Scripting Archives - Page 2 of 8

Monitor Administrator Security Group In LabTech with ADMON

Who’s in and out of your Security Group?

ADMON is a LabTech plugin used to monitor and restore changes made to your local administrators group. Many viral attacks end up trying to add or change the users in the local administrators group of an infected PC. Sometimes these subtle changes go un-noticed and end up causes very expensive repairs and loss of data. ADMON will alert you to the changes, create tickets and if set to auto restore will add time to ticket and restore the admin group back as it was, before closing the ticket out. If your clients need to audit who has what privileges across the PCs in the network, you can use the simple export tool provided in the plugin to get a detailed list of computers and the users with admin rights into Excel.

Have a peek at what we are doing!

We provide a master on / off switch for easy control over the plugin and a control to set and manage the scanning interval for greater flexibility.

Each client has a “Admin Group” tab at the Client console level that displays key information on each PC scanned for that client. You have a master enable switch to enable each client you want to provide the service for. We provide the ability to monitor both additions and removals individually which will create alerts only, or if you add the ticketing box it the plugin will also create tickets for you. You can set the system to auto restore any changes as part of the monitoring (2 way monitoring needs to be set). If you opt to auto restore and also select ticketing, the system will open a ticket, add 10 minutes, auto restore the group and close the ticket completing the required repairs. Select any machine and right click to reveal a menu to manage alarms and to manage the Administrators group. Use the export to Excel tool to get the data out of LabTech and into 3rd party applications like Excel.

The View Alarms popup reveals who has fired off alarms and what was delivered (alert or ticket) Once a system has alarmed or has been ticketed no new alarms are sent until cleared. To clear double click the selected item.

Selecting a computer from the main screen and right clicking for a menu to manage the administrators group will lead you here. This tool allows you to add or remove users to the administrators group directly from LabTech. See the commands execute in near real time inside the console window provided.

Current Version 1.0.0.76

Download the DLL to install via LabTech Plugin Manager

SurfLog – A Browser Metrics Plugin for LabTech

Websense, Inc. the makers of a leading Internet management solutions announced that “Internet misuse in the workplace costs American corporations more than $178 billion annually in lost productivity, this translates into a loss of more than $5,000 per employee per year.”

Squidworks wants to help companies regain a hold of some of this lost time and revenue. They have released SurfLog version 1.1.1 out to the public today after months of work updating and streamlining the plugin. A new site has been launched with this new version to help support and promote the use of SurfLog in LabTech environments.

Some of the new features include plugin permissions, improved graphs and charts, admin controlled collection schedules and much more. Now built and ready for LabTech 10.5 and Cloud hosted platforms so every MSP using LabTech can take advantage of this great tool.

Get the Metrics

Metrics provide a insight into mass amounts of data making it easy to understand the ebb and flow of the clients users browsing patterns. Compare information on browser types, surfing volumes at different times of the day and user patters as the compare to other users under that client.

Raw History

When you need the raw data, it is available to you. You can export this data out to Excel for use in any number of 3rd party programs or to provide to human resources.

How do I get it?

Visit Http://www.plugins4labtech.com for more information and to download a copy to try for yourself.

Near Real Time PerfMon Plugin for LabTech

We have created a simple tool that we query the counters on a Windows device and return that information back to the system console in near real time. In our current version we pull Disk IO, CPU, Memory and Network usage stats every few seconds until requested to stop or you close the console. With each refresh you will get the request count and current request time followed by the counter statistics for the selections you made. This application will poll for the counter and continue to refresh the information displayed every couple of seconds and will allow you to jump to other tabs and back without losing a beat. Leave the window up in the back ground and it will give you continuous counts until stopped or closed.

Version 1.0.2

Enjoy

Cubert

Patch Remedy WUA Manager Plugin for LabTech

Patch Remedy is a tool used to help manage the Windows Update Agent. Microsoft’s Windows Update Agent (WUA) is an agent program that works in conjunction with Windows Server Update Services to support automated patch delivery and installation. Labtech uses this agent to help determine what patches are needed by each Windows system and deploys them. Microsoft often updates the WUA which increases the detection of missing patches more current than the installed version of WUA. This can cause you to get a perception that your patching is up to date when in actuality you are massively behind.

That’s where we come in, Patch Remedy automatically scans all windows systems for their current WUA versions and OS type and stores that inside LabTech. It uses that information to perform automated updates of WUA for Windows 7 and 2008 R2 systems. It also takes a look nightly at the number of recent failed hotfixes and updates.

We offer several manual tools to help manage problems seen with WUA.

There are several lists of data about how WUA versions are deployed across your environment. In these lists you maybe able to operate functions to resolve common issues with WUA. There are 2 types of repair for WUA, Normal and Aggressive and there are 2 types of Updates for WUA, Latest and KB3083324.

Repairs: (Normal and Aggressive) Based on KB971058 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/971058.
Normal Excludes step 4 and Aggressive includes Step 4 of KB

Updates:(Latest and July 2016 Rollup)
Latest: Can be run on any Windows 7, 8, 2008 or 2012 system and will attempt to update the WUA to the most current versions available.
This update is run silently and with the /noreboot switch so should be safe to run at anytime without affecting end user.

PatchSuccess

We have several automated tools to assist with keeping WUA up to date and the patch push status cleared on over attempted patches and hotfixes.

Auto Update: looks for online systems that have earlier versions of WUA and tries to update them to 7.6.7601.18979

Clear Pushed: The “Pushed” status for a patch means that LabTech has tried twice to install the patch and it didn’t succeed, so it’s not going to try to install it anymore. This function will clear the “pushed” flag from [hotfixes] out so that LabTech may reattempt them.

wuaVersion1

We also provide some insight into what is going on with WUA so you can visually see problems with your WUA environment. Get graphs and charts that show the different deployed versions of WUA and how effective your patching is.

Overview1

Patching alone is not going to keep your clients up to date, adding Patch Remedy to your LabTech patch management system will improve your numbers hands down. Get the most out of your LabTech system with Patch Remedy.

We want to thank BGags of Easthampton, MA for his inspiration and help with plugins concepts. To get more information on LabTech and WUA from BGags go visit his blog post at

http://www.labtechgeek.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2123

The automated services are on a 4 times a day schedule of 8 am , 12 pm, 4 pm and 8 pm. After installing the plugin and restarting the DBagent service on the LT server you will need to allow time for this service to kick in and run the scans. Once completed you will see the data in the plugin.

The plugin has a master off switch that you will need to turn on before scans will start. you can use this switch to turn off all automated functions on this plugin if needed.

We have added some basic permissions to the plugin. Super Admins and “Patch remedy” class users can open and manage the consoles. Add the User Class “Patch Remedy” to any user in Labtech to allow them access to the management console.

Current Version can be found at http://w ww.plugins4labtech.com

Enjoy

Cubert

Announce Maintenance Plugin For LabTech

Cluck Like a Chicken

Do you have to remind your clients to keep their systems on for maintenance and patching to run each week? Yes me too, I almost have to remind them every week before they go home. Do you know how many hours on the phone that would be if I had to call each of my users to whisper “Hey, Don’t forget to leave your computers on!” I would have to say way too many to count, so I made the Announce Maintenance Plugin to do that for me.

Let me explain how it works.

In you LabTech Console’s main menu select [Tools] menu and slide down to [Announce Maintenance] sub menu. That will launch the configuration manager to allow you to create the message, set the time of day you want it to launch (Window) and the Title of the Message Box. You can then turn it on or off for all clients by selecting the On /Off switch.

The announcement will only run once in or around the Window time (+/- 6 minutes) the “Eve” before the “Workstation Patch Day” and only for Locations that are set to “Enable Patching Workstations”.

If you have your patch day set to Thursday and your Window set to 3PM then on Wednesday Afternoon at 3 PM the announcement will go out to all “online” workstations at that location.

Enjoy

Cubert

Version 1.0.0.2

Cleaner for LabTech

We Empower the Global Management of CCleaner

CCleaner for LabTech is a CCleaner manager that deploys, licenses, analyzes, cleans, stores data inside LabTech, displays computer level and global level statistics of each PC and uninstalls (de-enable) CCleaner all from a simple set of consoles. Let me show you some of what we are doing.

This is the Computer level interface

With very simple controls, you can Analyze a PC which will do several things.

Checks for and processes old log just in case they had been missed by previous jobs
Verifies the licensed install of CCleaner and installs if needed
Sets system to Enabled in Global Manager
Analyzes system
Retrieves all log details needed and stored data into LabTech
Refreshes the results tab

Cleaning will do.

Verify CCleaner install
Clean system
Retrieves all log details needed and stored data into LabTech
Refreshes the results tab

Computer-DiskClean

The results tab displays the results from the last scans and cleans and displays that data in both graphical and dataset views.

Registry Cleaner will do

Scan Registry based on user setting
Create a full backup of the root registry keys
Clean selected results from registry

Computer-regscan

You can manage individual CCleaner cleaning directives using Bulk Config, each system managed can have separate sets of added rules to customize the cleaning experience for each PC under management.

Bulk Configurations will do

Add, edit and delete CCleaner configuration directives per PC

Computer-Config

Global Manager

The Global Manager is the heart of the system. This is where you configure the global settings for each computer, control the master on/off switch, manage your licenses, enable your computer systems for auto installs and auto cleans, deal with failed CCleaner installs and view the data from all clients combined.

ViewMenu-Main

The CCleaner engine manages the temp and junk files for hundreds of applications. In fact there is so many application that CCleaner works on that it was found to be impractical to try to stuff all that in a plugin. We still want to deliver that flexibility but in a simple and easy manner for you to manage. To do this we created a Bulk Configuration manager that allows you to add and remove any setting that CCleaner supports. These get applied to all clients enabled for CCleaner automation.

ViewMenu-Config

We have provided a Failed CCleaner Install Manager that will allow you to identify problem systems and from here you can reinstall and see the direct output of the efforts from behind the scenes.

ViewMenu-LicenseManager

We provide a 30 day look back window to see overall where and how the storage is being consumed and reclaimed.

ViewMenu-GlobalStats

ViewMenu-Graphs

We provide long term history views into several key aspects of the data being collected picking out the high end consumers by client, computer and application type for both the Analyzers and the Cleaners.

ViewMenu-Reports

Now let’s talk a little about behind the scenes, What you do not see is the back-end processes that are working to automate the entire process. When you turn Cleaner for LabTech on it starts a set of processes that manage the deployment, licensing scanning and cleaning based on your configurations. As Cleaner for LabTech starts its tasks it is ticketing its time spent and recording those results in the tickets. This adds the value and tractability to the work performed by Cleaner.

Now Available

Go Forth and Clean!

LabTech – Chocolatey NuGet II Plugin

Squidworks Chocolatey II Plugin General Beta Release

Chocolatey NuGet is a Machine Package Manager, somewhat like apt-get, but built with Windows in mind. It was designed to be a decentralized framework for quickly installing applications and tools that you need. It is built on the NuGet infrastructure currently using PowerShell as its focus for delivering packages from the distribution repositories to your computer. For more information on the Chocolatey Repos and Applications please visit https://chocolatey.org/about

There are 3 fundamental places to manage Chocolatey II. Globally, at the Client level and at the Computer level.

The Global Level – View Main Menu – Chocolatey II

The Configuration Tab:

At the global level you can control the applications you want to approve for auto installs and auto updates. Using the controls you can add as many packages as you like which will make them available to any client PC. You can control whether or not to auto install, auto update and exclude or include Windows servers.

The Exclusion Tab:

Using this tool you can control by client who gets a global exclude from application installs. This area only allows you to flag machines inside a client at the time you apply the exclude. If a new machine is added to client after global exclude is applied then that system will not be excluded and when you return to this page they client will no longer be checked as fully excluded. Reselecting the client will reset all systems including the new ones back to excluded again. If a machine is removed from the exclusions then it will also cause the client to show unchecked. Any system allowed to install software at a client level or system level will override the global exclusions here and will remove the check for client here in the global exclude area.

Client Console

Client Configuration Tab:

The client console Chocolatey II tab allows the admin the ability to exclude the Client for auto installs of software. You can exclude all applications for install or updates and you can exclude any number of packages directly without excluding them all. This allows you to fine tune what applications are distributed to the client PCs.

When selecting to exclude an application at the client level it will force all PC under client to exclude the application. If you then go into a computer console and un-exclude that application then it will receive that app in less than 10 minutes. If you return to the Client Console Tab the application will no longer show as excluded because at least 1 PC under client is getting it. All other PCs will remain excluded from installs.

Client Systems Tab:

This tab allows you to manage the software installed at the client level. You are presented with a list of systems and each application installed on that PC. From here you can launch an update or uninstall the applications across the client. A terminal window is provided to you can monitor live the request being sent to system and the responses sent back from the end system.

Computer Console – Chocolatey II Tab

Configuration Sub Tab:

This view shows what approved apps are available to the PC level and allows the admin to exclude any of the packages from auto install. There is also the ability to exclude from all installs and to exclude updates.

Computer Console – Chocolatey II Tab

Software Sub Tab:

This view allows the admin to see what is actually installed on PC currently and to uninstall or update the packages manually. We also added the ability to manually install any package “not” in the approved list for those one off application installs.

Chocolatey II has been redeveloped and can now be found here.

Enjoy the Plugin

Cubert

LabTech Plugin : Expiry the AD Password Expiration Notifier

Are Your Users Expired?

Yes, It is Monday morning, you walk into your office and the Help Desk lines are already lit up. Clients are calling with emergency lockouts and emails not coming in on their phones and computers. You know their passwords are expired and they didn’t see the desktop popup from Microsoft warning them it was coming. You now have to get busy resetting passwords to get these people back to work as fast as possible. Password expiration issues can account for up to 10% of the weekly tickets a MSP’s help desk has to manage and although it only takes a minute or two to fix that time adds up. Here is where we come in.

Expiry AD is a plugin for LabTech that checks the Active Directory of any client to see what Domain User passwords maybe ready to expire, creates a list of the users expected expiration times and emails them a custom email notice to please update password when they come close to the limit you set for them. You can personalize each email to the user that is receiving it or have a generic global email that goes to everyone.

There is some basic information needed to complete the password expiration checks,

You will need to supply the AD server you want to scan, this should be an up to date AD server with Powershell 2 or higher installed. You will need to know how many days ahead of the expiration you want to send a notification and the LDAP root you want to look for users in.

Once this information is entered into the system and the apply button pressed the plugin will request if you would like to run a scan now. Scans will run daily on systems that are set to notify users automatically, just turn on the Notify Users switch at the top of the management window.

We supply a HTML capable Email Body template maker that will allow you to create unique emails that are personable to each user. Once you are finished you can view what your emails will look like by selecting the Email Viewer control. We have provided two wild cards for email templates @MYNAME@ and @DAYSLEFT@ which will allow you to personalize each email sent with the users full name and the current days left before expiration.

By selecting the [Results] tab yo can see the result of the last scan and who is in line to get emails. All user will be listed here and will show how many days left until they expire. Users marked in RED have expired or are with in the windows set by you for expiration emails.

Not all users of Active directory will show up in list or scans. We have some basic filters in place for the scanner that prevents non actionable users from showing up in scans.

For instance.

Users who are set to never expire will be excluded
Users who are disabled will be excluded
User who are set to no be able to change password are excluded
User who have no official Email address listed in directory are excluded

You will only get a return of people you can actually affect and emails will only be sent to users who can receive them and react. This limits the efforts needed by the Labtech system and provides for maximum coverage for the domain users.

Version 1.0.1.21

Enjoy

Cubert

Labtech Plugin – Warranty Master

Keeping Connectwise Warranties Up to Date

Free of charge, that’s right! Warranty Master perform continuous warranty lookups (and updates) of your ConnectWise device assets and if you upgrade to Pro Edition you’ll also get eye-popping, masterful reports and features.

Warranty Master™ takes the guesswork out of managing warranties, generating sales opportunities for you and reducing risk for your customers and using Squidworks LabTech plugin for Warranty Master keeps that data in front of you and quickly accessible directly from your LabTech consoles.

Simple to find and navigate to, just select the Warranty Master menu from the View Menu bar.

Version 1.0.1 now Available

LabTech Scripts – Cryptolocker probe script finds infections fast

Catch Cryptolocker in the act

We have created a script for LabTech that you can schedule against any system to scan for possible Cryptolocker Decrypt Files, a sure sign that you been infected.

The script can be scheduled against all agents and if an agent is a Mac or Linux it will skip it, The probe will scan each drive letter found and then review that scan to see if it has found any files. Once it finds a file it will email an address but you can easily have it create a ticket or even set an alarm state.

When executing probe against a system you can monitor the Scripts Tab for the progress of the probe.

As the image above shows, a scan takes just a minute to complete. The C drive scan started at 1:08:34 and ended at 1:09:51, the scan took 1 minute and 17 seconds to scan 80GB hard drive.

Version 1.0.1 download

Enjoy Cubert