Troubleshooting Service Agent Installation

Installing a Service Agent is a relatively easy procedure that is usually trouble-free. If you are having problems installing an Agent, here are some things you can check:

• Does the ADMIN$ share exist on the Agent machine? When installing an Agent from the ELM Server, the ELM Server will attempt to connect to the ADMIN$ share on the Agent machine, so that the Agent executable can be copied to the SYSTEM32 folder on the Agent. If the ADMIN$ does not exist, re-create it. If this is not an option, follow the procedure for manually installing an Agent, which is detailed below.
• Do you have good name resolution between the ELM Server and Agent? Can you ping the Agent by name from the ELM Server? Can you ping the ELM Server by name from the Agent? Are you able to do a NET VIEW on each system from the other system? ELM can use NetBIOS or host name resolution.
• Are there any firewalls between the ELM Server and this Agent? Are you able to Telnet from the Agent computer to appropriate port on the ELM Server? By default, ELM Servers listen on TCP Port 1251.
• Does a Netstat -a -p tcp on the ELM Server show it listening on the appropriate port? If you run this command on the Agent, does it show something else listening on port 1253 on the Agent? If the Agent is in a DMZ or a firewall environment, you can use the ELM setup package to install the Agent remotely.
• Do you have administrative rights on the Agent machine? Only Administrators can connect to the ADMIN$ share and install a new service. When you attempt to install an Agent, ELM will first try to use your existing credentials to authenticate you to the Agent machine. If authentication fails, you will be presented with a Connect As dialog box, which can be used to specify alternate credentials (e.g., local administrator username and password.) Note: the Connect As dialog box does not support blank passwords. If you do not enter a password, the connection will fail. To get around this limitation, go to a command prompt on the ELM Server machine and make a connection to the IPC$ share on the Agent machine. You can use the following syntax:
  net use \\SERVER\IPC$ /user:ABCDE\12345
  
  where:
  
  SERVER is the name of the Agent machine
  ABCDE is the name of the domain or machine containing the account you're using
  12345 is the name of the account with administrative rights
• Are there any services in a Stop Pending or Start Pending state on the Agent? This may prevent ELM from installing an Agent service. You can use a command-line utility included with ELM to check this. The utility, SM.EXE is a command line utility that can query the Service Control Manager on a local or remote machine. It's usage is:

  Local machine - SM /dis
  Remote machine - SM \\SERVER /dis
  
  If you see any Start Pending or Stop Pending services, you will need to get them at a stable state (started or stopped) before you can install the Agent service.
  

• Have any special security modifications been made to the Agent system? These include things like restrictive registry or NTFS permissions, revoking of user rights assignments, and as previously mentioned, the removal of the ADMIN$ share.

If none of these solutions resolves your issue, please contact TNT Software's Product Support Group for assistance.

 

 

Contact TNT Software at:
877.546.0878
360.546.0878

 

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