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KACE KBOX 1000 Series (v3.1)
by Bob Kelly

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Web Based Admin Console

Documentation is built-in to KACE in more than one location. There is a link at the top for help which opens a PDF Admin Guide of nearly 250 pages. The documentation is thorough and well organized (even some documentation of the database structure it uses is provided). Further, on many pages you will find the most pertinent help displayed on the right margin of the screen. As KACE has continued to add to the functionality of its product, it is remarkable that the interface remains uncluttered. Everything is logically laid out to where you will find what you are looking for in very few clicks even if you don’t know the lay of the land. If you don’t see what you are looking for, a quick search of the provided documentation will help you find your way. There is a search field at the top of the display, but this is for finding collected information (records in your database) and does not include searches of the documentation.

Upgrades to the KBOX itself are provided direct from KACE to systems as part of its maintenance agreement. In fact, I started with v3.1.6596 and was informed on the home page of the console that v3.1.6748 was available during my review. Like everything else, links to what you need are right where you would want them to be-- in this case I clicked on the notice and was then able to push an “Upgrade Now” button which had a link to release notes right beside it. I for one like to know why I’m upgrading so this a much appreciated touch.

One of the few things worth restating in this review is the concept of labels within the KBOX. You can apply labels to almost anything within the KBOX and then assign scripts, software deployment and other actions to those labels. This makes it very easy to generate an ad-hoc lists for you to target. On the computers, software, services, and processes tabs let you select items from the list and then apply any labels. Additionally you can dynamically apply filters based on configurable filters.

It can use local (default) authentication or you may label machines based on an LDAP provider like Active Directory. LDAP integration is provided for batch imports of computers and users, and as a live connector for security features like group membership.

Remote Client Provisioning

The client installation can be run interactively, or from the command line by passing the server name as an argument. It also offers an ID generation mode so you may include the KBOX client in your baseline image without duplicating its unique client identifier. When I last looked at the KBOX 1000, one of the things I really had a problem with was its lack of integrated client deployment. Today, the KBOX 1000 offers some very good support for remote deployment. From within the console you can provide a range of IP addresses and the provisioning agent will attempt to connect and install the agent with the settings you specify. Like most every task, you can do this once or provide a number of scheduling options-- this way you can "set it and forget it" with the KBOX identifying and installing client agents as systems appear on your network.

You can view the results of these installation attempts in the console, which provides enough detail to know just what what went wrong if an attempt should fail. A couple of remote client installation configuration issues to watch for: "Simple File Sharing" must be turned off for Windows XP systems (it requires standard file sharing-- simple file sharing does not support administrative file shares and associated access security). Also if Windows Firewall is turned ON, "File and Print Sharing" must be enabled in the Exceptions list of the Firewall Configuration.

You can also enable file sharing on the KBOX and access the client installation setup files directly in order to script your own client deployment from \\kbox\client\agent_provisioning\. This share on the KBOX is off by default, and must be turned on for remote client provisioning. It is also key to point out that there is now support for more than just Windows clients: Mac, Red Hat Linux and Solaris support is provided for features like distribution, inventory and alerts, but not for all features (in particular these other operating systems do not support scripting and security features today).

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