New preview capability - Track your hard-to-reach assets using IT Agent, the future of LsAgent

[Gilian]

Hi everyone!

Lansweeper is delighted to announce the availability of its new IT Agent in your Lansweeper Site, now in Preview. Track your hard-to-reach assets using the IT Agent which tracks the details of a single computer running Windows, Linux, or Apple MacOS and sends these directly to your Lansweeper Site.

How to access IT Agent in your Lansweeper Site

1. Open a browser and navigate to https://app.lansweeper.com.
2. Choose the Lansweeper Site to which you want to link the IT Agent Discovery. 
3. Go to Scanning > Discovery systems > Download installers/packages > IT Agent Discovery

A brief explanation

• Learn how to install/deploy IT Agent here.

• After a successful installation, the IT Agent(s) will be shown in your Lansweeper Site in Scanning > Discovery systems.

• To see the asset data, you can open Inventory > All assets (and you can use the search/advanced filter on the top right to filter on the specific assets/installation where IT Agent is running)

Product comparison

Lansweeper IT Agent vs LsAgent vs Network Discovery

Topic	Lansweeper IT Agent (Portable)	Lansweeper LsAgent	Lansweeper Network Discovery
Summary	Newest generation local tracking of any IT device running Windows, Linux or macOS device (including guest virtual machines and connected monitors)	Older generation local tracking of any IT device running Windows, Linux or macOS device (including guest virtual machines and connected monitors)	Discover all IT assets in your network. OT discovery will be added to the same installer/package later on
Asset reach	By default, local tracking only, no other network devices are discovered. This can be changed, but we recommend using Network Discovery for discovering network devices instead	Local tracking only, no other network devices are discovered. To discover network devices in combination with LsAgent, we recommend using Lansweeper On-Premise	Tracks both the machine running Network Discovery and discovers IT (and later OT) assets remotely
Asset data	Expanded default IT discovery data set (extra data like user info on macOS)	Default IT discovery data set	Expanded default IT (and later OT) discovery data set (extra data like user info on macOS)
Credentials	No credentials required for local tracking (runs as local system or similar elevated user by default). Credentials are optional for remote discovery but we advise to use Network Discovery for discovering network devices instead.	No credentials required for local tracking (runs as local system or similar elevated user by default).	Requires credentials to get all asset details remotely. Can recognize assets without credential though
Network access	Syncs with Lansweeper Site directly To sync with your Lansweeper Site, HTTP2 proxy is supported Check Install IT Agent Discovery - Lansweeper Community for connection requirements Send results to Network Discovery hub or to a file on a network drive for later import into Lansweeper Site. See Set up and run Lansweeper IT Agent Discovery Portable	Does not sync with Lansweeper Site directly HTTP2 proxy is not supported Requires a scan server to connect to (from a Lansweeper On-Premise installation). Can also connect first to Lansweeper LsAgent Relay server, see this link. Can save results to a file for import into Lansweeper On-Premise via scan server	Requires specific ports to be open on the assets to discover. See Ports scanned or used by Lansweeper To sync with your Lansweeper Site, HTTP2 proxy is supported
Auto update	Auto update on Windows, Linux and macOS	Auto update on Windows. Linux and macOS require manual updates	Auto update on Windows, Linux and macOS
Vulnerability risks	Built on .NET 8.0 with a reduced vulnerability risk in comparison to .NET FW 4.8	Built on .NET FW 4.8 (Windows) and .NET 6.0 (Linux, macOS)	Built on .NET 8.0 with a reduced vulnerability risk in comparison to .NET FW 4.8

Request for feedback

It's time for us to let you try and test this new feature. We hope this first version will give you an easy-to-deploy agent-based discovery.

Finally, we're all ears! Your feedback is valuable, and we'd love to hear it.

Feel free to share in the comments or share your logs and screenshots privately to preview@lansweeper.com

Kind regards,

Gilian De Raes
Product Manager | Lansweeper

[george29]

it would be amazing to be able to produce a json file of asset data in a flat file for an asset that we could use an agent like this to process as well. one major gap for me right now is not being able to add additional interfaces to an asset to provide that single asset view. (clusters and special appliances that don't support snmp (ex: Pure Storage) )

[Gilian]

Thanks for this product improvement. We plan on releasing IT Agent Portable soon (https://community.lansweeper.com/t5/product-discussions/new-capability-discover-more-asset-details-u...) where you can run a local discovery on demand (without installing anything) and which results into a discoveryfile. This file is encrypted however to avoid any tampering along the way.
I've created a new product improvement requires so we can evaluate a solution to edit the json file while providing the encryption key, so you could manually add extra data where required.

[Artichoke]

Could the Change Log please be updated? The last update was "March 28th, 2023" for "0.15.8 Network Discovery Windows, Linux, macOS". The current version for download is labeled "0.16.1" and I have "0.17.3" reporting for some of my Windows Agents.

Thanks.Peet

[Gilian]

Hi @Artichoke ,

Thanks for mentioning. We've also noticed there are some issues with the changelog and versioning of IT Agent. This will be updated soon. Last version is indeed 0.17.3 using https://download.lansweeper.com/stable/windows/it-agent-discovery/latest. We'll update the download page too

[Artichoke]

What am I missing? 

I've deployed both the macOS and Windows Client on two separate tenants. In both tenants, I can see "DISCOVERY SOURCES -> Agent-Based -> *agent names with 'Up' status". But in neither case do I have any information collected by the agent. (it's been more than 24hrs).  

In one tenant, I have three agents that are all on computers that do not have scan credentials on the local LS server. All information those records have is from the incomplete network scan. 

In the other tenant, I have two records, both Windows. One has not been scanned, the other has been, but the scan is incomplete by virtue of being firewalled. The asset that has not been scanned, *does not* appear in the inventory.

I know this is preview software, but I must be missing something.

[Gilian]

Hi @Artichoke ,

Thanks for sharing this feedback. I'd like to start by analysing if the scans were actually being delivered to your LS Site from your IT Agent. 

Can you share the following via preview@lansweeper.com:

- Site ID on the tenant where you have this issue? (Configuration > Site Settings > Site ID)

- logs of those IT Agents. You can find them here

• Windows:
  • "C:\Program Files\Lansweeper IT Agent Discovery\sensor\logs\Lansweeper.IT.Sensor.log"
  • "C:\Program Files\Lansweeper IT Agent Discovery\sensor\logs\Lansweeper.Discovery.Hub.log"
• Linux:
  • "/opt/lansweeper-it-agent/sensor/logs/Lansweeper.IT.Sensor.log"
  • "/opt/lansweeper-it-agent/hub/logs/Lansweeper.Discovery.Hub.log"
• macOS:
  • "/Application Support/Lansweeper IT Agent Discovery/hub/logs/Lansweeper.IT.Sensor.log"
  • "/Application Support/Lansweeper IT Agent Discovery/sensors/IT/logs/Lansweeper.Discovery.log"

[ryf]

Is there a timeline or roadmap for when we can expect the cloud token for IT Ageny Discovery to last more than 24 hours? My environment is a mix of SCCM and Intune, it is not feasible to try to update the package every single day to ensure all devices receive the agent. This also makes it impossible to include the agent as a mandatory application during the provisioning process due to the limited lifetime of the cloud token.

Considering this delay, I've now had my license for a month and have not been able to reach more than 50% of my environment because of this oversight.

[Gilian]

We've extended the linking code duration so you can now choose how long a single linking code should remain valid (1 day, 1 month, 3 months, ...)

Go to Scanning > Discovery sources > Link discovery source. Select Create new code, set an expiration and select Copy code.

[ninjalee]

How do you resolve duplicates? We have the IT Agent installed on all our machines and Server Scan running. We want to keep the asset scanned by the IT Agent. Is it possible to merge the assets?

[Gilian]

@ninjalee 

These should show up in inventory > duplicate conflicts so you can manually merge them in bulk. However there seems to be a bug so the IT Agent assets are no longer included here. I created an internal issue so we can resolve this. As soon as it's fixed, you'll be able to merge the assets. Later on, once the reconciliation engine's ready, this will be done automatically based on your preferences set in your Lansweeper Site.