An Intellisig is a script that detects software installed on agent computers. Intellisigs provide the most flexible and accurate way to detect software compared to the heuristic and software signature scanning. Intellisigs extract the software definition information from a defined source that the software manufacturer provides. The source can be a text file, database, registry, or binary file. For example, dsmver –f <output file> is the command that outputs version information about CA ITCM. Unless the manufacturer changes the way version information is stored for the product, Intellisigs can detect the future versions of the product also. While software signature scanning requires signatures for every version of a product, release, and patch, a single Intellisig can detect releases and patches of multiple software products. For example, you can create an Intellisig to detect all versions of Microsoft Office products, including past and future versions.
Note: You can use Intellisigs to detect software on various platforms.
The following Intellisig types are available:
Includes Intellisigs that CA provides. Similar to the CA-provided software signatures, the CA-provided Intellisigs are downloaded as part of the Content Download job.
Includes Intellisigs that you create, based on your requirement. You create these Intellisigs and import them using DSM Explorer.
Note: Intellisigs do not support software usage (metering), both offline and online.
DSM Reporter does not support Intellisigs reports.
A traditional signature only looks for the specific files of specific version and size that are part of a release or patch. It is a fixed rule that cannot adapt itself to changes in the software being detected. An Intellisig is implemented in code such that it can embody as much intelligence and flexibility as required. This intelligence and flexibility allows an Intellisig to detect many more items than a single signature can. For example, a single Intellisig can detect all Microsoft Office products of all versions, as opposed to a large set of signatures, one for each possible item that could be in Microsoft Office.
Dmscript is a portable scripting language and processor that is delivered with CA ITCM. The dmscript language has been extended with functions to deliver the output in a standard simple format.
To write an Intellisig, perform the following tasks:
Following are the outputs of an Intellisig:
This output appears in DSM Explorer under the Discovered Software and Software Definitions nodes.
An Intellisig is composed of the following components:
These components are stored in the MDB and are distributed to scalability servers and agents. An Intellisig runs under the control of dmscript, which is launched by the software scanner. The scanner, in turn, is launched by the CA Asset Management agent.
The output of the script is an XML file called <Intellisig-uuid>.xml. The format of this file follows the ISO19970-2 standard for software ID tags. It is an international standard that provides a means for software products to store information about themselves. This information is then read by products such as CA ITCM and converted to the regular CA Asset Management inventory format by the software scanner.
The domain manager sends the current set of software Intellisigs to the scalability servers, which, in turn, send them to the agents. When the CA Asset Management agent runs, it checks if it is configured with a software collection task. If configured, it starts the software scanner, which in turn, runs each available Intellisig. For each Intellisig, any available triggers are evaluated to check if the script should be run. If the trigger is true, dmscript is run with the appropriate arguments. When complete, the agent collects the output XML file, converts it to the inventory format, and uploads it to the server and back to the domain manager. After it is stored in the MDB, the results are available in DSM Explorer. The agent performs traditional signature and heuristic scans too if configured to do so.
To see working Intellisigs, use DSM explorer to view the contents of the standard Intellisigs that are provided by CA, and are downloaded from the content server. You can use these Intellisigs as models for developing your own Intellisigs.
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