An Outpost is an agent installed on a machine of your network. It relays Portail ZAPP's actions where the server cannot go directly: network inventory scans, script execution, inventory collection, log retrieval. The Outpost agents module lets you see the state of each agent and control it.
The screens are reserved for the Administrators group. Open them from the Outpost menu, Outposts entry. Installing a new agent is described in the page "Enrolling and updating an Outpost".
The Outposts list
The Outposts page lists the enrolled agents, most recent first: Hostname, Machine ID, Status, Version, Last seen and Connected (whether the agent is online right now). The search covers the hostname and the machine ID, ignoring case and accents.
An agent has one of these statuses:
- Active: the agent can connect and receive actions;
- Quarantined: the agent can no longer connect; Reactivate puts it back into service;
- Revoked: the agent can never connect again. To put it back into service, it must be enrolled again.
The Quarantine, Revoke and Reactivate buttons on each row ask for confirmation. Only active agents are offered to the other modules (network inventory, scripts…).
Quarantine and revocation take effect at once, even if the agent was connected: its connection is closed, the commands and file transfers waiting for it are canceled, and it no longer receives any command, inventory collection or script, even while it is still part of a machine group. Its machine page shows it with a banner. Reactivate sends nothing that was waiting before the quarantine: run the actions you need again.
A canceled command or transfer stays canceled, even if the agent answers it at the same moment: its answer is ignored. Conversely, a cancellation asked just after a command finished does not change it. An agent whose connection fails while opening shows as disconnected, until it reconnects.
Archiving a revoked machine
Revoked machines stay in the list. To tidy up, Archive (on the row or on the machine page) hides them from the list, after confirmation:
- only a revoked machine can be archived;
- nothing is deleted: its history (actions, scripts run, scans) remains available;
- archiving is final;
- if a configuration still uses the machine (AdSync rule, scan scope, script schedule, process), archiving is refused and these configurations are listed, each with a link: fix them, then archive again.
Show archived displays the archived machines, read-only, with the Archived badge.
An Outpost's page
Click an agent to open its page: its machine ID, status, version, last connection, then the following sections.
QuickInventory: the last inventory sent by the agent, with its collection date — FQDN, IP and MAC addresses, OS, CPU, RAM, serial number, agent version at the time of the inventory, and disks. It stays displayed when the agent is disconnected. Until an inventory arrives, the section shows "No inventory received for this Outpost yet."
Asset tag: the asset number detected on the machine. You can replace it and click Save: the value you enter is never overwritten by an automatic collection. Clear the field to go back to the detected value.
Force-send current version: sends the agent the current installation package for its platform, even if automatic updates are disabled (useful after a failed update). If no package matches, a message says so.
Log level: choose the Level (Trace, Debug, Information, Warning, Error, Critical) and click Send. The setting stays in place on the agent until a new one is sent.
Action history: every action sent to this agent (commands and file transfers), most recent first, with their type, status and dates. The Detail link opens the action: status, dates, exit code and output of a command, or direction, size and checksum of a transfer. A script execution opens the execution page directly. An action still in progress can be stopped from its detail with Cancel.
Logs: List files asks the agent for the list of its log files (name, size, modification date), then Download retrieves one. The agent must be connected; otherwise the request ends with "Timed out — the agent may be offline."
Machine groups
The Machine groups button of the list opens the groups: labels used to target several agents at once, for example to run a script on a whole group. Create a group with its Group name and Create. The group list can be sorted and filtered; Members opens a group's page, where you pick several outposts at once to Add (search field) and where Remove takes a member out. If one of the selected outposts no longer exists, none is added. A group can be deleted, except the Reserved "test" group, created automatically: it designates the agents on which a script under development can be tried out.