Manual scan

The manual scan can be used to inventory assets that are not connected to your network or are inaccessible for regular scanning for one reason or another. For example, assets running Windows XP Home Edition can only be scanned this way due to OS limitations.

Manual scanning of any system involves three basic steps.

1. Copy the agent executable to the asset you need to scan

Agents are located in TNI’s installation folder (e.g. “C:\Program Files (x86)\Total Network Inventory”). The filenames are as follows:

OS File name

Windows

tniwinagent.exe

Linux

 

tnilinagent
tnilinagent_x64

macOS

tnimacagent

FreeBSD

tnibsdagent

VMware ESX

tniesxagent

The Windows agent can also be copied to a specified folder by using the Export audit agent option from the Options Logon script .

2. Perform the scan

Launch the agent on the remote system. When the scanning is complete, a data file will be generated and, by default, placed into the directory the agent is run from.

When scanning a Windows asset, you can use these command line parameters for tniwinagent.exe:

  • /path:"\\server\share" allows to set a path to a folder where the data file will be placed;
  • /delay:XX specifies the gap in seconds between the agent’s launch time and the start of the scan;
  • /overwrite overwrites the data file in case the target folder already contains its older version (otherwise, new files appended with (2), (3), etc. will be created after each scan);
  • /scripted is required for running the logon script scan;
  • /debug allows to scan an asset in debug mode (when scanning errors are detected in normal mode). A special data file will be created, which can be sent to the developers in order for them to search for and fix possible scan errors;
  • /driver:{x} controls the low-level hardware scan mode. Set {x} to:

0 — to disable the low-level hardware scan completely;
1 — always skip the disk drive scan (in order to avoid BSOD);
2 — to skip the disk drive scan automatically if the faulty driver is present (default value);
3 — to enable the full low-level hardware scan.

  • /admin runs the agent with administrator rights;
  • /noadmin runs the agent without administrator rights;
  • /keepdriver keeps the low-level hardware scan driver installed;
  • /removedriver removes the low-level hardware scan driver (if it’s installed);
  • /nodriver disables low-level hardware scan (same as driver:0);
  • /wuatimeout:{x} controls the Windows updates scan mode and its timeout. Set {x} to:

0 — to disable the Windows updates scan completely (default value);
any number above 0 — to enable the Windows updates scan and set the timeout for the scan (in minutes) as the specified number.

  • /wuahcount:{x} the number of recent entries in the Windows Update history that will be collected while scanning an asset. By default, the value is 5000 entries.
  • /logoff logs the current user off (post-scan);
  • /reboot restarts the computer (post-scan);
  • /poweroff powers off the computer (post-scan; same as /shutdown);
  • /shutdown shuts the computer down (post-scan; same as /poweroff).
Examples

tniwinagent.exe /debug /verbose /driver:3
tniwinagent.exe /wuatimeout:120 /wuahcount:566
tniwinagent.exe /reboot

Additional parameters for collecting information from hardware sensors:

  • /sensors:{x} — defines a set of hardware sensors that will be collected with low-level hardware driver scan, where {x}:
     all – collects data from all hardware sensors (the option is set by default);
     none – does not collect data from any hardware sensors;
     temp – collects information from the temperature sensors only;
     fan – collects information about fans’ speed;
     clock – collects information from the frequency sensors only;
     voltage – collects information from voltage sensors;
     current – collects information from current sensors;
     power – collects information from power sensors.

Flags can be set in any combination separated by commas. For instance, tniwinagent.exe /sensors:fan,clock,power

Examples

tniwinagent.exe /sensors:none
tniwinagent.exe /sensors:all
tniwinagent.exe /sensors:fan,temp,clock,voltage,current,power
tniwinagent.exe /sensors:voltage

Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and ESX agents are run from the console. For example, you can run the Linux agent using the following command:

chmod 755 tnilinagent
./tnilinagent

When scanning Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and ESX systems, the following command line parameters can be used:

  • -silent allows to scan an asset without user interaction. Only the scan progress percentage will be displayed;
  • -log allows to scan an asset while logging the scanning process;
  • -debug allows to scan an asset in debug mode (when scanning errors are detected in normal mode). A special data file will be created, which can be sent to the developers in order for them to search for and fix possible scan errors.

Locate the generated data file and send it back to the system that runs your copy of TNI (or any other place TNI has access to).

3. Import the data into your Storage

There are several ways for this: by placing the file directly into the Storage folder, by using the Import menu, or by enabling the automatic import if the manual scanning should be performed regularly. See the Data import section for details.

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