Audit - System Info

Entering data into a manually added field in System Info as http:// or https:// displays the data as a URL link. To manually add a field click the Show More button, then click the New...* button.

Audit - Documents

The Documents function, located on the Audit tab, can now be accessed as a new tab in the Machine Summary interface. The Machine Summary interface displays when you click any agent status icon.

Scripts - Mac OSX Agent

The Mac OSX agent has been improved to handle installation and log off conditions on all platforms up through OSX 10.5.4. Mac OSX agents are now able run the Execute Shell Command and Execute File script commands as either "system" or as "user" using user credentials. In the initial release of the Mac agent, these commands always ran as "system".

New Sample Reboot Scripts

New sample scripts have been added to support several reboot scenarios:

• Reboot-Ask-No: If user is logged in, ask if it is OK to reboot; assume no after 5 min.  If user is not logged in, go ahead and reboot. This script calls Reboot-Ask-No-2 to ask the user.
• Reboot-Ask-Yes: If user is logged in, ask if it is OK to reboot; assume yes after 5 min.  If user is not logged in, go ahead and reboot. This script calls Reboot-Ask-Yes-2 to ask the user.
• Reboot-Nag: If user is logged in, ask to reboot every 5 minutes until the user allows the reboot. If user is not logged in, go ahead and reboot. This script calls Reboot-Nag-2 to ask the user.
• Reboot-No-User: Reboot the machine only if a user is not logged in.
• Reboot-Warn: If the user is logged in, warn the user that a reboot will happen in 5 min.  If the user is not logged in, go ahead and reboot. (Schedules reboot script 5 minutes from now.)

Dashboards – Alarm Count

All alarm dashboards with an alarm count now pull data from a rollup count table allowing for a more efficient query and update of the dashboard.

Event Log Collection

Prior to this release, when the VSA detected a flood of event log items, the VSA disabled collection of the entire class of events (Error, Warning, Informational, Success Audit, Failure Audit) for a log type on that machine. With this release the VSA introduces two new techniques to better manage certain events from overwhelming the system:

• Global event log black list - A small number of event types from a handful of machines can overwhelm and cripple your VSA server with volume. Typically the offending event is of little or no value to the administrator. With this release, each agent will continue to process all events, however events listed on the black list will not be sent up to the VSA server. This should effectively cure the flood problem and prevent automatically disabling event log collection on any machine. Alarm detection and processing operates regardless of whether entries are on the collection blacklist.
• Flood detection - Flood detection is still in place but the action taken has changed. No longer is processing permanently disabled. Instead, after 1000 events (not counting black list events) in one hour are sent to the VSA server, further collection of events of that log type are stopped for the remainder of that hour. A new event is inserted into the log to record that collection was suspended. At the end of the hour, collection automatically resumes. This technique prevents short term heavy loads from swamping your VSA server. Note that these techniques only affect collection. Alarm detection and processing operates regardless of whether collection is suspended.

Monitor Log, SNMP Log

Added start date and time to monitor log display allowing for more flexibility when searching log data.

Ticketing - View Summary

• Changing multiple tickets - You can now change any field on multiple tickets at once. On the View Summary function, check the box for all tickets you wish to change a field value for. Then click Set Field… The next screen lets you set a new value for any or all of the fields.
• Search for phrases enclosed by double quoted strings - The search function looks in all text fields and notes returning all tickets that contain all the elements of the search string. Search string elements are delimited by spaces. Previously this prevented you from searching for phrases. Now you can include phrases as an element by enclosing multiple words in double quotes. WARNING: double quoted strings must be matched exactly. If you enter two spaces together in a double quoted string, then search only returns tickets containing the two spaces.
• Preview Tickets - Hovering the mouse over a ticket’s preview icon displays the ticket in a quick pop up window. Use the preview function to quickly go through all your tickets without having to open each ticket.
• Auto submit checkbox - Checking this box automatically re-displays the View Summary page every time one of the field filters changes. If unchecked, change multiple field filters, then click Submit. The page now processes all the field filter changes at the same time and redisplays the page once.

Ticketing – Create/View

The View Ticket function name has been renamed to Create/View to better indicate this is the place to go to create new tickets.

Ticketing - Notify Policy

You can now format/customize additional ticket notifications. On the Notification Policy page click the Format button next to the following options to customize the notification email format:

• Edit Summary
• Assignee Change
• Field Change
• Due Date Change
• Send auto response to emails creating new tickets

Ticketing -

Access Policy

On a per administrator role basis you can now control access to:

• Editing submitter information
• Changing the machine ID associated with a ticket.

Ticketing -

Assignee Policy

Assignee Policy is similar to Due Date Policy. It lets you automatically assign a ticket to an administrator based on the values from an combination of the list fields.

Ticketing - Email Reader

The sender’s name is now pulled from the From address in the email header and set as the username in a newly created ticket. Tickets containing no message body and no attachments are now suppressed in place of adding a note that states "No response text provided".

Patch Mgmt -

View Definitions

Seven new filter options related to Patch Management have been added:

• Machines having no patch scan results (unscanned)
• Machines with Reboot Pending for patch installations
• Machines with Patch Test Result
• Machines with Patch Automatic Update configuration
• Machines with Patch Reboot Action configuration
• Machines with Patch File Source configuration
• Machines missing a specific patch (identified by the patch’s 6 digit KB Article ID)

Patch Mgmt – Scan Machine

Removed the option for master administrators to schedule a refresh of the patch database that only applies to legacy systems no longer supported by Microsoft and to download the latest Office Detection Tool (ODT).  An automatic background process now executes daily to ensure the latest ODT is downloaded to the Kaseya Server.

Patch Mgmt – Patch Scan Results Processing

• Moved the processing of patch scan results from the general background process to its own separate background process and added process throttling. This improves overall system response and alert processing time when there are hundreds of machines with updated patch scan results.
• When processing patch scan results, a new script is generated and executed to bring the KBxxxxxx.log and the WindowsUpdate.log up to the server for any patches that are reported as "failed".  These logs are occasionally useful in troubleshooting patch installation failures. The logs are found in the Get File function under the Scripts tab for the specific machine. The script log for each machine contains entries indicating that these log files have been pulled up to the server as appropriate.

Scripts – Patch Deploy

The patch installation script generated by the Patch Deploy Installer Wizard now schedules a patch rescan for execution right after the next reboot. This ensures the proper reporting of a patch’s status without having to manually run a patch scan on the machine.

Patch Mgmt – Patch Installation Scripts

When patches are executed in a patch installation script, an entry is made in the machine’s Script Log. Modified the log entry to include the patch title in addition to the KB article number/security bulletin number.

Patch Mgmt – Patch Scan Script

Added a new script ("Patch Scan") that is available in the Script Editor when either Execute Script or Schedule Script is selected. This "Patch Scan" script can be used to schedule a patch scan as part of a custom script. It will execute the appropriate patch scan script for the selected machine.

NOTE: Running the Patch Scan script executes only one of three secondary patch scan scripts. Each of the three secondary patch scan scripts is appropriate for the selected machine. When the Patch Scan script is run, you will see an entry in the script log and in the Pending Scripts tab of the Machine Summary interface for one of the following: "WUA Patch Scan 1 (x86)", "WUA Patch Scan 1 (X64)", or "Legacy Patch Scan".

Patch Mgmt – Windows Auto Update Scripts

The "Disable Windows Automatic Update" and "Reset Windows Automatic Update" system scripts are now available in any Script Search popup and the Script Editor when either Execute Script or Schedule Script is selected.  Since it is not possible to configure a template account with a specific Windows Automatic Update configuration, exposing these two scripts as system scripts now allows an administrator to schedule these scripts for any machine, including template accounts, from the Pending Scripts tab of the Machine Summary interface or to add the execution of these scripts in any other script such as a custom machine setup script.

Patch Mgmt – Initial Update

• Removed the "Skip if machine offline" checkbox. Due to the nature of Initial Update processing, this option is not applicable.
• Added warning for machines that are not a member of a Patch Policy so the administrator knows ALL missing patches will be installed.
• Changed processing order to: (1) Windows Installer, (2) OS related service packs, (3) OS update rollups, (4) OS critical updates, (5) OS non-critical updates, (6) OS security updates, (7) Office service packs, (8) Office update rollups, and (9) All remaining Office updates.

Patch Mgmt –Pre/Post Script

Modified the Pre/Post Script function to include template accounts so the script assignments can be assigned via Agent Copy Settings and Agent Import/Export Settings.

Patch Mgmt – Automatic Update

• Added warning for machines that are not a member of a Patch Policy so the administrator knows ALL missing patches will be installed.
• Added new "Run Once" scheduling option, selected from the Daily/Weekly/Monthly drop-down list, to schedule a non-recurring one-time scheduling for automatic updates.

Patch Mgmt –Approval by Policy

Modified screen layout to support the following enhancements:

• Added the capability to copy approval statuses from the current policy to another selected policy. This was added to support those customers who perform patch testing against a group of test machines using a test policy. Once testing has been completed and the patches have been approved/denied as desired, use the copy feature to copy only the approval statuses from the test policy to a production policy.
• Added the capability to override the default approval status in a policy for patches that are classified as "Manual Install Only" or "Windows Update Web Site". Checking the option checkboxes at the bottom of the table sets existing updates of these types as denied in the policy and ensures future updates of these types in the policy are automatically denied.

Patch Mgmt – Reboot Action

The default value for a machine is now "Skip reboot if user logged in" rather than "Reboot immediately".

Patch Mgmt – Patch Download Location Override

An automated patch update (patch) location override service has been added. This service applies to patches that cannot be downloaded successfully using the original patch download location provided by Microsoft. This service identifies patch download locations (URLs) identified during WUA Patch Scans that are candidates for override location URLs. Candidates are those updates which the WUA Patch Scan reports as multi-file installation packages or as CAB file installation packages. When a new candidate update is identified, an email notification is sent to Kaseya with the update details. These details are used by Kaseya to identify a single executable file installation package. If one exists, an override location URL is added to an override location database (XML file). This override location database is automatically downloaded and processed by a background process every four hours.

The email notification that is sent to Kaseya contains no information other than selected update (patch) data elements from the Microsoft Update Catalog via the WUA Patch Scan.  It is possible to disable these notifications by unchecking the checkbox next to "Enable Invalid Patch Location Notifications" on the Configure page under the System tab. If blank, no notification is sent to Kaseya. You will still receive updated patch location overrides prepared in response to notifications reported by other customers, regardless of this setting.

A new patch location warning, "Patch Location Pending", might be observed on the Machine History, Machine Update, Patch Update, and the Patch Details pages. This warning indicates that the update (patch) does not yet have a valid download location URL and it cannot yet be installed. This warning is removed once an override download URL has been provided by the override location database.

K-VNC for Mac OSX

The K-VNC for Macintosh machines has been updated to RealVNC Enterprise version 4.4.2.

Note for OS X 10.5 users – After the first time install of K-VNC, the system must be rebooted before remote control sessions may be established. Remote control sessions to 10.5 requires that a local user already be logged onto the system.

K-VNC for Windows

The K-VNC for Windows machines has been updated to RealVNC Enterprise version 4.4.2.

Remote Control – Terminal Server

This release adds two enhancements to remote control using terminal server.

• When sharing disks, you can now restrict the drive letters shared to a limited list. Set Parameters lets you list the drive letters you wish to expose to the remote machine. Use this to share D: without exposing C:
• The window title now includes the machine ID you are remote controlling. This is helpful when you have several terminal server sessions open at once.

Remote Cntl > Send Message

You can now identify the currently logged on user of a machine before sending a message to that machine.

Backup

Backup is now a separate installable module (BUDR.exe). On install of the 5.1 update, BUDR.exe is installed if either (a) there are some backup licenses or (b) there are some installs of backup.

Backup – Schedule Folders

The schedule folder page no longer allows scheduling a folder backup if the Image Location is not configured

Backup – Image Location

When clearing the Image Location, scheduled backups for that machine are removed.

Backup Report

Separate backup counts are displayed for succeeded/failed/warning/canceled in the header of the backup report.

Reports – Executive Summary Report

Calculations for the Network Health Score for Operating Systems have been changed.  Score thresholds were changed from Vista, 2003, XP, 2000 to Vista/2008, XP/2003, 2000, Mac OS.  This means the OS thresholds are basically for "Windows 6.x", "Windows 5.x", "Windows 4.x", and "Mac OS".

NOTE: Customers should check their currently saved executive summary reports and adjust the scores as desired for the OS Score.

Reports- User State Management Power Savings Report

Added a new report for licensees of the User State Management module to calculate actual and possible savings from managing computer power settings with the Power Policy feature of User State Management. 

Agent

Agents are now supported on Windows Server 2008.

LAN Watch - Active Directory Harvest

When performing a LAN Watch on a primary domain controller, you can now optionally enable/disable the harvesting of AD users and AD computers.

Active Directory- paging

Added paging capability to the "View AD Users" and "View AD Computers" pages.

Temp Directory

Master administrators can now set a system wide default for the agent temp directory.

Copy Settings

• The status column now displays the machine name that settings were copied from and the time they were copied.
• Added the ability to copy User Profile information in Copy Settings.

Update Agent

You can now schedule a script to run immediately after an agent update completes. This capability lets you reapply any customizations you have made to managed machines that are lost after an agent update. Typically agent customizations involve renaming or hiding agent identifiers to prevent users from being aware that the agent is installed.

Log Archiving new partition tables using bcp

Partition tables have been added to help manage large amounts of log data for the following tables: nteventlog, monitorCounterLog, monitorProcessLog, monitorServiceLog and monitorSnmpObjectGeLog.  A partition table is created every day for each log, for example nteventLogYYYYMMDD. Archiving the partition table uses the Bulk Copy Program (BCP) to efficiently move the data from the database to an archived text file. The archiving is based on the maximum value for that specific log found in Agent -> Log History.

NOTE: The server name is setup using the computer name during installation of SQL Server. If you change the name of the server you need to use sp_addserver and then restart SQL Server. If the computer name has been changed since the original installation then the bcp command will fail because the -S parameter is using the <servername\instancename> that was the <computername\instance> at time of installation.

Function Access - Messages and Tasks

You can now enable/disable access to both the Messages and/or Tasks panes shown in the View Dashboard page of the Home tab on a per administrator role basis. Select Function Access under the System tab to set these rights.

Function Access - Documents

You can now enable/disable access to document deleting and document uploading on an administrator role basis. Select Function Access under the System tab to set these rights. Documents are managed using the using the Audit > Documents page.

System – Configure

A new checkbox exists on the Configure function used to force an automatic redirect to use SSL when ever anyone attempts to log into your system via http. To activate, check "Automatically redirect to https at logon page".

Installer / Updater

The Kaseya Server installer and updater now pulls the latest hotfixes prior to the final step of reapplying the database schema.

Third Party Copyrights

A new Third Party Copyrights button displays in the System > Configure page, next to Release Notes and Show License. This information identifies open source and third party software licensed for use by Kaseya.

Database Views – Patch Views

An "InstallationWarning" column has been added to the following views:

• vPatchApprovalStatus
• vPatchPolicy
• vPatchStatus. 

The column returns 'Manual Install Only', 'Windows Update Only', 'Product Upgrade Only’, or an empty string as appropriate.

Database Views – System Status Functions

Added three new SQL user-defined functions (pseudo-parameterized views) to return the counts displayed in the operating system pie chart and the missing patch pie chart seen on the View dashboard page under the Home tab. These functions are used just like views.  Refer to the help topics under Database Views for:

• fnOSCounts()
• fnMissingPatchCounts_NoPolicy()
• fnMissingPatchCounts_UsePolicy()

VSA API Web Service

• Many new operations have been added to the API
• The API can now call and display any VSA page the authenticated administrator has access rights to.
• The API can now set the value of any field displayed in the Ticketing > Edit Fields page.