Managing added tasks

Node discovery

Complex scan tasks (i.e. network scan, IP-address scan, or Windows workgroup scan) work with previously discovered nodes. The discovery will be performed automatically, but it also can be done manually before scanning starts.

To perform the network discovery, just expand a complex task. The subtasks corresponding to discovered nodes will gradually show up.

Searching is accompanied by animation. It can be stopped by pressing the Stop search button.
When the search is completed or stopped, two additional buttons appear on the right:

  • Repeat searchdeletes all subtasks and performs a new node discovery;
  • The Padlock option shows the way the complex task will be saved in Saved tasks.
    • When the padlock is opened, the task will be saved without subtasks, and the search will be performed again when the saved task is added again.
      To save the task along with the configured subtasks, click the padlock, and it will close.
      About saving scan tasks.

The fast nodes discovering option can be fully disabled in Options in the Scanner section.

Scan filtering by node status

When adding a network range to a scan task, you can filter the assets which will be added to the scanner.

There are three filter options:

  • All assets: scan all discovered assets from the added tasks;
  • New assets: only scan the assets that are not found in the storage;
  • Existing assets: scan the assets that are already in storage.

Only those devices that are displayed will be scanned, regardless of which option is selected.

Setting logins

To access a remote node, the TNI scanner requires a login (username and password, or a community string for the SNMP protocol).

Logins for each task can be specified in columns corresponding to their protocols.

Click on an arrow in any protocol cell, and the login menu will show up.

This list contains all logins created by the user and the standard login for the protocol (for Windows: the current user of the system where the program is run; for SNMP: a public community).

To scan an asset by the selected protocol, select one of the logins or create a new one by using the Add option.

Along with the username and password (or the community string for SNMP), an alias should also be specified when adding a new login. An alias is a unique identifier that will be used to address this login in TNI.

To change the username and password for previously created logins, use the Edit button (the pencil icon) located in front of every login in the list.

To avoid scanning the asset using a particular protocol, select Ignore.

Logins for single tasks

Only one login for one of the protocols can be selected for any single task. If the login is not specified, the task will be ignored during scanning.

Logins for complex tasks

Complex tasks can have several logins for each protocol. In this case, access to every asset scanned within this task will be sequentially requested using all specified logins until one of them matches.

A tilde (~) in a login cell means that the task uses the logins of a parent task, but another login can be assigned to the task, and it will be used for scanning.

Logins for assets of various types

If the asset is not present in the Storage and the scanning has not been started yet, TNI doesn’t know its type, therefore the protocol to scan this asset is unknown as well. In this case, a login can be set for every protocol.

When the asset type is known, it can only be scanned via the appropriate protocol: Win for Windows-assets, SSH for macOS and Linux assets, etc. The cells of other protocols will be greyed out and inactive.

Assigning logins to assets

Assigning a login to an asset in the Storage means that a new scan task for this asset will be automatically created with the assigned login.

Assigning logins to assets, as well as creating, deleting, editing logins, and changing default logins can all be done in the Edit mode. For more details, see Logins.

On the first scan of a remote asset, the login that successfully provided access is automatically assigned to it.

Auto-pick logins

This option allows to prevent scan errors in certain situations. If the correct login has not been selected, TNI will attempt to gain access using other credentials added to the storage.
Attempts to pick the correct login will be made for the selected protocols only (Windows/SSH/SNMP/VMware) and depending on which network ports are open. Disabling the option will force the program to use only the logins selected in the Scanner.

This option is located in Advanced Settings Scanner > General Scan Settings section and is enabled by default.

Auto-pick logins can be used for tasks of every type.

Setting a login for a task created with Quick Add

It’s possible to quickly set a login for a new task through Quick Add using the following commands separated by a semicolon:

<task creating command>; login <login alias>

For instance:

10.0.0.3; login Homer

You can also enter several logins separated by commas:

10.0.0.0/24; login Homer, Marge

Setting the destination folder

By default, all new assets are placed in the root folder of the Storage.

You can select a folder in the Storage for every task, and the scanned assets will be placed there.

The Destination folder column serves this purpose. Clicking on an arrow in this column will show a menu with the list of all storage folders.

It’s not possible to create a new folder from this menu. If assets should be placed in a new folder, create it manually beforehand.

You can use an additional “to” command when creating a new task with Quick Add:

<task creating command>; to <path to folder>

EARTH; to Planets

10.0.0.3; login Homer; to New devices

PLUTO; to Planets\Dwarf planets

Deleting and disabling tasks; exceptions

Deleting tasks

To delete a task, use the Delete button in front of its title in the Task column or select multiple tasks and press Delete on the keyboard.

Disabling tasks

To disable a task without deleting it, tick off the checkbox in front of its title. This can also be done by selecting multiple tasks and pressing the Space bar. To enable or disable all tasks, use the checkbox in the Task column.

You can create a new task as disabled through Quick Add by using an additional disable command:

<task creating command>; disable

HALLEY; to Comets; disable

Exceptions

You can create an exception task using Quick Add. Just enter a network name or an IP address with the prefix “-“ (minus). If the exception task is enabled, the scanner will ignore the specified asset. This can also be done with the help of the menu:

If the exclusion task is enabled, the scanner will skip the specified device.

Exceptions are convenient to use for scanning networks and ranges. For instance, if one or several assets in the 10.0.0.0/24 network should not be scanned, you can do the following:

  1. Create a task, expand it, and wait for all subnodes to be discovered, then delete the unnecessary ones;

  2. Create a task and several exception tasks.

Option 2 is sometimes faster and more handy.

If the excluded nodes are part of the network range that you expand, they will be marked with .
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