[Q&A] Glpi_agent - network Discovery/inventory on windows/Linux agent

[Chico0008]

Documentation & bug reporting acknowledgment

Yes, I read it

Describe your problem

Hi
i'm using a windows 10 computer with the last nightly of GLPI agent (1.5-git05880ee3)
eveything regarding my computer is fully inserted in my Glpi Inventory (using Glpi 10.0.5 and native inventory on a linux Ubuntu server)

But, can't find a way to use the agent, or server, to run a network discovery/inventory, to get switch/firewall/etc (passive equipement) to get into my inventory

thanks

[g-bougard]

Hi @Chico0008
you first need to configure your agent with the right URL, read cautions regarding server parameter in online documentation.
Then in glpiinventory plugin, you have to create ip range and associate snmp credentials to it.
Then you can create a netdiscovery task in glpiinventory for which you'll have to select an agent actor and your iprange as target. Then you can click on the "force a start" button on the general task tab.
Here, the next time the agent actor will contact the server it will be notified it has a netdiscovery task to run.

In the same way, you'll have to create a netinventory task which always have to be started after the netdiscovery one as it will make a deeper inventory on devices which only supports SNMP.

In GLPI, you also must check the agent modules netdiscovery & netinventory are enabled for the agent actor.

In the agent side, the tasks must have been installed.

You can force manually the agent to run its tasks, handy during testing.

[Chico0008]

I'm using native inventory in glpi, not a plugin, can the native inventory handle this ?
or do i must install the Glpi Inventory plugin ?

[g-bougard]

Actually GlpiInventory plugin is required if you want to manage tasks like netdiscovery or netinventory from GLPI.
This tasks support will be added natively in GLPI in the future.

[Chico0008]

I activate toolbox on my agent, but it says things are not installed.

how can i install theses 2 plugins on my windows agent ?

[g-bougard]

This shows the tasks are not installed.

Did you eventually tried to reinstall other an existing installation on which the tasks was not installed ?
With silent installation, this just does not work if you're re-installaing the same version and you're not advertised of the problem (probably only in system eventviewer).
But in that case, you can try to add the following parameter to force reinstallation: REINSTALL=feat_AGENT

[Chico0008]

Juste uninstalled the agent via windows parameter, and installed again, now its OK, i have the network options.
but now
i installed Glpi Inventory, set IP range, create a task for discovering network, set the range, set my PC as agent.
save, force run, and ... nothing.

in task supervision, i have task in to do, but nothing is running :s
on my agent, on toolbox, iprange is not displayed.

[Chico0008]

Seems OK now, task are running.
thanks for your help

[g-bougard]

Nice.
Just for you to know, ToolBox and GlpiInventory interface are not linked. You can use ToolBox without GlpiInventory. In ToolBox, edit the configuration clicking on the gear on the upper right corner and enable the menus for IPRange & Credentials. Then you will be able to create them in ToolBox too.
Actually, ToolBox can only be used to run manually network scan, storing XML locally. There's no scheduling nor automatic submission to GLPI. But you still can easily inject the stored XML in GLPI with glpi-injector script.
P.S.: I'm actually working on a ToolBox update to be able to schedule network scans.

[Chico0008]

Ok, thanks, i thought they were linked.

[Chico0008]

So, i wanted to do things right and make a task running at night for discovery / enventoring, using a Linux agent on the Ubuntu server hosting Glpi.
my agent on linux can do everything, i plan my task to run yesterday a 8pm, but nothing happens.
nothing in status, not prepaped, not ready, nothing :(

the linux agent is supposed to contact the server around every 2 hours, and i can confirm it's right because his inventory last update is ok.

[g-bougard]

Enable debug=2 in conf, restart the service and check the agent log. On linux, if you don't log in a log file, you can use the following command to follow the agent log in a console.

journalctl -f -t glpi-agent

You can remove the -f option to consult all the log from the beginning.
This should help you to understand what's going on.

[Chico0008]

Debug=2 enable, agent restarted
agent is supposed to contact the server at 9;37

I planned a network discovery at 9:40

i'll get you the log after that

edit : Here's the log, still no network discovey running :(

[Fri Jan 20 09:37:38 2023][info] target server0: server http://glpi-test.viry.net/front/inventory.php
[Fri Jan 20 09:37:38 2023][debug2] [http client] Using Compress::Zlib for compression
[Fri Jan 20 09:37:38 2023][info] sending contact request to server0
[Fri Jan 20 09:37:38 2023][debug2] [http client] C1072423: sending message:
...
lots of server local inventory, vg, package, etc
...
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug2] format: Zlib
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug2] [http client] 2B801E85: received message:
{"expiration":"2","status":"ok"}
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug] forking process 6897 to handle child job
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug2] child[6897]: forked
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug] forking process 6897 to handle task WakeOnLan
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug2] child[6783] finished
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug] WakeOnLan task execution not requested
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug] forking process 6900 to handle child job
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug2] child[6900]: forked
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug] forking process 6900 to handle task Collect
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug2] child[6897] finished
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][info] running task Collect
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug2] [http client] Not using compression
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug2] http://glpi-test.viry.net/front/inventory.php?action=getConfig&task[Collect]=2.8&machineid=s-web-2023-01-19-14-00-46
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][error] [http client] communication error: 400 Bad Request, Protocol not supported
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][info] Collect task not supported by server0
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][info] target server0: next run: Fri Jan 20 11:36:53 2023 - http://glpi-test.viry.net/front/inventory.php
[Fri Jan 20 09:38:24 2023][debug2] child[6900] finished

not Discovery planned, the agent is able to do it, result of glpi-agent --list-tasks

Available tasks :
- RemoteInventory (v1.0)
- NetDiscovery (v5.1)
- Collect (v2.8)
- Inventory (v1.12)
- NetInventory (v5.1)
- ESX (v2.7)
- Deploy (v2.10)
- WakeOnLan (v2.2)

target server0: server http://glpi-test.viry.net/front/inventory.php
Planned tasks: Collect,Inventory,RemoteInventory,NetDiscovery,Deploy,ESX,WakeOnLan,NetInventory

[Chico0008]

Not sure i understood right
here's one of my task

it should start tonight at 10pm
but after that, will it run again tomorrow a 10pm ?

task is set to run on the agent on the linux server, no need to wakeonlan, and the agent contact the server every 2 hours, meaning the task could run near midnight at most ?
(agent contact server a 9:59, no run time, next contact a 11:59, task was at 10, so run ?)

[Chico0008]

Ok i'm really going to reap my hairs from my head
i planned my task for last night

and nothing has been done

i really don't get it
the last time it work, i force the execution and ran a glpi-agent on the server
but last night, nothin, wasn't it supposed to do all alone ?

sorry but i really don't get how this is supposed to work.

[g-bougard]

You must check if the task in GlpiInventory is in the "prepared" state. If not, check the "taskscheduler" automatic action history in GLPI Configuration.
If tasks are still in the "prepared" state. Check the glpi-agent log, did it run at the time you expected ?
You know, telling this doesn't work without sharing relevant information doesn't help us to understand what you or we missed.

[Chico0008]

tried to forcerun this morning, but task even won't get in prepared state
how can i get them in this state automaticaly ?

[g-bougard]

If a task remains not prepared when you click on the "force a start" button, this probably means something goes wrong in the task setup, maybe the agent is no more associated to the task.

[Chico0008]

Agent is still associated in job setup.
tried to delete, add again, save, force

this time 2 jobs or prepared (the first 2 on the list)
but the 3 others, even doing this don't go to prepared state :/

[Chico0008]

i'll use google trad because my english begin to be bad. (french origin)

Well, yesterday by doing forced executions, it worked.

I wanted to plan a printer inventory task yesterday at 8 p.m.
I put a preparation slot from 6 pm to 8 pm, and an execution slot from 12 am to 7 am

this morning, still nothing, the task has not even been prepared
in the agent's log, nothing (just its local inventory)

I can't find a doc explaining the daily planning of a task, or else I have a problem somewhere, but I can't find where it can block.

[g-bougard]

Have you checked "taskscheduler" automatic action was run in GLPI Configuration ?

As mine is on a test server and I didn't setup crontab to automatically run automatic actions, the "Last run" date is indeed the last time I manually run it, clicking on the "Execute" button:

The log should tell when it was run:

[Chico0008]

nothing for me

it's this taskscheduler, making inventory task to be run ?

[g-bougard]

As I said 2 times yesterday ;-), this automatic action is here to "prepare" the task.
Check you have configured "Automatic actions" in CLI mode from crontab, see GLPI documentation:
https://glpi-user-documentation.readthedocs.io/fr/master/modules/configuration/crontasks.html

[Chico0008]

you said task needed to be prepared, but i didn't know this was made by another task in glpi, not easy to understand all the things linked in glpi backend.
So i'll add a cron on my minux to launch the cron.php.