Chapter 8

Managing Jobs and Operations

This chapter describes how to use the jobs options, available from the Console, when working in database mode.

Note:

You can only use these options on systems that exist in the database and are in the Managed state.

For more information, see:

8.1

About Jobs and Operations

8.2

Viewing the List of Jobs

8.3

Job Operation Types

8.4

Job Statuses

8.5

Creating a Job

8.6

Viewing Job Items

8.7

Starting, Aborting, and Deleting Jobs

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180

181

183

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185

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8.1 About Jobs and Operations

A “job” is an operation that you can run from the Console on a selected group of Intel AMT systems, defined using a filter.

The Monitoring > Jobs tab shows a summary of all existing jobs.

Figure 8-1: Example of Jobs

Note:

For more information about the data available from the list of jobs, see Viewing the List of Jobs on the next page.

This table describes the options available from the Jobs tab.

Table 8-1: Jobs Tab Options

Click To do this...

Create a new job (see

Creating a Job on page 183)

Edit the job selected in the list. You can only edit a job if it is in the “Waiting” or “Scheduled” status.

Note: You can only edit some of the fields in the job.

Delete the job(s) selected in the list.You can only delete a job if it is in a status of “Scheduled”,

“Waiting”, “Completed”, or “Aborted”.

View the systems in a job (see

Viewing Job Items on page 185)

Start a manual job selected in the list (see

Starting, Aborting, and Deleting Jobs on page 187)

Abort the job selected in the list

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8.2 Viewing the List of Jobs

The number of systems in a job and the status of the systems is shown in the columns of the jobs list. These columns are automatically updated to show the current status of the job and the systems. You can show/hide columns by right-clicking the column header and selecting the columns that you want to show.

Table 8-2: Available Data in the Jobs List

Column Description

Name The name you defined for the job

Description

Operation

Status

All Systems

Succeeded

The optional description you defined for the job

The type of operation (see

Job Operation Types on the next page)

The status of the job (see

Job Statuses on page 183)

The total number of systems defined in the job

The number of systems on which the operation completed

Succeeded with Warnings

Failed

Waiting for Retry

In Operation

Aborted

The number of systems on which the operation completed, but with warnings

The number of systems on which the operation failed

The number of systems on which the operation could not run, and the RCS is waiting to retry the operation. The RCS includes an automatic retry mechanism for job operations:

• Retry 5 times, each after a pause of 1 minute

• Then retry 5 more times, each after a pause of 1 hour

• Then retry 5 more times, each after a pause of 24 hours

After 15 unsuccessful retry attempts, the system is added to the total number of systems in the Failed column.

The number of systems on which the job is currently running

The number of systems on which the operation was not run because the job was aborted

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8.3 Job Operation Types

The operation that you define in a job is run on all systems that are defined in the job. You can define only one operation per job. These are the available types of operation:

Configuration

This operation reconfigures the systems with the settings defined in the profile that you select from the dropdown list.

Note:

• If the Network Settings (IP and FQDN) were changed in the profile, this operation type will NOT make those changes in the device. This is because the RCS cannot get the necessary information from the host operating system. If you need to reconfigure a device with new network settings, use the configuration commands available from the Configurator.

• In certain conditions, this operation might fail on unconfigured systems (see Configuration via Jobs Fails because of OTP Setting).

Full Unconfiguration

This operation deletes all the Intel AMT setup and configuration settings from the systems and disables the

Intel AMT features on the systems.

Note:

This operation type also deletes any root certificate hashes that were entered manually into the Intel MEBX.

Partial Unconfiguration

This operation removes the configuration settings from the systems and disables the Intel AMT features on the systems. The systems and the RCS can still communicate since the PID, PPS, admin ACL settings, host name, domain name, and the RCS IP and port number are not deleted.

Note:

• If the OEM defined the SOL and IDE interfaces to be closed by default, then unconfiguration operations will close them and they cannot be reopened without physical access to the Intel MEBX. This is a known

Firmware limitation.

• If auditing was enabled on the Intel AMT system, you cannot run unconfiguration operations unless it is permitted by the auditor.

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Maintenance

This operation runs maintenance tasks on the systems:

• Synchronize the clock – Synchronizes the clock in the Intel AMT device with the clock of the computer running the RCS. This task is always performed.

• Renew the Digest Admin password – Renews the password of the Digest admin user according to the password setting defined in the profile. This task is always performed.

• Re-issue certificates – Re-issues PKI certificates that are close to the expiry date. This task is only run if you select the check box.

• Renew AD password – Changes the passwords of the ADOU objects representing the Intel AMT systems. This task is only run if you select the check box.

Note:

For some of these tasks, the RCS needs data stored in the configuration profile. By default, the RCS uses the profile that was last used to configure the system. If you select a different profile from the drop-down list, the data from the selected profile is used instead.

Automatic Maintenance

This operation runs the maintenance tasks (described in the Maintenance operation) on the systems only if they are necessary. This is possible because Intel SCS saves some configuration related data in the database record of each Intel AMT system. The database record is updated each time that a job is run on the system.

When you use the Automatic Maintenance operation:

1. The RCS uses the data in the database to make the decision which maintenance tasks are necessary for each Intel AMT system:

• Synchronize the clock – If not synchronized for more than three months

• Renew the Digest Admin password – If the last renewal of the Digest Admin password was more than six months ago

• Re-issue certificates – If there are less than 30 days before one of the certificate expiration dates

• Renew AD password – If the last renewal of the ADOU object password was more than six months ago

2. The RCS automatically does only the necessary tasks that were identified in step 1. If no tasks are necessary, nothing is done.

Get Discovery Data

This operation gets Intel AMT related data from the systems (see

Viewing Discovery Data on page 175).

Fix Host FQDN Mismatch

This operation fixes Host FQDN Mismatches (see

Detecting and Fixing Host FQDN Mismatches on page 170).

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8.4 Job Statuses

A job can be in one of these statuses (shown in the Status column of the list of jobs):

• Scheduled – The job was defined to start automatically at a specific date and time in the future. Jobs in this status can also be recurring jobs that will automatically run according to an interval (of days) that you define.

• Preparing Job – A manual job was created and the RCS is currently preparing the list of systems on which the job will run. When complete, the status of the job will change to “Waiting”.

• Waiting – The job has not started yet. This is the status of all new manual jobs until you start the job

(see

Starting, Aborting, and Deleting Jobs on page 187).

• In Progress – The job has started to run. The job will stay in this status until the operation has run on all systems, or the job is aborted.

• Completed – The job was run on all systems. This does not mean that the job was successful on all the systems. (The other columns in the list of jobs show the status summary.) This status is only relevant for non-recurring jobs. After a recurring job has completed, the status of the job will change to

Scheduled.

• Aborting – The job was aborted, but the operation is still running on the systems where it had already started to run before the job was aborted. After the operation has run on all systems where it is already running:

• For non-recurring jobs, the status of the job will change to Aborted.

• For recurring jobs, the status of the job will change to Scheduled.

• Aborted – The job was aborted and the operation has run on all the systems where it had already started to run before the job was aborted.

8.5 Creating a Job

You can create two types of jobs:

• Manual – This type of job only runs once, and must be started manually.

• Automatic – This type of job is automatically started by the RCS at the time and date that you specify in the job. You can define this type of job to run once, or at specified intervals (a “recurring” job).

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To create a job:

1. In the Console, click Monitoring.

2. Select the Jobs tab and click . The Job Definition window opens.

Figure 8-2: Job Definition Window

3. In the Job Name field, enter a name for this job.

4. (Optional) In the Description field, enter a description for this job. This field is for informational purposes only.

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5. In the Filter section, define on which systems this job will run:

• Use a filter from an existing View – Select this option to use a filter from an existing view. Select the view from the drop-down list.

• Define a unique filter – Select this option to define a filter that will be used in this job only. Click

Define to define the filter (see

Defining a System Filter on page 163).

6. In the Start Job section, select when the job will start:

• Manually – Select this option to define a manual job. This type of job must be started manually (see

Starting, Aborting, and Deleting Jobs on page 187).

• On this date – Select this option to define an automatic job. By default, todays date is selected. You can edit the date and time directly in the field, or open a calendar to select a different date. If you want to define a recurring job, select the Run job every check box and define the number of days for the interval. The interval can be a minimum of 7 days and a maximum of 365 days.

Note:

After a recurring job completes, the date defined in the job for the next run is automatically updated. You can also manually change the date, time, and interval of automatic jobs (but only when the status of the job is “Scheduled”).

7. From the Operation drop-down list, select the type of operation that this job will perform (see Job Operation

Types on page 181).

8. Click Save and Close. The Job Definition window closes and the job is added to the list of jobs.

8.6 Viewing Job Items

The systems that match the filter defined in the job are shown in the List of Systems in Job window. These “job items” are the systems on which the job will run.

You can view this list and get data about the systems in the list.

Note:

• For manual jobs, this list only includes systems that matched the filter at the time that the job was created. If more systems are added to the network that match the filter, they will NOT be added to the job.

• For automatic jobs, the systems are added to the list just before the job starts. This means that the job will run on systems that match the filter at the time that the job starts.

• For recurring jobs, the list of systems in the job is automatically updated each time the job starts.

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To view the job items:

1. In the Console, click Monitoring and select the Jobs tab.

2. Right-click the job and select View Systems. The List of Systems in Job window opens.

Figure 8-3: List of Systems in Job Window

Note:

• You can show/hide systems in the list using the check boxes and the search fields columns and then clicking Search.

• If the job status is “Waiting”, you can delete systems from the list by right-clicking them and selecting

Delete Item from List. If a system is deleted, the operation will not run on that system when the job starts. After a job starts, you cannot delete a system from the job.

• You can view the operation logs of a system by selecting the system and clicking View logs. For more information about logs, see

Viewing Operation Logs on page 173.

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8.7 Starting, Aborting, and Deleting Jobs

Automatic jobs are started automatically by the RCS.

Manual jobs must be started from the Console.

When a job is in the “Completed” or “Scheduled” status, you can delete the job.

To start a manual job:

In the list of jobs:

• Right-click the job and select Start Job.

- Or -

• Select the job and click

To delete a job:

.

• In the list of jobs, select the job and click

About aborting a job

.

At any time after a job has started, you can abort the job. To do this, in the list of jobs:

• Right-click the job and select Abort Job.

- Or -

• Select the job and click .

When a job starts, the RCS starts the operation simultaneously on the first 50 systems defined in the job. After

30 seconds, the RCS starts the operation on another set of systems (up to the maximum of 50 systems). This cycle continues until the operation is run on all systems in the job.

Note:

At any time after creating a job, you can check the status of the operation on each system (see Viewing Job

Items on page 185).

If you abort a job, the status of the job is changed to “Aborting”. Operations that have already started on a system will not be aborted. When the operation has run on those systems, the status of the job is changed to

“Aborted” (or “Scheduled” if the job is a recurring job). If an operation is in the “Pending Retry” status, aborting the job will cancel the operation on those systems.

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