Avast 4.8 ADNM not pushing licenses,installation packages and tasks to satellite

Avast Business Avast Distributed Network Manager
1

Hi All

To set the stage for my problem I have reviewed a license file from Avast (license.avastlic) which when I load into AMS indicates that I have the following licenses:

avast Network Client Count 20
avast Professional Addition Count 20
avast SBS Edition - Standard Count 13
avast SharePoint Server Edition Count 13
avast Server Edition Count 10

The licenses were issued September 24, 2010 and valid to November 24, 2013. They are also identified as Type Released.
(This data I got from the registration option when I fire up the avast Server Edition at our main server after installation at server).

Our network consists of a main server with Windows SBS 2003 as the operating system . We manage our own e-mail at the main server.
Our satellite machines consist of approximately 13 work stations and laptops that run the Windows XP Professional 64 bit and 32 bit OS.
We also have 7 satellite machines that run Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition OS.
One of the cluster machines acts as the head node of our compute cluster machines that manage reservoir simulation jobs that are submitted to them. The cluster network is also part of the LAN.

Our goal is to setup AMS and ADNM on my main server and of course we want to provide virus and malware protection to the main server.
We then want to push out Network Client Editions to the workstations and laptops, and the NetServer Editions to the cluster machines.
We would then manage all our Avast tasks from the main server using the ADNM.

To this end we installed all previous instances of the Avast products on all machines in our network subsequent to downlading avsrv_ful.exe to commence the reinstall.
The executable avsrv_ful.exe was run at the main sever and the AMS and ADNM were installed and avast!4.8 server edition was installed on main server.
When the registration is checked on firing up avast server on the main server it shows the licence count described above. It also shows my customer number and company details.
We requested mirror setup during installation. The mirror status is shown below:

=========================================
avast! Distributed Network Manager Mirror

Mirror folder: C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Management Tools\Mirror\mirror

Mirroring products: av_mgm,av_net,av_pro,av_srv

Current versions in mirror:

avast! Distributed Network Manager: 4.8.995 (Feb 19, 2010)

avast! Network Client (managed): 4.8.1061 (Feb 19, 2010)

avast! Home/Professional Edition: 4.8.1368 (Nov 27, 2009)

avast! Server Edition: 4.8.1110 (Feb 19, 2010)

Virus database: 101002-0 (Oct 02, 2010)

Note the Nov 27, 2009 avast! Home/Professional Edition: 4.8.1368, can this be right?

The next step in the operation was to push the Avast software and license details to the satellite machines,bearing in mind all previous instances of the Avast product had been removed from all machines. The installation packages for the worksations (Network Client Edition) and the cluster machines (NetServer Edition) were prepared. The installation packages required an immediate reboot upon installation of the software. The software was pushed out to the machines but they failed to reboot as requested, and in fact showed that the avast protection was not activated on the machines.

We proceeded to reboot all machines. After the reboot the machines showed that avast protection was activated, however the license registration read as follows:

avast Server Edition Count 1
avast Exchange Server Edition Count 1
avast ISA Server Edition Count 1
avast SharePoint Server Edition Count 1
avast Lotus Domino Edition Count 1
avast Network Client Count 1

The licenses are valid to November 2010 and are identified as Type -managed-. A default customer number 99999 is given, so I suspect a demo license file is being read. The license information is the same for both the cluster machines and workstations/laptops.

Also when I try to request a detailed scan of a satellite computer from the ADNM it fails with the annotation that “this function is not supported on the system”. The status associated with this error is Failed(0x00000078).

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the software numerous times in an effort to push out software and licenses - with no joy.
Should it be necessary to uninstall software when updating licenses and software at a machine?

Why are the licenses not being pushed out to satellite machines? How are license updated at satellite machines? Why are satellite machines not responding to ADNM requests?

Any help in resolving these issues will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

atech101

2
We proceeded to reboot all machines. After the reboot the machines showed that avast protection was activated, however the license registration read as follows:

avast Server Edition Count 1
avast Exchange Server Edition Count 1
avast ISA Server Edition Count 1
avast SharePoint Server Edition Count 1
avast Lotus Domino Edition Count 1
avast Network Client Count 1

The licenses are valid to November 2010 and are identified as Type -managed-. A default customer number 99999 is given, so I suspect a demo license file is being read. The license information is the same for both the cluster machines and workstations/laptops.

This is normal… it’s not a demo license.

If you look at the bottom of that window, there is some writing in bold
It should say: “Note: a managed license is currently in use. This means that the license validity is leased from the AMS - always only for the next 21 days. Please see the ADNM Administrator’s Guide for more info.”

Also when I try to request a detailed scan of a satellite computer from the ADNM it fails with the annotation that "this function is not supported on the system". The status associated with this error is Failed(0x00000078).

As for that, I’m not really sure. What system are you running the detailed scan on? One of the Compute Cluster OSes?

3

Thank you for response.

My AMS server does not show Lotus Domino or ISA Server editions, but satellite machines do. Is that normal?
Any comments as to why the satellite machines did not reboot as requested on the pushed out install package .
The main server machine is also not seen when the server-side discovery task find computers is run is run. What would explain this? This situation does not allow us to manage the main server from the ADNM.

With respect to the detailed scan disk issue: we have tied to run the detailed scan on the workstations and the cluster machines. Interestingly when we scheduled a Scan local Disks it ran fine on all machines.

Thanks

atech101

4
My AMS server does not show Lotus Domino or ISA Server editions, but satellite machines do. Is that normal?
That depends on what settings you used for your installation package. When you create the installation package, there is an "Edit" button, which allows you to add/remove individual service providers. You can also adjust the settings for the providers after you have already pushed them out by going to Tasks > Client Side Tasks > On-Access Scanning Tasks then right-clicking "Default Resident Task" and clicking properties. You can add providers there as well, if you forgot to install them in the first place.

As for why the machines didn’t reboot, I don’t really know. Windows 7 doesn’t reboot after install, but windows xp always has for me. I guess you could always run a batch with “shutdown -r -m \machinename” with all the machine names in it, but just check to make sure that your deployment task actually has reboot set in it. That shouldn’t have been a problem.

The main server machine is also not seen when the server-side discovery task find computers is run is run. What would explain this? This situation does not allow us to manage the main server from the ADNM.

I’ve seen this a few times. Provided that you have Avast installed on the machine, and ADNM still doesn’t see it. I just uninstall avast from that server, then push it out again. It’s fixed this issue every time (only seen it about 3 times so far).

With respect to the detailed scan disk issue: we have tied to run the detailed scan on the workstations and the cluster machines. Interestingly when we scheduled a Scan local Disks it ran fine on all machines.

So you’re saying you did a “detailed scan” and it failed on all machines, compute cluster and standard xp, right? What does “detailed scan” mean? ADNM console comes with one standard scan task. Which means that you must have created this “detailed scan”. What settings did you use for this scan task?

I’ve never used the compute cluster OS with avast, or ever for that matter, so I don’t know if something is wrong with the installation, or if avast just doesn’t work properly for that OS, or if your scan task has something in it that isn’t 64 bit compatible or something else.

5

Again much thanks for you response and help scythe944.

I used “create computer” to introduce the main server to ADNM, it was not being picked up by the “find computers” on the server side tasks.
I then uninstalled Avast Server Edition from the main server and used ANDM to push the Server Edition back out to the main server. It pushed the program out, but as before it did not reboot the machine as requested by the install package. However when I rebooted the machine Avast fired up and I can now manage the main server from the ADNM.

Another question: I notice when I review the summary_viractions report that no action was taken on 1 virus. The virus name is "NSIS:Downloader-CD [Drp].Why would no action be taken? What is this virus ? and should we be concerned ?

Take care

atech101

6

Sure, no problem. It’s still really strange that it’s not rebooting computers automatically, but as long as it works then good, right?

Alright, I’ll have to confess that I pretty much never use the reports.

I do think that it should say what computer it was detected on though. There is a possibility that avast prompted the user as to what to do with that infected file, and they may have just clicked ignore. Check the “On-Access Scanners” under “Sessions” in the ADNM Console, and see if it’s there.

I don’t know what the virus is, as every A/V company uses their own naming conventions; you’d have to ask avast. All I know is that it was added into the definitions at this time: 22.9.2010 - 100922-0 (source: http://www.avast.com/virus-update-history)

I guess you could check your computer catalog and see if there are any computers that are “red”, then view their virus chests to see if that file is in there as well.

You can also change the default settings for the resident On-Access and local scanners, and define what you want it to do by default every time that avast finds something. Just modify the Default Resident task, and choose how you want avast to react to different things.

Hope that helps!

7

Thanks again scythe944.
atech101

8

Regarding the issue of hard detailed analysis: We are committed to perform a detailed analysis of jobs and machines in the cluster. Interestingly, when we planned a scan of local disks, it went very well on all machines.