Using SMS to get Tempotary Internet Files from Network PC's

[Sebastian6977]

Hi

Greetings

It is posible to use Microsoft SMS to create a complete report of all my networks PC's with their respective Temporary Internet Files?

And How?

I know SMS is a powerful tool but I am not good in this tool.

I will thank you very much if anyone can help me with this thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!(headache)

Sebastian

 

[tbrennans]

Well you could but you wouldnt want to as it would have to be collecting the files in SMS and the size of all the files collected would trash your DB.... So answer is yes but you would never want to do that. Your Firewall/Proxy would be a better spot to find out what people are doing.

It would be under file collections the software inventory client agent (dont do this)

 

[Sebastian6977]

Hi tbrennans

Thank you for the information.

But the thing is that I already went to the proxy but it was configure to collect log per week and we don't have back up of this server. So we want to do this maybe at night after working hours.

Any other sugestion.

Thanks for your time.

Sebastian

 

[tbrennans]

What is your goal? What are you trying to do? Something like finding out if someone went to a specific site a few weeks ago? If it is a paticular site I suppose you could collect a cookie with the site name on it from what ever computer had that cookie.....

 

[Sebastian6977]

Hi

I want to audit all the computers in the network, WITHOUT going to them physically.

And there is a option to get a report of all the files registered (recorded) in the computers using Microsoft SMS? HOW?

Thank you very much

Sebastian

 

[skissinger]

Sorry to bump into this thread, and do listen to tbrennans (much more knowledgable in SMS than I am), but as I understand it, your goal is to gather information regarding Temporary Internet Files from all SMS Client computers, and use that information to track where those clients have been surfing?

If that is your goal, in my opinion, SMS is not the best tool for this job. First, historical / change information regarding software files reported doesn't hang out in the History Tables in SMS forever. There is a automatic clean-out-old-data process. Second, your clients may be savvy enough to set their Internet Options to clear all Temporary Internet Files at close of IE, so using Temp Internet Files to track where they've been is not reliable.

I'm not a firewall/proxy person, so unfortunately I don't have any great suggestions for you of the best tool to use for this job.

If that is not your goal, I do apologize; could you state what you want on the report?

 

[tbrennans]

By default SMS doesnt collect the files your talking about you would have to tell it to inventory them. Once again this is a bad way to do it as your SMS db will get pummeled.

On another note, Sherry you cant fool us about your SMS Knowledge :-D (1st class all the way)

 

[Sebastian6977]

HI

Thank you very much to both.

I believe that I will not do anything that way. But one last question.

There is some function that I can make with SMS to audit?

Something like obtain reports of all the programs installed in the network (all PCs), to see if all the computers have nonauthorized music or videos, ect ect

Thank again!!!!!

Sebastian

 

[tbrennans]

Once again SMS by default is going to inventory exe files, but you can make it inventory anything you want. Go to the admin console, site hierarachy, site settings, client agents, software inventory client agent, the inventory collection tab and you can add what ever you want to inventory. Just dont select something that there are a zillion of that will pound the crap out of the DB.

 

[skissinger]

Do you know if you have a reporting point configured for your SMS Primary site? (try

http://yourprimarySMSServername/SMSReporting_3digitSiteCode

is usually the default for most people)

If you haven't looked at that lately, there are some out-of-the-box SMS reports that may help you for Installed Programs (basically what's in Add/Remove Programs). For music and video file types, you would have to add *.mp3, or whatever to software inventory first like tbrennans said.

If you don't have a Reporting Point (you could also check in your sms console, primary site, Site Settings, Site Systems, properties of the server, Reporting Point tab), you can create one relatively easily by clicking the box in that tab, and waiting for it to install using a default configuration.

PS: if you don't have any SMS books yet, one recently published excellent guide is "SMS 2003 Administrator's Reference" by Ron Crumbaker. There are other SMS books available too, just go to amazon and search for "systems management server"

Blog:

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/skissinger/