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

[eputz]

We only use the ITAgent with our site and have no additional discovery methods configured so are a bit confused why we're seeing instances of Ring doorbells, CCTV cameras and smart TVs appearing in our inventory when we're currently only interested in assets that have the IT Agent installed?

[Gilian]

Hi @eputz 

Thanks for sharing. In https://app.lansweeper.com can you go to scanning > Discovery groups?

Next, can you ensure your IT Agents are member of the group "Default Group IT Agent" and not "Default Group"?

"Default group" has network visibility enabled by default, whereas "Default Group IT Agent" only focuses on the device where the IT Agent is running (workstations/servers on Windows/Linux/macOS)

After correcting the group membership, you can remove the assets from the other asset types from your inventory and they should not be re-added after a next discovery from your IT Agents.

[eputz]

Thanks I'll take a look. Going forward how do we ensure that our ongoing ITAgent installs are not ending up in that Default group as we don't want to have to keep manually managing group memberships?

[Gilian]

@eputz this was resolved during the current preview phase. All new IT Agents are now joining "Default IT Agent" Group by default. You can change their membership manually in your LS Site to give them different settings like their auto update behavior.

[eputz]

@Gilian so we have 2552 components in 'Default Group' and 2367 in 'Default Group IT Agent' , when I click into the Default Group, I'm not seeing any option for managing the membership - it's all greyed out so how do we easily:

1. bulk manage the discovery group membership of our assets
2. get a report to see which groups our assets below too?

[eputz]

@Gilian - Hi Gilian - any update on how we can bulk manage the Group Memberships for our ITAgents for a bulk move of the 2000+ devices which are not in the 'Default Group IT Agent' ?

[Gilian]

@eputz not available yet, but I've asked an update from our development team. This should become available during this month, October.

[eputz]

Hi @Gilian - any update on when the bulk management for group memberships will be available?

[wborquez]

In our environment, we are considering using Acronis to create an image of the operating system with the IT Agent Discovery preinstalled. The goal is to apply this image to other endpoints to streamline the deployment of the agent across multiple devices.
Is it compatible to use Acronis to create an image of the operating system with IT Agent Discovery preinstalled, and then deploy this image on other endpoints?

[Gilian]

Hi @wborquez ,

Currently IT Agent registers itself in a Lansweeper Site when being installed. If you would redeploy the image to other devices, this would result in either authentication issues or all assets reporting to the same IT Agent installation (which is not recommended).

Once IT Agent can connect to a Network Discovery Hub your scenario will be supported though (as the Hub registers itself to a Lansweeper Site as 1 single registration).

For now, it's advised to do deployment using silent install after the images are running on the endpoint.