KACE Product Support

Inventory or Asset?

You'd have to create a custom SQL rule to remove duplicate assets, but duplicate inventory items will eventually drop out when they hit the MIA threshold.

The inventory is based of the KUID of a computer that in generated during the install of the Kace agent and doesn't get changed when you rename a computer.

I've seen duplicate machines in inventory, but it's possible that the KUID was improperly reported or the agent was reinstalled on those systems.

You have to install the client AFTER you re-name the machine. We had the client as part of our imaging process and had to remove it. Kbox matches on Computer Name and joining MAC address, otherwise it assumes that it is a new machine. When we image or build a machine, especially a mobile machine, we join the domain and re-name the machine, install the client, and THEN add wireless connection information.

The only other way to prevent duplicates is to add the KUID before installing the client.

One tip: disable automatic agent deployment.

If the KBOX Agent has a KUID then it will use that to match the record to an existing one. Whether you rename it or not, it is the KUID that is authoritative. Is it possible that you have other machines using that same KUID as part of your image process?

Look at the asset history of the previous record...does things like Mac address and BIOS serial number change to seemingly invalid numbers?

If the kbox sees a machine with that same KUID already connected then it will tell that agent to go away and come back with a new number.
If the kbox has a machine connecting with a KUID it hasn't seen before then it will attempt to find an old machine record with the same hostname and BIOS Serial Number. If it finds a match then it updates the KUID on that record. If not it creates a new inventory record.

So, if you deploy an image and allow it to check in (which usually means you allowed it on the network) before you have renamed it then it might be matching up to an existing record, changing the KUID of the existing record and the subsequent rename modifies the existing record's name. Then a machine with the same name as the image checks in and creates a new record.

Image masters should always have a blank KUID and be renamed before connecting them to the network OR install the kbox agent when you are done imaging/renaming it, etc OR install the agent as your last post-installation task.

ORIGINAL: GillySpy

Look at the asset history of the previous record...does things like Mac address and BIOS serial number change to seemingly invalid numbers?



We have the same issue, many machines are not fetching BIOS serial number and invalid RAM and MAC information.

For clarification:
Look at the asset history of the previous record...does things like Mac address and BIOS serial number change to seemingly invalid numbers?
What I meant by "seemingly invalid" was not in corrupt, malformed nor missing information, but rather numbers that change when you don't have another explanation for that change. E.g. BIOS Serial Number changing?

many machines are not fetching BIOS serial number and invalid RAM and MAC information.
If you mean to say that they are invalid as I explain above then you should investigate a duplication problem -- starting with your imaging process and agent deployment. However, if you mean to say the data is malformed, missing or corrupt then you may have other issues (although I personally have not seen the latter).

Here's a report that we have scheduled to be sent daily to select people. Duplicates happen even with a KUID.

select count(*) as COUNT, M.`IP`, M.NAME AS Computer
FROM MACHINE M

where IP not like '10.3.1.%'
and IP not like '172.16.254.%'

group by M.`IP`
having count > 1
ORDER BY NAME asc

This generates a list with only one of the duplicated computer names, the number of duplications and the IP number that has duplicates.

You can remove the IP excluded section (where IP not like...) if not needed. In my environment users logged in through our VPN are dynamically assigned similar IP's so those duplicates are temporary. The other range is for my Mac which reports the same IP for the Mac and the Parallels PC on the Mac so two records with the same IP are OK in that case. All other computers have only one unique IP per interface (wired and wireless) so there shouldn't be duplicate IPs normally.

This report lists all the duplicated computer names in the Inventory.

select
MACHINE.NAME AS SYSTEM_NAME,LAST_SYNC,IP,KUID,MAC,BIOS_SERIAL_NUMBER, CT FROM MACHINE,
( select COUNT(ID) CT, MACHINE.NAME FROM MACHINE GROUP BY MACHINE.NAME )M2
WHERE M2.CT>1 and
MACHINE.NAME=M2.NAME
ORDER BY SYSTEM_NAME
Active Directory doesn't allow duplicated names so there shouldn't be two computers with the same name in the current computer inventory.

This report will list the name of one of the computers with a duplicated serial number in the computer inventory, the numbers of computers with that serial number and the serial number:

SELECT
COUNT(MACHINE.BIOS_SERIAL_NUMBER) as Number, MACHINE.NAME as Name,
MACHINE.BIOS_SERIAL_NUMBER as Serial_Number
FROM MACHINE
group by MACHINE.BIOS_SERIAL_NUMBER
having Number > 1
order by Number DESC,Name ASC
This will tell you how many computers are reporting blank serial numbers. That happens when the BIOS has not been serialized properly to be able to report the serial number to KBOX.

In my environment of 9000 computers there are:
- 650 computers with blank serial numbers
- 192 computers with a serial number of 00000000
- 3 computers with a serial number of ÿÿÿÿÿ

We had the same problem. Our Imaging side of training was not the best. We found out through the help of support that ours was caused by having the agent already installed in the image being deployed. I created a new image without the agent (and deleted the registry keys) and it started working fine. Therefore, our issues were caused by having the agent already in the deployed image. Here is a Kace article of what to do http://www.kace.com/support/customer/faq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=2&id=565&artlang=en&highlight=kuid. You will need to sign in to Kace Support to view it.

We are also experiencing the problem that some machines are not fetching the BIOS serial number and some machines are showing RAM changed to '0' and MAC changed from some number to 'blank' are all relates to duplicate records ?

What is the easy way to correct this problem now. should i delete the duplicate records ?

If you contact support we can patch your kbox with legacy duplication detection which might help reduce the number of duplicates. I recently had a customer who did this and it resolved their duplicates except for one machine which got worse as it didn't have a BIOS serial number and kept checking in with a different MAC (probably the wireless card / wired switching) . So we then used the vendor's BIOS utility to set the serial number.

The scenario you describe is causing one machine to have more than one inventory record -- N licenses for 1 machine. I suppose it makes sense to call this "duplicates" However, in the classic case, the biggest problem is machines overwriting each other's inventory because they have the same KUIDs -- so you have N machines taking 1 license. Any ideas on what to call this symptom? "pessimistic KUID's"? [;)]

To correct the duplicates you will need to choose which records to delete. To stop duplicates from being created you should probably open a support ticket so we can research this in depth with you. I could see how a blank MAC address could cause problems though.

We have a Dell computer that had a motherboard replaced. The technician apparently didn't serialize the motherboard with the BIOS utility. It was causing duplicate records in KBOX so we contacted Dell. After two hours of chatting and convincing them there was such a utility, then struggling in vain to get the utility to work without success, they are going to replace the motherboard again under warranty!

It is frustrating for us, when we delete the old machine all tickets associated with the machine are changed to unassigned

It is frustrating for us, when we delete the old machine all tickets associated with the machine are changed to unassigned
It logs the change in the comments, so you can still report on tickets or link them to assets based on the removal of the machine from inventory. You can also link directly to the asset - which is NOT deleted when the inventory item is dropped out due to MIA.

There is a feature request into Kace to have a retired status that will remove the machine from managed inventory (counting against your license) but keep the inventory information and associated tickets.

Mystery solved! I have checked if we change both computer name and IP address in a single instance then Kbox Generates a duplicate record with the different KACE ID. But if we change only hostname or IP address then Kbox recognizes it as a old record and updates the Asset History.

KACE has posted a Patch on support / Ticket management portal to correct this problem. This patch is specific for version 5.0