Reference Guide › Utilities › eACoexist Utility—Detect and Register Coexisting Trusted Programs › How the Coexistence Utility Works

How the Coexistence Utility Works

The coexistence utility (eACoexist) that CA ControlMinder supplies, lets you resolve potential conflicts with other programs on the local computer. To understand what CA ControlMinder does to resolve these potential conflicts, and to be able to affect how these conflicts are resolved, you need to understand how the utility works.

When the coexistence utility runs, it performs the following actions:

1. Checks that one of the following conditions apply:
   1. CA ControlMinder is not running.
   2. You have the ADMIN attribute.

   If neither conditions apply, the utility exits.

2. Locates the response.ini file, as follows:
   • When the utility runs during installation, it uses the path media_drive:\Coexistence\_architecture
   • If CA ControlMinder is installed on the computer, it uses the following registry key value:

     HKLM\SOFTWARE\ComputerAssociates\AccessControl\AccessControl\SeOSD\ResponseFile
     

   If the file does not exist the utility exits.

3. Locates the coexistence plug-ins directory, as follows:
   • If you run the utility and pass a parameter from the command line, it uses this as the plug-ins' path.
   • When the utility runs during installation, it uses the path media_drive:\Coexistence\_architecture
   • If you run the utility with no parameters, it concatenates the string "\Coexistence" to the following registry key value:

     HKLM\SOFTWARE\ComputerAssociates\AccessControl\AccessControl\SeOSPath
     

   If the directory does not exist, or there are no coexistence plug-ins in the directory, the utility exits.

4. Executes the discovery process.

   To do this, it enumerates the executables in the coexistence plug-ins directory and executes them one by one, as follows:

   1. Stores the result of the plug-in execution in %windir%\EACDiscovery.ini

      Note: The utility automatically deletes this file on successful completion of the plug-in discovery process.

   2. Checks that the output file EACDiscovery.ini exists.

      If the file does not exist, the utility continues to execute the next plug-in.

   3. For each product section in EACDiscovery.ini, concatenates the section (product) name and version value and checks whether the response file contains the matching section.

      Note: The response.ini file contains a section for each coexisting program. If a section name appears with a version number, for example, eTrust Audit-1.5, the utility performs the action only for the specified version.

   4. If a matching section exists in the response file, executes the action that is set by the value of the Act-Utility-0 in that section, as follows:
      • 1—Issues a warning that the discovered product is not compatible with CA ControlMinder.
      • 2—Stops the discovered product's services.

        The utility retrieves the discovered product's services from the EACDiscovery.ini file.

      • 3—Same as 2, but during CA ControlMinder installation.
      • 4—Starts the discovered product's services.

        The utility retrieves the discovered product's services from the EACDiscovery.ini file.

      • 5—Creates trusted program rules (SPECIALPGM) for the discovered product's processes and starts CA ControlMinder.

        The utility retrieves the discovered product's processes from the EACDiscovery.ini file. It also retrieves the respective program type (pgmtype) from this file. It then creates a temporary script file (ACInstallDir\Data\discoveryscp) that it executes when CA ControlMinder starts.

      • 6—Same as 2, but during CA ControlMinder uninstall.

      Note: Each section can contain more than one action. For example, you can have Act-Utility-0, Act-Utility-1, and Act-Utility-2 that are executed in that order.

More information:

How the Policy Manager Plug-In Works

How the BrightStor Plug-In Works

How the Dr. Watson Plug-In Works

How the eTrust AV Plug-In Works

How the Scout Plug-In Works

How the Unicenter Plug-In Works

How the Asset Management Plug-In Works

How the Windows Plug-In Works

How the eTrust Audit Plug-In Works

How the eTrust Audit80 Plug-In Works

How the F-Secure Antivirus Plug-In Works

How the McAfee VirusScan Plug-In Works

How the Windows Modules Installer Plug-In Works

How the Services and Controller Plug-In Works

How the Resource Hosting Subsystem Plug-In Works