Ad Hoc Agentless Inventory Scan
Ad hoc agentless inventory scans can be performed directly from the Scan workspace in the AIT user interface. There are three sections to the Scan workspace:
Discovery Method
The Discovery method determines how computer devices will be discovered on the network. Each discovered device will be pinged to determine if they are currently active on the network, and if they are they will be included in the scan.
The discovery methods available are outlined below.
Active Directory
The Active Directory discovery method will retrieve devices registered with an Active Directory domain. Within the Active Directory field, enter the domain name of the domain, an IP address of one of the domain controllers, or a specific Organizational Unit (OU). The domain name can be the DNS or NetBIOS name of the domain. For example:
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
| acmecorp.local | The DNS name of the domain |
| acmecorp | The NetBIOS name of the domain |
| 10.211.55.10 | The IP address of one of the domain controllers within the domain |
| CN=Computers,DC=acmecorp,DC=local | The specified OU and its child OU's |
IP Range
The IP Range discovery method enables AIT to detect active devices within the defined network range. It does this by pinging each IP address within the range and includes all IP addresses for which it receives a response. The IP Range is provided as From and To IP addresses. For example:
10.211.55.1-10.211.55.255
AIT will attempt to ICMP ping each IP address, and if there is a response, the IP address will be included in the inventory scan. If your environment is not configured to allow ICMP echo requests, it will need to be configured before using this method. More information for enabling ICMP options via Group Policy can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-firewall/create-an-inbound-icmp-rule
Device List
The Device List discovery method enables a list of devices to be scanned by providing a text file containing a list of device names or IP addresses. The text file should have one device name or IP address per row. For example, with a file named computers.txt:
ACMEPC01
ACMEPC02
ACMEPC03
10.211.55.32
Specific Device
The Specific Device discovery method enables an individual device to be scanned by entering its device name or IP address. The default value is localhost which is used to scan the computer running AIT. This can be replaced with the name or IP address of a device to be scanned.
Authentication
AIT will use the configured authentication for both discovery, such as communicating with Active Directory, and for scanning the discovered devices via WMI. As such the credentials used should have permissions to both discover devices and perform the device inventory.
The two authentication options are:
- Windows Integrated: Use the logged-on user’s credentials, this is the user that is running the application.
- Credentials: Use a separate set of Windows logon credentials to scan the devices. This would generally be a domain account that has relevant permissions on all assets to be inventoried. The proper format for the User Name is domain\username. For example:
Initiating the Scan
To initiate the ad hoc agentless inventory scan, click the Start button:
When performing a scan using any of the discovery methods described above, the data store will be unloaded therefore the View tab will not contain any data until the scan completes and the data store is reloaded.
The scan progress will be displayed in the Scan Log window, with the newest entries at the bottom. Once complete, the Scan Log will show:
Scan Complete - Reloading Data Store
Reload Complete
Assets that have been inventoried within the last 7 days will not be rescanned unless you check the Force Rescan checkbox.