Network Server Suite

March 2024

Version 11.4

March 6, 2024

New Features
  • IA: Additional logging has been introduced to troubleshoot email issues within Instant Alert Server Options.

Enhancements
  • DM: A new option has been added to Device Manager to allow data encryption between the Enterprise Console server and the IBM i.

  • DM: The Device Manager interface now has a Ribbon style toolbar.

  • EC: A new encryption feature to protect data transmitted between the Enterprise Console and the IBM i software has been added.

  • EC: The Enterprise Server's Purge Monitor has been updated to move closed alerts to the history schema tables.

  • EC: A new Alert Key (&AK) substitution variable can be used when constructing an alert message.

  • EC: The IBM i Ping Monitor has been enhanced to be multi-threaded. It now sends an additional value to the IBM i to indicate if data needs to be encrypted to and from the Enterprise Console.

  • EC: Device Manager will send an updated list of devices to the Enterprise Console Server whenever devices are added, updated or deleted. This removes the need to 'Reload Devices' from the Enterprise Console Client because the server will push the list of devices to all connected clients.

  • EC: A new option has been added to the Enterprise Console client application to disable skin support should there be drawing issues such as black backgrounds.

  • EC: Enterprise Console Client's login form has been rebranded.

  • EC: The devices report has been modified to draw the background of the status column correctly. The alert report no longer draws the background for the alert type and comment columns in black.

  • NSS: Network Server Suite fully supports Windows Server 2022.

  • NSS: Installers and applications have been updated to use new copyright information, branding colors and EULA.

  • NSS: The ‘About’ form for all Windows User Interfaces has been rebranded.

  • NSS: The UIs have been updated to be in line with the new Fortra branding colors.

Fixes
  • NSS: A mixture of characters can now be used for SQL usernames and passwords required during an installation or repair.

  • EC: Fixed a memory leak in the Enterprise Console Client when drawing alert trees.

  • EC: The filtering of the list of available devices to select from for Enterprise Console System Monitoring now works as expected.

  • EC: The Enterprise Console Client issue relating to "Unknown Function" errors for both HelpdeskDefaults and IAMessageDefaults has been fixed.

  • IA: Renaming an Address Book entry now correctly updates and saves all references in broadcast groups and schedules.

  • NSS: The Network Manager service has been updated to be more robust.

  • NSS: The issue arising when 'Security level is set to 2 but no encryption password was provided' when SNMP v3 traps were received, has been fixed.

March 2023

Version 11.3

March 9, 2023

New Features
  • Enterprise Console: Users can now reset their status when they log on after their connection terminated unexpectedly.

  • Enterprise Console: A new section has been added to Device Manager to allow SNMPv3 Users to be maintained.

  • Windows 11 is fully supported.

Enhancements
  • Enterprise Console: The total number of alerts and actions can now be viewed within Enterprise Server Options.

  • Enterprise Console: Users can now view archived alerts which were written to *.eca files in previous versions of the software.

  • Enterprise Console: The Device Manager user interface has been modernized.

  • Enterprise Console: Several redundant SNMP properties have been removed from Device Manager.

  • Enterprise Console: Two new buttons have been added to the device filtering selection when viewing closed alerts to enhance device selection.

  • Enterprise Console: The default connection timeouts within Device Manager have been decreased to thirty seconds.

  • Enterprise Console: Generic failed login messages are now displayed within the Enterprise Console.

  • CCM: A new JAMS template has been added to the default set of templates.

  • CCM: The new VIOS Monitoring v2.0 template has been added to the default templates file (Default.csf). On a new install, the template will be listed underneath the AIX templates group. For upgrades, the templates might need to be imported for it to be displayed.

  • NSS: The NSS Trap Receiver has been enhanced to support SNMP v3.

  • Windows Agent: Windows agents can now continuously monitor for up to 48 hours if there are connection issues to CCM.

  • Unix Agent: UNIX agents will now continue monitoring for up to 48 hours without confirmation from CCM that they are still authorized to run.

Fixes
  • Enterprise Console: The content of Instant Alert message actions will no longer revert to the default settings when the service restarts.

  • Enterprise Console: Emails are no longer duplicated when you have a message type of 'Default' as well as 'Email' selected on an Instant Alert Message action.

  • Enterprise Console: Sending an ad hoc email from the client now includes alert comments.

  • Enterprise Console: An issue where false positive Ping Monitor failures were sent to windows servers after upgrading from version 10.3 has been resolved.

  • Enterprise Console: Messages written to the ActionMonitor.hlf file, for command actions, now have substitution variables resolved as expected, if used.

  • CCM: Fixed the issue "Error Retrieving SystemUpTime Integer Value From ServerData" when adding a CPU, Filesystem and Memory criteria within Linux agents.

  • CCM: The ability to test criteria for Unix agents from CCM has been reinstated.

  • CCM: Following an update to software components, a fix has been applied to convert milliseconds to seconds when executing TCP criteria for Windows agents.

  • NSS: The NSS installer can now be launched directly from a root directory.

  • Windows Agent: Auto-closing of alerts in the Windows agent was sometimes delayed. This has been fixed.

  • Windows Agent: The NSS Windows Agent installer no longer interacts with the Restart Manager to prevent the 'Files In Use' dialog from displaying a long list of unrelated applications.

  • Unix Agent: Fixed an issue within Unix agents with malformed reporting records allowing Advanced Reporting Suite to seamlessly collect this data.

  • Unix Agent: The NSS Unix Agent's Log File monitor has been enhanced to handle log file entries with special characters to avoid reading errors such as "utf-8 codec can’t decode byte 0xc3".

  • AIX Agent: Multiple criteria now load correctly for the AIX Error Report monitor.

  • AIX Agent: The NSS AIX Agent has been updated to ignore connections from port scanner applications.

  • Linux Agent: Since version 11.2 the Linux version of HALUSM has interrogated the process table at the thread level. This meant that a very small number of applications which assigned threads names with embedded spaces could trigger parsing errors. From version 11.3, HALUSM is more robust against this behavior in its interrogation of the process table content.

  • Linux Agent: A fix to the parsing of facility specifiers for syslog (for example the argument to the "-s" option) means that they are now be interpreted as intended, even if specified in lower case or with the "LOG_" prefix missing.

May 2021

Version 11.2

May 5, 2021

Enhancements
  • Enterprise Console: The System Monitor within Enterprise Server Options has been enhanced to make it multi-threaded.

  • Enterprise Console: The Ping Monitor within Enterprise Server Options has been enhanced to make it multi-threaded.

  • CCM: An option has been added to allow the setting of Enterprise Server and CCM Server for all defined agents with a single click.

  • AIX/Linux Agents: Long running actions can now run asynchronously by adding a new command line option (-X) to the /usr/bin/halsum.sh file.

  • Linux Agent: A Linux Agent for Ubuntu has been made available.

Fixes
  • NSS: The copyright information has been updated for all applications.

  • Enterprise Console: Fixed an issue with alerts being closed on the IBM i but remaining open on the Enterprise Console.

  • Enterprise Console: Closing a forwarded alert will now close the alert on the Enterprise Console device which originally sent the alert.

  • Enterprise Console: Users can now purge alerts from UNKNOWN devices that are no longer defined in Device Manager.

  • Enterprise Console: Users can now delete alerts from UNKNOWN devices that are no longer defined in Device Manager.

  • Enterprise Console: Fixed an issue in Enterprise Console where the alert status was not updating.

  • Enterprise Console: A fix has been applied to the System Monitor to send the correct command syntax to Windows and Unix agents.

  • Enterprise Console: Enterprise Console Clients that are disconnected from the server without logging off, no longer receive an access violation when logging back on.

  • CCM: The actions and criteria sequencing for rules didn't load correctly, causing unforeseeable results. This has been fixed in this release.

  • CCM: When defining criteria for a TCP/UDP Generic rule, you were unable to use the 'Execute Command' option due to a form validation issue. This has been fixed.

  • Instant Alert: Instant Alert message processing has been improved to avoid 'Out of Memory' errors.

  • Log Viewer: Users are now able to close multiple log files.

  • Windows Agent: The reading of large event logs no longer fails with an error code of 87.

  • Windows Agent: A new setting has been made available against Windows agents to reset the held and release statuses against a rule on start-up. This is only applicable to rules that were held or released by means of a "Hold Rule" and/or "Release Rule" action.

September 2020

Version 11.1

September 17, 2020

Enhancements
  • Enterprise Console: Closed/Purged alerts are now in separate tables to improve performance when viewing and processing active alerts.
  • Log files now preserve the file extension when rolled over once the maximum file size has been reached.
  • The dependency on MSXML 4.0 has been removed.
  • The functionality to log an alert using either the local Enterprise Server's date and time or using the remote device's date and time has been restored.
Fixes
  • Enterprise Console: Alert text will no longer wrap to the next line.
  • Enterprise Console: Any user can now create private layouts.
  • Enterprise Console: Emailing a Unix alert which contained carriage returns and line feeds resulted in a malformed email. This has been fixed.
  • Enterprise Console: Fixed an intermittent access violation issue when switching from CLOSED to OPEN alerts in the EC Client.
  • Enterprise Console: Forwarded alerts will now include the Trace information.
  • Enterprise Console: Notes added against a Device Group in Device Manager can be viewed in the details window in the Enterprise Console Client when a user clicks on the group.
  • Enterprise Console: On some operating systems, the 'Activate On New Alert' feature didn't work. This has been corrected.
  • Enterprise Console: The 'Search For' setting option on a rule's criteria now saves correctly.
  • Enterprise Console: The device group reference of a forwarded alert will now be retained. This value is used to add the originating device to a matching device group reference. This is only relevant to forwarded alerts received for which a source device hasn't been defined in Device Manager.
  • Enterprise Console: The number of alerts received wasn't being logged for reporting purposes. This has been fixed.
  • Linux Agent: The agent has been updated to ignore connections from port scanner applications.
  • Linux Agent: The issue "Error Retrieving SystemUpTime Integer Value From ServerData" when adding CPU, Filesystem and Memory criteria has been fixed.

  • Missing icons have been restored on the Device Manager toolbar.
  • There was an issue generating the Machine Reference value used by the license key. This has been corrected.
  • To comply with GDPR, all references to Gender in NSS have been removed.

March 2020

Version 11.0.6

(Note that this release only applies to an updated version of the Enterprise Console App (11.0.3) running on the iOS platform. The current version of Network Server Suite and Enterprise Console for Windows remains at 11.0.5. Please see below)

March 13, 2020

Enhancements
  • iOS App: Alerts are periodically refreshed based on the new 'Alert Count' and 'Refresh Interval' properties.
  • iOS App: This release supports both v10.3 and v11 of the Halcyon Enterprise Server application.
  • iOS App: Special characters are now fully supported within comments.
Version 11.0.5 (PTF 11.0.2020.056)

March 05, 2020

Fixes
  • NSS Install/Upgrade: The installer has been modified to allow upgrades of the Enterprise Console 10.3 client.
  • NSS Install/Upgrade: The installer will now abort during an upgrade and/or install if the SQL Server version is 2008 or earlier.

February 2020

Version 11.0.5 (PTF 11.0.2020.042)

February 18, 2020

Enhancements
  • Error handling during network outages has been improved in this release.
  • Alerts now support UTC dates and times.
  • The Android App now supports alert paging by way of the 'Load More' action.
Fixes
  • An issue with the installer running on SUSE Linux 64-bit platforms has been fixed.
  • An SQL Injection vulnerability has been fixed in this release.
  • Special characters are now fully supported within comments.
  • Default values for all items in the Preferences section, such as Connection and Read Timeouts have been added.
  • The number format of certain languages sometimes raised an error when the Enterprise Console client tried to connect to the Enterprise Server. This has now been fixed.
Version 11.0.4 (PTF 11.0.2020.031)

February 04, 2020

New Features
  • New MQ Monitor templates for AIX and Linux have been made available in the Central Configuration Manager (CCM).
  • An advanced filtering feature for closed alerts has been added within the Enterprise Console client.
  • New alert archiving settings have been made available in Enterprise Server Options to manage closed and purged alerts. Alerts were previously written to an archive file, but now remain in the database. Periodic purging will take place depending on these settings.
  • The Enterprise Console is now able to capture user statistics such as the number of alerts acknowledged, closed and replied to.
  • Enterprise Console now captures alert statistics such as the number of minutes taken to close or reply to an alert.
  • Alert text statistics, such as number of alerts by frequency of text message, are now being captured.
  • A user can now search for alert within a panel by entering a partial match of text
  • Enterprise Console layouts are now stored in the SQL database. Users wanting to import a layout from version 10.3 can do so from the Enterprise Console client. Any user can create a 'Private' layout which is only visible to them. 'Public' layouts are created by users with administration rights and these are available to all users.
  • It is now possible to report on Enterprise Console archived alerts.
Enhancements
  • An updated version of the 'Infor M3 Grid Monitoring' template has been made available within CCM.
  • A new AIX VIOS template has been made available in the CCM.
  • A new Source Type has been added to the Enterprise Console to recognize alerts received from the IBMi Log File Monitor.
  • Customers can now use database names that are different to the Halcyon defaults. this enables the hosting of multiple installations of Network Server Suite on the same SQL Server instance.
  • The ability to report on Enterprise Console alerts, such as Monthly Alert Summary by Platform, Top 10 Alerts, Alert Summary by Device Group and Alert Summary by Product, has been made available.
  • 'Alert Selection' has been improved for each alert panel shown in the Enterprise Console client so you can, for example, filter alerts based on one or more conditions of Alert Type, Source Type and Alert Status.
  • It is now possible to enter comments against closed alerts.
  • The REST action now supports JSON.
  • The REST action now allows use of both GET and PUT.
  • Network Server Suite now includes an IMAP Monitor.
  • Online product help is now available from within all Network Server Suite applications.
  • CCM now includes an action that has the ability to Hold and Release rules from within a different Monitor.
  • Windows agent TCP Monitor rules now include firewall proxy settings
  • An SNMP Trap action for an IBMi alert now includes additional information such as the alert ID, Action ID, Alert severity and Rule information.
Fixes
  • In certain circumstances, monitoring steps on the Windows agent when settings get updated. This has been fixed.
  • Processing large log files within the Windows Log File Monitor meant that Network Server Suite could become unresponsive. This has been fixed.
  • The Windows agent would fail while refreshing some services. This has been fixed.
  • The System Monitor would not raise alerts for an IBMi environment being completely down. This has been fixed.
  • A fix has been applied so that forwarded alerts on a secondary Enterprise Console now have pending actions canceled when the alert is acknowledged on the primary Enterprise Console.

October 2019

Version 11.0 (AIX and Linux Agents only. These are backward compatible with v10.3)
Fixes
  • A fix has been applied so that releasing a Linux Log File Rule no longer causes old entries to be processed.
  • Data processing now gathers data for all collections as expected.
  • Automatically suspending a rule 'Until Triggered x Times' now raises an alert as expected.
  • A fix has been applied so that CPU and filesystem data is now correctly parsed on AIX devices when running under regional settings.
  • A fix has been applied so that AIX agents can now be run as a subsystem.
  • Installers now check for both the existence of a SUSE Firewall and also if it is running.

May 2018

Version 10.3
  • NSS Managed Server (Linux - SUSE 11 on Power PPC - Big Endian) has been made available for download from the HelpSystems Community Portal.
  • NSS Managed Server (Linux - SUSE 12 on Power PPC - Little Endian) has been made available for download from the HelpSystems Community Portal.

July 2016

Version 10.3
  • System performance when saving rules within the Central Configuration Manager (CCM) has been improved.

June 2016

Version 10.3
  • Windows agent Web Application and TCP/HTTP Monitor rules now include the ability to select the type of secure protocol used for authentication.
  • Trap Receiver has been enhanced to allow the receiving of Traps from any "Community" not just "Public".
  • Trap Receiver has been enhanced to be able to receive Traps from multiple NICs (network cards).

March 2016

Version 10.3
  • A fix has been applied to stop the Central Configuration Manager (CCM) from returning an access violation error when applying templates on an agent device.
  • Network Server Suite now includes an AIX template for Temenos T24, a core banking software system. This template is only available on a clean install or if the existing templates are deleted and re-imported.
  • A fix has been applied to Central Configuration Manager (CCM) to remove the Performance Reports option from Device context menus.
  • Linux rules now allow a CPU Load greater than 100% when totalling up across devices. For example, if a single device has multiple processors.
  • A fix has been applied to Central Configuration Manager (CCM) Log File Monitor to list files when browsing on a remote device.
  • A fix has been applied to Central Configuration Manager (CCM) so that the status bar progression displayed when saving information fro devices accurately reflects the progress of the save operation.
  • A fix has been applied so that rule criteria is correctly resequenced in Central Configuration Manager (CCM).
  • A fix has been applied so that when simultaneously saving to multiple devices in Central Configuration Manager (CCM), the dialog no longer returns to the top of the device list as each save action is completed.
  • A fix has been applied so that saving a large number of rules within Central Configuration Manager (CCM) to a Windows agent device now completes as expected.
  • A fix has been applied so that Central Configuration Manager (CCM) no longer collapses rule groups when the rules are saved.
  • A fix has been applied so that applying a new license to a device from within Central Configuration Manager (CCM) no longer causes an access violation.
  • Advanced Reporting (Data Warehouse), AIX and Windows templates are included in this release. These templates are only available on a clean install or if the existing templates are deleted and re-imported.
  • AIX templates now include rules to monitor for defunct processes in the System Monitoring (Standard) template. These template rules are only available on a clean install or if the existing templates are deleted and re-imported.
  • Rules for zombie processes are now included in the Linux 'Red Hat' System Monitoring (Standard) and SUSE System Monitoring (Standard) templates. These template rules are only available on a clean install or if the existing templates are deleted and re-imported.
  • The Infor M3 Grid Monitoring templates for Windows have been updated in this release. These template rules are only available on a clean install or if the existing templates are deleted and re-imported.
  • The Lawson Movex ServerView Monitoring templates for Windows have been updated in this release. These template rules are only available on a clean install or if the existing templates are deleted and re-imported.
  • Within Central Configuration Manager (CCM) the 'Agent Intelligence' section has been re-titled 'Auto-Close Options'.
  • A fix has been applied to prevent Enterprise Console causing an access violation following the reloading of devices after changing Device Groups within Device Manager.
  • Enterprise Server Options - Actions, now include the ability to define which actions are cancelled (or not) when the service is restarted.
  • Enterprise Console now allows you to close all the alerts within a Group by closing the Group.
  • Enterprise Console has been updated to support Halcyon Custom Journal Monitor for IBM i.
  • Enterprise Server Options includes a new user permission for 'Close Inquiry Alerts'. When set to 'No' the user is not allowed to close Inquiry Alerts from within the Console. This setting does not affect the ability to Acknowledge an Inquiry Alert or Replay to an Inquiry Alert.
  • A fix has been applied so that the alert background continues to flash, where set, when the panel containing the alert is resized.
  • A fix has been applied so that it is possible to copy the text from within the Enterprise Console alert.
  • A fix has been applied so that Enterprise Console now displays the correct titles for IBM i device information.
  • Enterprise Console now stores 'Layouts' in folder: C:\Users\All Users\Halcyon\Enterprise Console\Layouts. During upgrade, the installer only copies layout files of the current user. All other users must manually copy the layout files to the new folder path.
  • A fix has been applied so that Enterprise Console removes CLOSED alerts when the service is restarted.
  • Enterprise Console is now capable of displaying IBM i Cache Battery information for suitably equipped IBM i devices.
  • A fix has been applied so that Instant Alert now processes the correct number of times that a message is to be sent.
  • A fix has been applied so that the Network Server Suite migration tool imports Enterprise Console Users and Central Configuration Manager (CCM) templates.
  • A fix has been applied to Enterprise Server Options so that a copied rule can now be pasted.
  • A fix has been applied to Enterprise Server Options so that rules are shown in the correct sequence order following editing.
  • Web Application Monitor now includes substitution variables for Date and Time.
  • A fix has been applied so that a Rest Command action on a Windows agent rule no longer fails if there is a problem with the security certificate on the server.
  • The Windows agent File / Folder count has been fixed in this release.
  • The Windows agent HTTP Monitor has been enhanced to provide the ability to check the returned HTTP Status Code.
  • The Windows agent HTTP Monitor has been enhanced to support TLS authentication.
  • A fix has been applied to Windows agent HTTP Monitor so that alerts which include a username no longer have the value encrypted.
  • The Windows agent Log File Monitor now allows you to define whether a linefeed character is required at the end of a line before it is processed.
  • A fix has been applied to the Windows agent Log File Monitor so that all entries are included in log files when multiple log files have been created between check intervals.
  • A fix has been applied so that a memory leak within the Windows agent Server Manager service has been removed.
  • A fix has been applied to the Windows agent Service Monitor so that alerts are raised for a service in 'stopping' status.
  • A fix has been applied to the Web Application Monitor so that the 'Use Results From Previous Criteria' option works as intended.

July 2015

Version 10.2
  • A fix has been applied so that Windows Agent WMI rules reset counters if the instance that created an alert no longer exists.

Archived Release Notes

Please check the following archive files for Network Server Suite release information prior to 2015.

October 2014

July 2014

January 2014

October 2013

July 2013

April 2013

January 2012

November 2011

 

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