Custom inventory for all files of type

MikeAnderson1730 · 01-15-2008, 01:09 PM

How do you do an inventory for all files on the C: drive with a specific file extension? I have used the Custom Inventory builder to do a WMI query. The inventory runs, creates a db table along with all the columns, but no data is written. I know that the WMI query is good as when I run it in a vb script, it returns the results I am looking for. Has anyone else tried to do something like this?

Thanks,
Mike Anderson

MikeAnderson1730 · 01-16-2008, 01:49 PM

This thread can be closed, I figured it out. I must've had a syntax error in my XML file initially. At any rate, here is a known working XML file that looks for all MDB's located on the C: drive:

<InventoryClasses>
<InventoryClass name='Cust_AllMDBs' manufacturer='Altiris' description='' version='1.0' platform='Win32' mifClass='Altiris|MyCustomClass|1.0'>
<xml xmlns:s="uuid:BDC6E3F0-6DA3-11d1-A2A3-00AA00C14882" xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882" xmlns:rs="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:rowset" xmlns:z="#RowsetSchema">
<s:Schema id="RowsetSchema">
<s:ElementType name="row" content="eltOnly" rs:updatable="true">
<s:AttributeType name="c0" rs:name="CreationDate" rs:number="1" rs:nullable="true" mifAttrId="1">
<s:datatype dt:type="string" dt:maxLength="255"/>
</s:AttributeType>
<s:AttributeType name="c1" rs:name="FileSize" rs:number="2" rs:nullable="true" mifAttrId="2">
<s:datatype dt:type="string" dt:maxLength="255"/>
</s:AttributeType>
<s:AttributeType name="c2" rs:name="LastModified" rs:number="4" rs:nullable="true" mifAttrId="4">
<s:datatype dt:type="string" dt:maxLength="255"/>
</s:AttributeType>
<s:AttributeType name="c3" rs:name="Name" rs:number="5" rs:nullable="true" mifAttrId="5">
<s:datatype dt:type="string" dt:maxLength="255"/>
</s:AttributeType>
</s:ElementType>
</s:Schema>
<rs:data>
<%foreach wmiobject="o" namespace="root\CIMV2" wql="SELECT * FROM CIM_DataFile where drive='c:' and extension='mdb'" %>
<z:row
c0 ="<%writexml "wmi

.CreationDate"%>"
c1 ="<%writexml "wmi

.FileSize"%>"
c2 ="<%writexml "wmi

.LastModified"%>"
c3 ="<%writexml "wmi

.Name"%>"
/>
<%next%>
</rs:data>
</xml>
</InventoryClass>
</InventoryClasses>

jebba · 11-20-2008, 07:12 AM

This works great!! BUT!!!!
What if I need to find this file if it's on the c:\ OR d:\??

Thanks

Brandon · 11-20-2008, 08:06 AM

How about editing the auditpls.ini file with the editor and then your normal inventory will check for it. That auditpls file is highly customizable.

Editor is in:
\\server\NSCap\Bin\Win32\X86\AeXAPedit.exe

File to edit:
\\server\NSCap\Bin\Win32\X86\Inventory Solution\auditpls.ini

Be sure to back the file up before changing it.

Keslaa · 01-16-2009, 01:49 PM

I can't imagine I am the first to ask, but...has anyone modified the auditpls file to look for .PST files?

JenH · 01-20-2009, 07:12 PM

Yes. Ours does it. This is so we can pull reports of how many .pst files and where they are stored on client systems.

Keslaa · 01-21-2009, 09:22 AM

Can you walk me through it. I tried following the instructions, but I'm not getting any results...unless I'm looking in the wrong place?

JenH · 01-22-2009, 10:31 AM

Once you make the changes to the auditpls.ini file, you have to do an "Update Distribution Points" on the Inventory package itself. This alerts the NS that files have changed and to re-distribute to the clients. The clients then need to be forced to do another inventory in order for you to start seeing the results.

Once you have some systems inventory, you can use the Audit Software table to create reports with the .pst extension. Here's a link to a post for a .pst report:

How do I get this working?

Thanks,

Jen

Keslaa · 01-22-2009, 10:50 AM

Thanks for the reply.
I have made the changes and updated the distribution points. The modified file is located at each of the sites already.
My question is more towards what are the changes that need to be made to the auditpls file. All I did was to add .PST as a file mask. Was there anything else that needs to be done?

JenH · 01-22-2009, 10:56 AM

Nope. That's all you have to do really. The hard part is getting the reports the way you want them because the canned ones only give you a count of the files, but not how big each one is or where it is at on the client computer.

Keslaa · 01-22-2009, 11:32 AM

OK. I made sure that the modified auditpls file made it to my computer and then I manually kicked off the AeXAuditPls executable. During the run, it showed PST as a file mask. I have a couple of .PST files on my hard drive. After the run, I opened the temp file it generated and it showed no .PST files found, so I'm missing something here.

JenH · 01-22-2009, 11:51 AM

In the File Mask tab of the auditpls.ini, is it set to just PST or *.pst? Ours is set to *.pst.

Keslaa · 01-22-2009, 12:11 PM

I did both now. Still no go.

JenH · 01-22-2009, 03:09 PM

I also had PST in the Disk Usage tab. Sorry about that. With both in place, you should get the desired results.

mvoeg731 · 03-17-2009, 11:16 AM

Do you notice any impact on the network or any issues with how long it takes to run the search for .PST's on your network. Is it easier to run a custom inventory or the way you guys are discussing?

JenH · 03-17-2009, 06:25 PM

This does not do an inventory of .pst's "on the network", just the .pst's on the machine the inventory is running. We have not noticed a network impact. The inventory reporting part of the machines sending their data to the server is super small (less than 5 or 10kb in most cases). The Networking team would let me know if it was an issue and so far, it hasn't been. We have about 10,000 nodes and only one NS serving all of our global sites if that helps.

Keslaa · 03-18-2009, 08:41 AM

By the way, due to the nature of users saving their .PSTs anywhere on their machines, we have had to open this up to search the entire hard drive. This has produced a new challenge: some of the users have installed a font package in which all of the fonts used have an extension of - you guessed it - .PST. How would I use the File Size Exclusion Filter to ignore any .PST file less than, say, 2 MB in size?

JenH · 03-18-2009, 05:33 PM

Not that I know of, but you could do this in a report once the data is collected.

Thanks,

Jen

mvoeg731 · 03-19-2009, 09:24 AM

Would anyone know why I after running this report I had 1350 results for .PST files, I went to lunch and came back and had 220 results? What would have happened to change the results. I am the only one with access to the system.

Brandon · 03-19-2009, 11:32 AM

It's all based on your inventory schedule. If it is weekly then it will take at least a week or so for all the clients to run what you have asked them to locally, then submit it to the server. If it was daily or more frequent, inventories would be constantly running and your end users would be complaining about the speed of their desktops.

englundg · 05-26-2009, 04:43 PM

We are looking for torrent files and in testing are getting results only from the c: drive. My test includes a local d: drive as well but there are no results. There are no exclusions that would preclude other local drive files other than places like the sysvol or the recycle bin. We have no problem finding exe files on the other local drives. Any ideas?