Scanning requirements for Linux and Unix operating systems

Significant scanning requirements for Linux and Unix operating systems

There are a great many operating systems on the market, provided by top-companies. Among the most popular and widespread are: Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Mac OS X and Linux. Your smartphones, home appliances, cars, computers all run on the Linux platform. As for the Unix – it is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems which provide users with a set of tools which let them perform required tasks properly and effectively.

What about inventory scanning software?

The best way to scan these operating systems is to do it through SSH or to use inventory scanning software. Surely other protocols enabled on the computer, for instance SNMP, also provide some information as well, but keep in mind that it is SSH which can return the most detailed data. In order for Lansweeper to scan a Linux or Unix computer, you need to ensure that SSH is enabled on the computer. We advise you to use OpenSSH

The account you use to access SSH must be able to run the uname command. Lansweeper will also run a selection of the following commands (but it depends on your Linux distribution), though these commands are not strictly required: arp, bdf, df, dmidecode, dpkg, echo, equery, grep, hal-find-by-property, hal-get-property, ifconfig, lanscan, lslpp, lspci, machinfo, netstat, oslevel, pciconf, pkg_info, pkginfo, prtconf, prtdiag, rpm, smbios, sudo, swlist, sysctl, type, uptime, xl. Surely the required language for output is English, because computer may fail to parse other languages.

You shouldn’t necessarily use full robot access, but it is recommended to use an account with sudo rights. Sudo is required to run dmidecode but if it is not installed, then Lansweeper will try to run dmidecode without sudo. In case dmidecode can not be executed for some reasons, some hardware information will not be scanned, but the rest of the scanning process will still be executed.

What should you do to prepare a Linux (or Unix) computer for scanning?

Check out the list of steps you should make, the commands to enter are also provided for you:

1. Make sure OpenSSH is installed on your computer. Use a graphical package manager or enter one of the commands below in the console:

• Debian, Linux Mint, Ubuntu: dpkg -s openssh
• Fedora, Mageia, Red Hat: rpm -q openssh
• Gentoo, Sabayon: equery list openssh

2. If not, install the OpenSSH server. Again, use a graphical package manager or enter one of the commands below in the console:

- Debian, Linux Mint, Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install openssh-server

- Fedora, Red Hat: sudo yum install openssh

- Gentoo: emerge --ask --changed-use net-misc/openssh

- Mageia: sudo urpmi openssh

- Sabayon: sudo equo install openssh

3. To complete the installation reboot your computer.
4. If you intend to run SSH automatically every time when the computer starts, enter one of the commands below in the console:

- Debian, Linux Mint, Ubuntu: sudo update-rc.d ssh defaults

- Fedora, Mageia, Red Hat: sudo chkconfig sshd on

- Gentoo, Sabayon: rc-update add sshd default

5. If you intend to run SSH once, simply enter the command below in the console (in this case the SSH service will be started once and then shut down when the machine reboots).

sudo /etc/init.d/sshd start

6. Verify whether SSH is running by entering the command below in the console. If there's output, SSH is running; if there's no output, SSH is not running.

ps -e | grep sshd