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Version 6.30
Version 6.30
  • Welcome
  • Nexthink V6
  • Overview
    • Software components
    • Collector
    • Finder
    • Engine
    • Portal
    • Nexthink Library
    • Digital Experience Score
  • Installation and configuration
    • Planning your installation
      • Overview of the installation process
      • Hardware requirements
      • Connectivity requirements
      • Software requirements
      • Reference architectures
    • Installing Portal and Engine Appliances
      • Installing the Appliance
      • Installing the Appliance on Azure
      • Installing the Appliance on AWS
      • Installing the Appliance on OTC
      • Managing Appliance accounts
      • Setting the names of the Portal
      • Setting the names of the Engines
      • Specifying your internal networks and domains
      • Federating your Appliances
      • STIG compliance in Web Console
      • Connecting the Portal to the Engines
      • Configuring session performance storage
      • Configuring device performance storage
      • Setting up a software license
      • Sending email notifications from the Appliance
      • Allocating resources for the Portal
    • Installing the Collector
      • Installing the Collector on Windows
      • Installing the Collector on macOS
      • Installing the Collector for a Proof of Value
      • Assigning Collectors to Engines
      • Assignment of roaming Collectors
      • Collector MSI parameters reference table
      • Nxtcfg - Collector configuration tool
      • Inspecting the connection status of the Collector
      • Querying the status of the TCP connection of the Collector
      • Reporting the URL of HTTP web requests
      • Auditing logon events
      • Viewing user interactions in virtualized and embedded environments
      • Engage notifications on macOS
      • Configuring Collector level anonymization
    • Collector remote connectivity
      • Redirecting and anonymizing Collector traffic
      • Redirecting the Collector TCP channel
      • Support for DirectAccess
      • Windows Collector proxy support
      • Mac Collector proxy support
    • Installing the Event Connector
      • Installing the Event Connector on Linux
    • Installing the Finder
      • Installing the Finder on Windows
      • Enabling Cross-Engine Finder features
      • Expanding the time frame of investigations in the Finder
      • Enabling Finder access to the Library
      • Finder proxy support
    • Updating from V6.x
      • Updating the Appliance
      • Content centralization when updating the Appliance
      • Updating the Collector
      • Viewing Collector deprecated fields
      • Updating the Finder
    • Security and user account management
      • Importing and replacing certificates
      • Hierarchizing your infrastructure
      • Adding users
      • Enabling SAML authentication of users
      • Just-In-Time provisioning of user accounts
      • Enabling Windows authentication of users
      • Multi-factor authentication for local accounts overview
      • Provisioning user accounts from Active Directory
      • Establishing a privacy policy
      • Disabling local accounts for interactive users
      • Setting the complexity and minimum length of passwords for local accounts
      • Protecting local accounts against brute force attacks
      • Preventing password saving in the Finder
      • Controlling session timeouts in the Portal
      • Security settings in the Appliance
      • Setting the Do Not Disturb periods between campaigns
    • Data retrieval and storage
      • Data retention
      • Increasing the maximum number of metrics
      • Establishing a data retention policy in the Engine
      • Storing Engine data in a secondary disk drive
      • Importing data from Microsoft Active Directory
      • Setting the locale in the Portal
      • Changing the Time Zone of the Portal
      • Time Zones and data collection
      • Changing the data collection time of the Portal
      • Nightly task schedules timetable
      • Changing the thresholds of High CPU warnings
      • Automatic restart of unresponsive Engine
    • Maintenance operations
      • Logging in to the CLI
      • Special operation modes for the Engine and the Portal
      • Changing the default ports in the Appliance
      • Centralized Management of Appliances and Engines
      • Monitoring the performance of the Appliance
      • Resizing partitions in Appliance
      • Configuring the system log
      • Examining the logs in the Portal
      • GDPR - Retrieving or anonymizing personal data
      • Finding out unlicensed devices
      • Removing devices
      • Installing third-party software in the Appliance
      • Installing VMware Tools in the Appliance
      • Operational data sent to Nexthink
      • Sending additional data to Support
    • Disaster recovery
      • Planning for disaster recovery
      • Web Console backup and restore
      • Engine backup and restore
      • Portal backup and restore
      • Rule-based assignment backup and restore
      • License backup and restore
      • PKI backup and restore
    • Branding
      • Branding the Portal
      • Branding of campaigns
  • User manual
    • Getting started
      • Logging in to the Finder
      • Logging in to the Portal
      • Enabling STIG in Webconsole
    • Querying the system
      • Searching the subject of interest
      • Executing an investigation
      • Creating an investigation
      • Editing the options of an investigation
      • Combining logical conditions in investigations
      • Navigating through the results of an investigation
      • Properties of users and devices
    • Visualizing system activity in the Finder
      • Getting a quick overview
      • Graphically observing the activity of users and devices
      • Observing service performance
      • Viewing network connections
      • Viewing web requests
      • Viewing executions
    • Monitoring IT custom metrics
      • Creating a metric
      • Examples of metrics
      • Session performance
      • Device performance
      • Following the evolution of a metric
      • Finding the visuals of a metric
    • Monitoring IT services
      • Analyzing service quality
      • Creating a service
      • Following the evolution of a service
      • Specifying URL paths of web-based services
    • Engaging with the end user
      • Getting feedback from the end users
      • Types of campaigns
      • Creating a campaign
      • Editing a campaign
      • Types of questions
      • Controlling the flow of questions
      • Translating a campaign
      • Triggering a campaign manually
      • Limiting the reception rate of campaigns
      • Scrutinizing the results of a campaign
      • Continuously measuring the satisfaction of employees
    • Rating devices and users with scores
      • Computing scores
      • Creating a score
      • Checking and comparing ratings
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      • Score XML Reference
      • Documenting scores
    • Remotely acting on devices
      • Scenarios for remote actions
      • Creating a remote action
      • Executing remote actions
      • Triggering a remote action manually
      • Writing scripts for remote actions on Windows
      • Writing scripts for remote actions on Mac
      • Example of self-healing scenario
      • Example of self-help scenario
      • Application control and remote actions
    • Organizing objects with categories
      • Classifying objects of the same type
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      • Tagging objects manually
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      • Importing tags from text files
    • Getting notified by the system
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      • Receiving email digests
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      • Creating a service-based alert
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    • Building web-based dashboards
      • Introducing dashboards in the Portal
      • Creating a dashboard
      • Examining metrics in depth
      • Documenting dashboards
      • Assessing license use
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    • Importing and exporting authored content
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  • Library packs
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    • Configuration Manuals
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    • Device management
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    • Remote Employee Experience
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    • Persona Insight
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      • Persona Insight - Getting Started and Upgrade Procedure
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      • Persona Insight - Reference Guide
      • Persona Insight - Example Pack
      • Persona Insight - Device Sizing
        • Persona Insight - Device Sizing Overview
        • Persona Insight - Device Sizing Configuration
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        • Persona Insight - Application Sizing Overview
        • Persona Insight - Application Sizing Configuration
      • Legacy Persona documentation
        • Persona Insight - Library Pack (V.1.0.0.0)
        • Persona Insight - Base Pack
        • Persona Insight - Base Pack Advanced
        • Persona Insight - Customization Guide (V1.0.0.0)
        • Persona Insight - Configuration Guide (V1.0.0.0)
        • Persona Insight - Reference Guide (V1.0.0.0)
    • GSuite
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        • Virtualization: Troubleshooting: Configuration
    • Windows
      • Win10: Configuration
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    • Systems Management
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      • MS ConfigMgr - Client Health
        • MS ConfigMgr - Client Health - Summary
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      • Intune
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          • Intune - Health - Summary
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  • Integrations
    • Nexthink ServiceNow Service Graph Connector
      • Overview
        • Roles and Permissions
        • Modules
      • Installation and Configuration Guide
        • Pre-requisites
          • Configure Identification Rules
          • Import and setup the CMDB categories in Finder
        • Setup
          • Configure the connection
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      • Data transformation and mapping by default
      • How to customize the behaviour of the Connector
      • FAQ
        • Why ServiceNow Service Graph Connector?
        • What about Nexthink CMDB Connector?
        • Why is the name the primary key for the devices?
      • Troubleshooting
        • IRE identification issues
          • [No Choice found in the sys_choice table for the target table](integrations/nexthink-servicenow-service-graph-connector/troubleshooting/ire-identification-issues/ no-choice-found-in-the-sys_choice-table-for-the-target-table.md)
          • Identification rules not created
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        • Timeout Errors
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        • MID server issues
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          • Not trusted certificates in Quebec release
        • Configure credentials issues
          • [Not allowing update of property authentication_choice](integrations/nexthink-servicenow-service-graph-connector/troubleshooting/configure-credentials-issues/ not-allowing-update-of-property-authentication_choice.md)
          • Invalid username/password combo (HTTP 401/403)
        • Configure Engines Issues
          • [The client secret supplied for a confidential client is invalid](integrations/nexthink-servicenow-service-graph-connector/troubleshooting/configure-engines-issues/ the-client-secret-supplied-for-a-confidential-client-is-invalid.md)
        • No Cis imported and no errors found in the log
    • Nexthink ServiceNow Incident Management Connector (IMC)
      • Installation and configuration guide (IMC)
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      • Installation and Configuration Guide
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    • Nexthink Event Connector
      • High level overview
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        • Upgrading from Splunk Connector to Event Connector
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    • Search and information display
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      • Types of widgets
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      • Errors in the execution of remote actions
      • Top results of Cross-Engine investigations
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      • Maximum supported values
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        • Is Nexthink affected by Okta breach
        • Is Nexthink affected by SolarWinds breach
        • Nexthink and Log4j - Security bulletin
        • CVE-2022-22965 - Security Vulnerability Spring4shell - Spring Framework
        • Version 6.22.2.10: Security Vulnerability Maintenance Release
        • The Collector V6.27.X Release – Security Bulletin
    • References
      • Components of the Collector
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    • Glossary
      • Activity
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      • Downloads
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      • Excel integration with NXQL
      • Power BI
      • Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
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    • ServiceNow
      • CMDB Connector
      • Incident Management Connector
      • Event Management

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On this page
  • Overview
  • Configuring the Collector stickiness
  • Roaming devices on Virtual Private Networks

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  1. Installation and configuration
  2. Installing the Collector

Assignment of roaming Collectors

Overview

When a device is roaming, the changes to its network connection usually trigger a change of its IP address and Active Directory Site. If your rules to assign Collectors to a particular Engine depend on these properties of the device, a roaming device may switch to a another Engine every time that it connects to a different network.

Avoiding the switching of devices from one Engine to another has the following advantages:

  • Improvement of data organization, because a device always sends data to the same Engine.

  • Economy of licenses, because devices do not consume additional licenses on other Engines.

To avoid repeated switching between Engines of roaming devices, set a reassignment delay (stickiness) value, so that a device can switch from its assigned Engine only after the delay has elapsed.

Roaming devices that connect to a VPN may also have suffer from assignment issues if two different locations reuse the same VPN subnetwork. In the last part of this article, we consider the VPN case in detail.

Configuring the Collector stickiness

To set the stickiness in number of days:

  1. Log in to the CLI of the primary appliance.

  2. Optional: Verify the current stickiness with the command below. If no value was previously set, the command returns an error message because the key does not exist, which implies default stickiness: nxconsul kv get config/nxassignment/standard

  3. Type in the following command, where N is the delay in number of days that must elapse before the system considers that a device is roaming: nxconsul kv put config/nxassignment/standard \nxassignment.stickiness.number-of-days=N

Stickiness special values:

  • The default stickiness value is 10 days.

  • A stickiness value of 0 days triggers a change of Engine on every network reconnection, according to the assignment rules.

Determining when a device is roaming

A device may change from assigned Engine because:

  • The properties (name, IP address, AD site or Collector tag) of the device change and a different assignment rule applies.

  • An administrator activates a different set of assignment rules.

The system considers that a device is roaming in the first case only, that is, when the properties of the device change. Therefore, the stickiness value is enforced only when a device is roaming and not when modifying the assignment rules.

Note however that devices that are regarded as roaming devices are not necessarily moving from one network to another. For instance, modifying the name of a device in a way that triggers a switch of assigned Engine as a result also makes the device to be treated as a roaming device.

Entity assignment of roaming devices

When rule-based assignment is based on the IP address of devices, sticky roaming devices usually get the empty entity (-) assigned.

The reason is that a sticky roaming device that switches networks gets a different IP address, but keeps pointing to the same Engine. If this new IP address does match any of the IP rules in the original Engine, which is usually the case when networks are partitioned to differentiate entities, the device is assigned to the default empty entity.

In general, to determine the entity that holds a roaming device, the properties of the device are matched against the rules of the Engine that is receiving its traffic.

Roaming devices on Virtual Private Networks

In some scenarios, two different locations in a corporate network may reserve the same subnet addresses for VPN access. For instance, let us imagine a set of assignment rules that try to map a single VPN subnet address to two different entities or Engines:

Engine

Entity

Field1

Pattern1

France

Paris

ip

192.168.10.0/24

Switzerland

Nyon

ip

192.168.10.0/24

As the VPN subnet is the same for both locations, when exclusively using the IP address as condition in the rules to assign Collectors, devices will always be assigned to the Engine in France, because the first rule takes precedence over the second.

To solve this issue, add a second rule based on a different field other than IP address to disambiguate. Of course, this solution requires that you can identify devices by that other field:

Engine

Entity

Field1

Pattern1

Field2

Pattern2

France

Paris

ip

192.168.10.0/24

name

FR-*

Switzerland

Nyon

ip

192.168.10.0/24

name

CH-*

Alternatively, if no other field can help distinguish your devices, use the stickiness value to keep devices on the VPN assigned to the same Engine. This solution works if roaming devices are usually connected to the office network and they only move to VPN access from time to time, where the period on the VPN is lower than the delay specified as stickiness. In this way, they will never switch the Engine, although you will never see them in the entity assigned to the VPN either.


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See whether a particular device is considered to be roaming (in the broad sense of the word defined above) from the Collectors.

page of the Portal
Assigning Collectors to Engines