Windows discovery slaves are downloaded as install files from the appliance and installed onto the local Windows host. You must be logged in as an administrator to install slaves. If the software is not installed as this user then you need to grant permissions to write to C:\Program Files\Tideway Foundation\Slave_Type where slave type is on of the following:

• Active Directory
• Workgroup
• Credential

The user that runs the slave must have necessary permissions to read from and write to the etc, log, and record directories.
As a user on the appliance, you must have been granted the admin/software/slave/download permission to download the slave installers.

Slave Version and Operating System Compatibility

The following table provides information on compatibility between slave types and versions, and the operating systems that the slave runs on for Tideway Foundation version 7.3 and 7.3.1.

Windows Discovery Metadata

As of Foundation version 7.3, discovery metadata was expanded to cover Windows as well as UNIX. This provides information about why sessions failed to be established and why scripts failed to run, including information about what credential or slave was used.

This information is not reported by slaves prior to version 7.3, instead the user will see a message stating that the Slave is not a compatible version.

Changes to Slave Installation in Version 7.3.1

In version 7.3.1 the slave installers include a Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable library. The final step of the slave installation is to run the installer for the library. The only action that you need to take is to read and accept the license agreement.

The installer does not check whether the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable library is already installed. If it is installed you are given the option to Repair or Remove. You can either select Repair to reinstall the library, or simply cancel the installation. The Foundation slave installer will continue.

The Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable library is shown as an individual entry in the Currently installed programs list of the Windows Add Remove Programs window. It may be used by other applications so is not uninstalled when the slave is uninstalled. If you are sure no other applications depend on it and you want to remove it from your system, do so manually through the Add Remove Programs window.

To Download and Install a Slave

Previous versions of the Windows Discovery Slave have used an omniORB configuration file (C:\omniOrb.cfg). Version 7.2 and later slaves do not use this file in the same way. If you have a C:\omniOrb.cfg file on your system before installing the Windows Discovery Slave, you should rename it to C:\omniOrb.cfg.old before installing a new slave. If you do not, you may experience connectivity problems with the new slave.

If you are upgrading an existing slave rather than installing a new slave, see Upgrading Slaves.

Installing slaves where anti-virus software is installed Before installing slaves you should either disable the anti-virus software or configure it to exclude remcom/PSEXEC/rcmd from triggering a virus alert. You can enable the anti-virus software once the slave has been installed.

1. From the Download Slave Installers section of the Slave Management page, click the appropriate link for the type of slave to download:
   • Download installer for Active Directory Slave version 7.3
   • Download installer for Workgroup Slave version 7.3
   • Download installer for Credential Slave version 7.3
2. Save the slave installation file to your filesystem.
3. Run the installer by double-clicking on the downloaded installer file.
   A welcome screen is displayed.
4. Click Next>.
   The Select Destination Location screen is displayed.
5. Enter a new directory to install the slave application to, click the Browse button to navigate to a directory, or click Next> to accept the default location which is C:\Program Files\Tideway Foundation\Slave Type, where Slave Type is one of the following:
   • Active Directory
   • Workgroup
   • Credential
6. After you have selected a directory and clicked Next>, the Select Start Menu Folder window is displayed.
7. Enter a new Start Menu folder to create the Slave application's shortcuts. Click the Browse button to select a different folder, or click Next> to accept the default.
   Select the Don't create a Start Menu Folder checkbox if you do not want the slave to appear in the start menu.
8. The Select Additional Tasks screen is displayed. This enables you to choose options that will be available in the Start Menu. If you chose Don't create a Start Menu Folder in the previous step, make sure all the check boxes are clear and click Next>. Otherwise, choose one or more of the following options:
   • Add View Log File option to Start Menu.
   • Add View Configuration option to Start Menu.
   • Add Uninstall option to Start Menu.
9. Click Next> and the Service Credentials window is displayed.
10. Enter the credentials for the user account that will run the slave. If you do not enter the credentials at this point you can do so later, see Specifying the Account Used to Run the Slave. The slave will run as the Local System user if credentials are not entered.

    Credential Slave User You should not run the Credential Slave as the Local System user, but as a valid user account, which should be in the Administrators group.

11. Click Next> and the Ready to Install window is displayed.
12. Review the details displayed and if they are correct, click Install to install the Slave. If the details are incorrect, click the <Back button and navigate through the installer to correct the error.
13. If you are installing the slave on Windows Vista or Server 2008, the PsTools Support screen will be displayed. This will guide you through the process of configuring PsTools support.
14. A dialog is displayed showing whether the slave has been successfully installed. On the dialog is a checkbox marked Register with appliance. Select this checkbox to open the Foundation UI Add Slave page prepopulated with details of this slave when this part of the setup is complete. You may see a dialog regarding File Download. Accept this to go to the prepopulated Add Slave page.
15. Click the Finish button.
    The slave is now installed and if you selected the Register with appliance checkbox, the prepopulated Add Slave page is displayed.

    Service startup failure Sometimes Windows may refuse the installer permission to start the slave service, resulting in a dialog box along the lines of "service installed but could not be started". This is remedied by manually supplying the credentials directly to the service via the Windows UI. See Specifying the Account Used to Run the Slave.

Modifying the Slave Host Firewall

The Windows firewall blocks the ports that the slaves use by default. To enable an appliance to communicate with a slave, you must amend the firewall rules to permit communication on one of the following ports for each slave type installed on the host:

• 4321 – Active Directory Slave.
• 4322 – Workgroup Slave.
• 4323 – Credential Slave.

To do this, select Windows Firewall from the Windows Control Panel. You can add a slave as an exception (as a program or a port) on the exceptions tab.

Specifying the Account Used to Run the Slave

The Active Directory and Workgroup slaves gain their permissions from the user account that they run as. To configure this:

1. From the Start Menu, select Settings > Control Panel. The Control Panel is displayed.
2. Double-click Administrative Tools and then Services.
3. The Services list is displayed in the right-hand pane.
4. Right-click on the slave entry and select Properties from the popup menu.
5. Switch to the Log On tab and select This account.
6. Enter the username and password of the Domain or Workgroup account that the service is to run as.
   You may see a dialog saying that the user has been granted the "Log on as a Service" right.
7. Click OK to apply the changes and dismiss the window.

Starting or Stopping the Slave

To do this, from the Control Panel, navigate to Administrative Tools and access the Services list. Select the Tideway Discovery slave that you want to start or stop. The services panel is refreshed with information and links enabling you to start, restart, or stop the slave.

• To start the slave (if it is not running) click the Start the service link.
• To restart the slave (if it is running) click the Restart the service link.
• To stop the slave (if it is running) click the Stop the service link.

Starting the Slave Automatically

When the slave is working satisfactorily, you should set it to start automatically. To do this, from the Control Panel, navigate to Administrative Tools and access the Services list. Select the Tideway Discovery slave that you want to start automatically and select Properties from the popup menu.

Select Automatic from the Startup type: drop-down list, and click OK to apply the changes.

Testing Windows Credentials and Communication

You can test the credentials by using it to discover a Windows machine that you know the user can access. To do this, from a command prompt on the slave, use the runas command to run a Discovery command such as systeminfo as the Domain user:

C:\> runas /user:DOMAIN\username "systeminfo /S TARGET"

Replace DOMAIN with the domain name, for example TIDEWAY, username with the username, for example discovery, and TARGET with the resolvable hostname or IP address.

Upgrading Slaves

To upgrade an existing slave:

1. Ensure that the existing slave is not running. If you fail to do this you will need to reboot the computer after the upgrade.
2. Install the new slave using the instructions above.