Asset Scans overview

N-Central has three types of asset scans that are used to update data associated to that device in the UI.

  • Simple Scan: A scan that runs on agent startup.

  • Scheduled (Daily) Asset Scan: A recurring scan that is configured on a device. By default, this is set to run at the same time the agent was installed on the device (give or take 15 minutes), but can be manually adjusted per device.

    Note: This scan is only performed when Patch Management is disabled (IsPatchManagementEnabled=false) or there is no patch metadata files in the "\metadata" folder.

  • Discovery Asset Scan: A scan performed against an IP address as part of a discovery job, and normally used for agent-less devices. If there is a device associated to that IP address, then it should receive an update of asset data.

Types of Scans

Each of these scans differs in the data they gather and update. The Windows Agent startup scan (Simple Scan) does not pull in as much data as the Scheduled Asset Scan.

When a simple scan is performed, it detects the current logged in user, checks if a reboot is needed, then pulls and validates the asset tag from WMI, Registry and NcentralAsset.xml. After, it goes on to detect if Chrome is installed and evaluate the Chrome profile too.

With the full scan it first checks if SNMP is enabled for the device in N-central. If that is the case, then it will perform a local SNMP discovery. With this it determines the hardware information like MAC address, CPU info, Hard Disk, Physical Memory information, SNMP interface data, etc.

It then goes on to determine:

  • Device Name

  • Primary IP and/or FQDN

  • Storage Volume metadata

  • Physical Memory

  • Media Access Device(s)

  • Installed services

  • Operating System

    • ReportedOs, CSDVersion, ServicePackMajor, ServicePackMinor, SerialNumber, Version, OSType, OSArchitecture, OperatingSystemSKU, OSProductSuite, OtherTypeDescription, SuiteMask, LastBootUpTime, TimeSystemUp, LicenseKey, LicenseType, InstallDate, Publisher, WProductType

  • Interface

  • MIBOID

  • Cucmdiscovery

  • PhysEntity (Physical Entity)
    • Index, Model, Serialnumber, Manufacturer
  • snmpdiscoveryresult
    • version, community, userName, contextName, authType, authPassword, encryptionType, encryptionPassword, timeout, retry, port NetworkAdapterConfig - MACAddress, IPAddresses, AdapterType, Description, HostName, Gateway, DNSServer, DHCPServer
  • NetworkAdapter
    • MACAddress, AdapterID, Description, WakeOnLan, SpeedMb, AdapterType, Manufacturer, PNPDeviceID
  • ComputerSystem
    • NetbiosName, Domain, TotalPhysicalMemory, Version, Manufacturer, Model, SerialNumber, wirelessmanagementstate, SystemType, PopulatedMemory_Slots, TotalMemory_Slots, ChassisType, UUID, Timezone, productnumber

Now with the SNMP discovery complete, it performs a WMI scan, pulling from:

  • Win32NetworkAdapter

  • Win32NetworkAdapterConfiguration

  • Win32ComputerSystem

  • Win32OperatingSystem

  • Win32ComputerSystemProduct

  • Win32DiskDrive

  • Win32CDROMDrive

  • Win32PhysicalMedia

  • Win32LogicalDisk

  • Win32VideoController

  • Win32Processor

  • Win32Service

  • Win32NetWorkConnection

  • Win32PageFile

  • Win32Share

  • Win32Battery

  • Win32SystemEnclosure

  • Win32PhysicalMemory

  • Win32PhysicalMemoryArray

  • Win32BaseBoard

  • Win32USBController

  • Win32Printer

  • Win32QuickFixEngineering

  • SoftwareLicensingProduct

  • Win32BIOS

  • Win32ServerFeature

  • Win32Environment

  • MSVMComputersystem

  • Win32ApplicationPool

  • Win32WebService

  • Win32Smart

  • Win32WebServiceCache

  • Win32Ftp

  • Win32MicrosoftFtp

  • Win32DHCP

  • Win32DNS

  • Win32NLB

  • Win32PerfLogicalDisk

  • Win32ClusterGroup

  • Win32ClusterNetworkInterface

  • Win32ClusterNetwork

  • Win32ClusterNodes

  • Win32ClockDrift

  • Win32ExchangeDatabaseName

  • Win32ExchangeDatabaseInstance

  • MSLync

  • MSSharePoint

  • FSecure

  • MSSystemInfomration

Then pull information from the registry:

It then goes on to process this information and then pass this back to N-central.

Serial Numbers

During a full scan, N-able N-central pulls two different types of serial numbers from a device:

  • Win32_SystemEnclosure: The chassis serial number found in N-central: Device Details > Asset > Overview > Serial Number.

  • Win32_OperatingSystem: The serial number found in N-central: Device Details > Asset > Operating System > Serial Number.