release:

475: Scripts fail when variables contain extra slash characters, such as / and \. 1639: During inventory updates, managed machines sometimes incorrectly report their computer names. 1896: The custom inventory rule, FileInfoEquals, fails when the K1000 server timezone uses Daylight Saving Time. DATE type custom inventory rules now contain the appropriate date for the Agent's timezone.

Dell KACE K1000 System Management Appliance, Version 5.5, Agent Release Notes

3511: Scripts fail when the target path contains the variable %PROGRAMFILES%. 3602: On managed machines running Red Hat Linux Enterprise 5, KInventory causes a fault and prevents machines from reporting inventory. 3629: The custom inventory rule, DirectoryExists, fails when used with wildcard characters, such as *. 3633: The custom inventory rule, FileExists, fails when used with wildcard characters, such as *. 3635: On Mac and Linux machines, files are not deleted correctly when a Managed Installation is complete and the setting, Delete Downloaded Files, is selected. 3649: File Synchronizations and Managed Installations that contain ZIP files that contain files with German characters, such as , , or , are not uncompressed correctly. 3767: When using runkbot on managed machines running Linux, the help displays examples for Windows instead of for Linux. 3778: For machines running Mac OS X, errors are incorrectly reported in the kinventory.log when debugging is disabled. 3797: The software ID for custom inventory rules is no longer available in kdeploy.log. 3813: Scripts fail when paths or filenames contain multibyte characters.

Known issues
This release has the following known issues.

1712: When the K1000 Agent is installed or uninstalled manually, the Agents version number is not displayed on the wizard installation and uninstallation screens. To view the current installed version, do one of the following:

Windows: In Windows Explorer, go to the Agent program folder (C:\Program Files\Dell\KACE or C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\KACE). Right click AMPAgent.exe, then select Properties and go to the Version/Details tab. Mac: Using a terminal, go to the Agent program folder (/Library/Application Support/Dell/KACE/bin) and run the following: strings AMPAgent | grep "Agent version" Linux: Using a terminal, go to the Agent program folder ("/opt/dell/kace/bin") and run the following: strings AMPAgent | grep "Agent version" 1870: Managed Installations and File Synchronizations fail to download from Replication Shares when the Replication Shares are located on machines running a Mac OS. 1891: Managed Installations that are scheduled to run at startup fail on clients running Windows 2003 (64-bit) and Windows XP (64-bit) if Microsoft hotfix KB942589 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942589) is not installed prior to K1000 Agent installation. To resolve the issue, uninstall the K1000 Agent, install the hotfix, then reinstall the K1000 Agent. 2070: The K1000 Agent installed on Mac OS X might not upgrade to version 5.4 in some cases, most commonly for some systems running Mac OS 10.5. Dell KACE recommends that customers upgrade Agents to 5.4 normally, and then verify that all Agents have upgraded correctly. If some Agents do not upgrade normally, contact Dell KACE Technical Support for a KScript to resolve the issue: http://www.kace.com/support/contact.php. 2230: When replicated inventory is deleted manually, the K1000 Agent still reports files as present in inventory updates. 3173: When you run custom inventory rules from the 5.4 version of the K1000 server, some values might be incorrect for managed machines that run the Windows 2000 operating system and Agent version 5.3 software. 3316: The installation of the 5.4 Agent using GPO (Group Policy Object) fails when the language of the client machine is not Traditional Chinese. This is because the 5.4 Agent installer supports multiple languages and GPO arbitrarily chooses the language with the lowest locale ID (LCID) as the default, which happens to be Traditional Chinese. To resolve the issue, change the locale ID of the installer to
5

Dell KACE K1000 System Management Appliance, Version 5.5, Agent Release Notes

the appropriate locale. For more information, see the following knowledge base article: https:// www.kace.com/mx/support/resources/kb/article/Installing-the-KACE-K1000-Agent-Through-WindowsGroup-Policy. To obtain a script that changes the locale ID, contact Dell KACE Technical Support: http:/ /www.kace.com/support/contact.php.

3955: On managed machines running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, timezone information for the K1000 Agent is not available. 3959: When an application, such as Internet Explorer, has multiple versions built into the executable, metering might not detect the latest version of the application.

Global support
For information regarding the latest available firmware, release note revisions, or additional assistance, see the Dell KACE Support website: http://www.kace.com/support.

Copyright notice
2004-2013 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of these materials in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. Dell and the DELL logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell Inc. disclaims any proprietary interest in trademarks and trade names other than its own. August 2013 Rev. A00

Dell KACE K1000 System Management Appliance, Version 5.5, Agent Release Notes