It is always good practice to discuss prerequisites before starting any new implementation.
In this post i am going to share some prerequisites on discovery implementation. If you are planning to implement the discovery in ServiceNow then you must discuss prerequisites points which i am going to explain below in this post with your client in your kick-off meeting.
Mid Server
Windows
Linux
Macintosh
ESX (via vCenter)
Software Instance(s)
Mid Server
| Topic | Specification |
| Number of MID server | 1 Per Data centers/Remote sites/DMZ ( Based on connectivity) |
| Type | Physical or Virtual Machine |
| OS | Windows 2012 Standard edition |
| Memory | 8 GB RAM |
| CPU speed | Above 2.5 GHz |
| Processor | 1 Quad Core or 4 V CPU |
| HDD | 40GB |
| Connectivity | Internet outbound on port 443 (open internet) |
| User account to access MID | User account(Domain/Local) with Local Admin privileges |
| Proxy (if any) | Credentials to authenticate |
| Others | • .Net 3.5 and 4 • Latest version of the Microsoft SQL Server management library (SMO) • Powershell 2.0 or aboveBelow 3rd party freeware binaries for troubleshooting (portqueryui, PuTTY, ireasoning, pinginfoview) |
Windows
| Subject | Credential Permissions |
| Domain servers | For Active Directory environment, a user account on all target Windows servers (Domain wide account) for discovery is required with following privileges: – local admin rights on target windows hosts. – It should be a service account. – It should have access to execute remote ‘WMI queries’ on the target servers. – Password should be set to never expire and not require a change at first login |
| Non-domain servers | For non-domain Windows servers, a local user account on all target Windows Servers with the following privileges: – local admin rights on target windows hosts. – It should be a service account.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            – It should have access to execute remote ‘WMI queries’ on the target servers. – Password should be set to never expire and not require a change at first login |
| Ports | From MID Server to all target Windows Servers: – TCP 135, 80, 443, 445, 139, DCOM port range – UDP 137, 53 – ICMP ping |
Linux
| Subject | Credential Permissions |
| Account | A regular user account with following specifications: – Password set to never expire and not ask for change at first login. – Write access to the home directory. – Sudo rights on below commands (with NOPASSWD option in /etc/sudoers file) dmidecode, lsof, fdisk, dmsetup, multipath – Read permission on below files is required – /etc/*release, /etc/bashrc, /etc/profile, /proc/cpuinfo, /proc/vmware/sched/ncpus, /var/log/dmesg/etc/sudoers line example ALL=(root) NOPASSWD:/sbin/dmidecode ALL=(root) NOPASSWD:/sbin/lsof |
| Ports | TCP22 UDP 53 ICMP ping |
| Shell | bash/sh only |
Macintosh
| Subject | Credential Permissions |
| Account | A regular user account with following specifications: – Password set to never expire and not ask for change at first login. – Write access to the home directory. – Sudo rights on below commands (with NOPASSWD option in /etc/sudoers file) dmidecode, lsof, fdisk, dmsetup, multipath – Read permission on below files is required – /etc/*release, /etc/bashrc, /etc/profile, /proc/cpuinfo, /proc/vmware/sched/ncpus, /var/log/dmesg/etc/sudoers line example ALL=(root) NOPASSWD:/sbin/dmidecode ALL=(root) NOPASSWD:/sbin/lsof |
| Ports | TCP 22 UDP 53 ICMP ping |
| Shell | bash/sh only |
ESX (via vCenter)
| Subject | Credential Permissions |
| Account | Three sets of credentials are needed to run a complete Discovery of vCenter/ESX servers:
a. Windows credentials: Allows Discovery to access the Windows host on which the vCenter server runs 1. Windows pre-requisites should be fulfilled for the host hosting vCenter. |
| Ports | Windows discovery ports TCP 443, 5989, 5988 |
| Assumption | vCenter is hosted on Windows |
Software Instance(s)
| Application | File or Directory | Access Required |
| Apache | httpd.conf | Read |
| Hbase | hbase-site.xml | Read |
| JBoss | jboss-service.xml | Read |
| JBoss home directory | Read | |
| web.xml | Read | |
| MySQL | my.cnf | Read |
| NGINX | nginx.conf | Read |
| Oracle | oratab | Read |
| Associated (s) pfiles | Read | |
| Oracle Listener | lsnrctl | Execute |
| listener.ora | Read | |
| Tomcat | catalina.jar | Read |
| server.xml | Read | |
| web.xml | Read | |
| Unix | /etc/*release | Read |
| /etc/bashrc | Read | |
| /etc/profile | Read | |
| /proc/cpuinfo | Read | |
| /proc/vmware/sched/ncpus | Read | |
| /var/log/dmesg | Read | |
| APD directory | Read | |
| WebSphere | cell.xml | Read |
| server.xml | Read | |
| serverindex.xml | Read | |
| Microsoft SQL Servers | ON MID Server Install .Net 3.5 and 4 from Microsoft Install the latest version of the Microsoft SQL Server management library (SMO). Note: The SMO requires the Common Language Runtime (CLR) library to be installed first. Both libraries can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. Install PowerShell v2.0 and above. Microsoft SQL Server Host – Install the Remote Registry Service on target computers running Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Credentials Ensure credentials have the public access level to the following: – The target Windows host. – The Microsoft SQL Server instance on the target Windows host. You must add the user to the SQL Server configuration. – The MID Server host. The SMO libraries locally impersonate the credentials for the target system prior to connecting to the Microsoft SQL Server. This behavior is enforced by Active Directory. Authentication only succeeds if the domain requirements specified here are met.Domains Install the MID Server host and the Microsoft SQL Server host on the same domain or, if they are on different domains, enable a trust relationship between the domains such that users in the Microsoft SQL Server host domain are trusted by the MID Server host domain. If a domain trust relationship is in place, do not install the MID Server on a domain controller. |
|
| IIS | IIS Management Scripts and Tools must be installed to enable discovery | |
Network Devices
Storage
Port summary
Network Devices
| Requirements | ||
| 1. Method used is SNMP, supported protocol is v1, v2c & v3
2. MID server should be added in ACL of network device. |
||
| Supported devices | ||
| Routers | ||
| Switches | ||
| Printers | ||
| UPS | ||
| Load balancers (Supported ->) | A10 | |
| Apache mod_jk and Apache mod_proxy | ||
| Big-IP F5 Traffic Manager | ||
| Citrix Netscaler | ||
| HAProxy | ||
| NGINX | ||
| Alteon | ||
| ACE | ||
| Radware |
Storage
| Discovering storage via host | |
| * Supported configurations are DAS or NAS with FC or iSCSI.* Install the fcinfo.exe tool on Windows 2008 and 2012 servers that attach to storage via FC and environment variables should have its path specified.*Optionally, install Windows Remote Management (WinRM) on the host server to discover Fibre Channel information. WinRM is on by default for Windows 2012 machines, but not for Windows 2008. |
Windows |
| For Linux, use one of the following supported host configurations: * Solaris, DAS, NAS, or SAN with iSCSI * CentOS, DAS, NAS, or SAN with FC or iSCSI * Ubuntu Server, DAS, NAS, or SAN with iSCSI |
Linux |
| Storage Discovery via SMI-S and CIM |
|
| These are the requirements for storage discovery via SMI-S and CIM.1. A CIM server using SMI-S 1.5 or later. 2. NAS and SAN systems from major vendors such as EMC, Hitatchi, HP, and NetApp. SAN storage devices must use FC. 3. FC switches from major vendors such as Brocade and Cisco. 4. The CIM credentials must be available for SMI-S configuration. The CIM credentials can be different than the credentials for the system hosting the CIM server. Note: Because the SMI-S Provider caches storage device information, the Discovery query to the provider does not affect storage device performance.Port – SLP 427, TCP 5989, 5988 |
|
Port summary
| Source | Target | Protocol | Port number ( which needs to be opened) | Description |
| MID server | Windows servers | TCP | 135, 445 | WMI for Windows |
| TCP | 80/443 | potential web servers | ||
| TCP | 443 | vCenter hosted on windows | ||
| TCP | DCOM port range | DCOM for Windows | ||
| UDP | 137 | NetBIOS (Local domain WINS) | ||
| MID server | Unix/Linux servers | TCP | 22 | SSH for Non Windows |
| TCP | 80/443 | potential web servers | ||
| MID server | Instance | TCP | 80 | HTTP |
| TCP | 443 | HTTPS | ||
| MID server | Target Network devices | UDP | 161 | SNMP for network devices |
| MID server | DNS server | UDP | 53 | DNS |
| MID server | Local domain WINS | UDP | 137 | NetBIOS |
| MID server | Storage device | TCP & UDP | 427 | SLP |
| MID server | Storage device | TCP | 5989, 5988 | CIM |
| MID server | vCenter server appliance | TCP | 5480 | vCenter Server Appliance Web Interface using https |
