Registrations to Open-AudIT forums are now closed. To ask any new questions please visit Opmantek Community Questions.

Open-AudIT

What's on your network?
It is currently Tue Apr 16, 2024 3:07 pm

View unanswered posts | View active topics


Board index » Feature Requests

All times are UTC + 10 hours




Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  Page 1 of 2
  [ 28 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next
  Print view Previous topic | Next topic 
Author Message
A_Hull
 Post subject: Approved Software
PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 7:58 pm 
Offline
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:09 am
Posts: 2140
Location: Scotland
I was sure we talked about this before, but I checked and cant find anything.

The idea is to add a tag to the software to mark it as approved. This would in turn let me look for software which has arrived on the network afresh, but is not yet approved, or more likely will never be approved. i.e. all the clutter and junk-ware that users insist on installing without "troubling" the IT department for approval, you know the stuff I mean, 15 toolbars, 5 lottery watchers, and of course Mr Gates' famous "spyware" including MSN and Outlook Express when we have taken the time to uninstall them from the machines in the first place.

Anybodies thoughts... :D

_________________
Andrew

[size=85]OA Server: Windows XP/ XAMPP, Mandriva/Apache, Ubuntu
Auditing: 300+ Wstns, 20+ Srvrs, Thin clients, Linux boxes, Routers, etc
OS's: Windows XP , W2K Srvr, W2K3 Srvr, W2K8, Vista, Windows 7, Linuxes (and a Mac at home)
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Kris M
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 2:28 am 
Offline
Newbie

Joined: Wed May 25, 2005 5:11 am
Posts: 49
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I'd like to second this request. We're also looking for a way to tag certain software as approved (or as known junk/spyware etc). This way software can be approved (or pre-approved) and looking at a list of software it is a lot easier to see what is installed on people's machines and what is known junk. One idea might be that anything listed in the Software Registry is automatically approved.
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
A_Hull
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 7:39 pm 
Offline
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:09 am
Posts: 2140
Location: Scotland
[quote="Kris M"]... One idea might be that anything listed in the Software Registry is automatically approved.


I think this might well be the way to go, since if you don't know the status of the software in terms of license, then in theory, you shouldn't be running it, cos Mr Gates (or whoever) will send the boys round. :twisted:

_________________
Andrew

[size=85]OA Server: Windows XP/ XAMPP, Mandriva/Apache, Ubuntu
Auditing: 300+ Wstns, 20+ Srvrs, Thin clients, Linux boxes, Routers, etc
OS's: Windows XP , W2K Srvr, W2K3 Srvr, W2K8, Vista, Windows 7, Linuxes (and a Mac at home)
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
A_Hull
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 2:10 am 
Offline
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:09 am
Posts: 2140
Location: Scotland
Then again, I don't want to clutter up the software register with all of the hotfixes, updates to adobe, codecs for this'n that and all the other junk, so I think perhaps we do need to keep this separate. I agree all software on the register should be approved by default, but what if a new item appears and exceeds the software license count?

I think we need two different things. We need to know when some smartass installs Office, but doesn't have a license, and pushes the count over the limit, and we need to know when some smartass installs google toolbar, yahoo toolbar, smarass toolbar and every-other toolbar known to man and doesn't have any space left in his browser for web pages. :evil: The software register helps keep tabs on real applications, but I don't need, or indeed want Adobe Reader 5.0.4.5.6.6.7 update 99 in it simply because it is an approved update... :twisted:

What does anybody else think?

_________________
Andrew

[size=85]OA Server: Windows XP/ XAMPP, Mandriva/Apache, Ubuntu
Auditing: 300+ Wstns, 20+ Srvrs, Thin clients, Linux boxes, Routers, etc
OS's: Windows XP , W2K Srvr, W2K3 Srvr, W2K8, Vista, Windows 7, Linuxes (and a Mac at home)
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Kris M
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 1:11 am 
Offline
Newbie

Joined: Wed May 25, 2005 5:11 am
Posts: 49
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
[quote="A_Hull"]Then again, I don't want to clutter up the software register with all of the hotfixes, updates to adobe, codecs for this'n that and all the other junk, so I think perhaps we do need to keep this separate. I agree all software on the register should be approved by default, but what if a new item appears and exceeds the software license count?

I think we need two different things. We need to know when some smartass installs Office, but doesn't have a license, and pushes the count over the limit, and we need to know when some smartass installs google toolbar, yahoo toolbar, smarass toolbar and every-other toolbar known to man and doesn't have any space left in his browser for web pages. :evil: The software register helps keep tabs on real applications, but I don't need, or indeed want Adobe Reader 5.0.4.5.6.6.7 update 99 in it simply because it is an approved update... :twisted:

What does anybody else think?


Yeah my thinking with that idea had been to use it to help simply the process of initally approving software. Obviously licensed software in the Software Register is probably going to be listed as approved anyways. Other than that I'd agree that we should keep the features seperate (i.e. it shouldn't interfere with the Software Registery in any way).

Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Kris M
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 1:55 am 
Offline
Newbie

Joined: Wed May 25, 2005 5:11 am
Posts: 49
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Just to add to this feature request I am thinking that it might also be useful to have a manual description field for each software. i.e. What the software does, why people are using it etc.
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
A_Hull
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:33 am 
Offline
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:09 am
Posts: 2140
Location: Scotland
At first I thought of a simple approved true/false field, but we actually need to know if the software is..

Approved. i.e. we have allowed this in our list of approved software.

Denied (in other words it must be removed asap) Yahoo Tool Bar, MSN, or whatever things you are trying to discourage.

or

Unknown (the default state of anything the first time it shows up on the audit) This would be something in need of approval or removal.

Has anybody any more thoughts before we start to code this?

_________________
Andrew

[size=85]OA Server: Windows XP/ XAMPP, Mandriva/Apache, Ubuntu
Auditing: 300+ Wstns, 20+ Srvrs, Thin clients, Linux boxes, Routers, etc
OS's: Windows XP , W2K Srvr, W2K3 Srvr, W2K8, Vista, Windows 7, Linuxes (and a Mac at home)
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Kris M
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 6:36 am 
Offline
Newbie

Joined: Wed May 25, 2005 5:11 am
Posts: 49
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
[quote="A_Hull"]At first I thought of a simple approved true/false field, but we actually need to know if the software is..

Approved. i.e. we have allowed this in our list of approved software.

Denied (in other words it must be removed asap) Yahoo Tool Bar, MSN, or whatever things you are trying to discourage.

or

Unknown (the default state of anything the first time it shows up on the audit) This would be something in need of approval or removal.

Has anybody any more thoughts before we start to code this?


Hmm that's a good point. I still think that an approved/denied field is a good idea but perhaps we could also have a field to quickly categorize software. So we could have a drop down list of a lot of different software types and people can manually select one to categorize the software if they want. I see this as probably being a optional manual process similar to the manual data section on the computer summary page but if people wanted to automate it somehow perhaps we could find some kind of web service that automatically categorizes software so that it could be done as an audit happens.

So there would be the category field as well as the description field where people could enter more detailed notes about the software (and what it is being used for etc). This way categorizing is different from just a simple approval/disapproval but the ability to explicatively approve or deny software exists.

We also might want to think about the level at which this approval takes place. i.e. Do we want to universally approve a particular software package for everyone or do we want to approve it for each user who has it installed? This would probably tie in with the Software Registry because this way we could track what licensed software was installed and approved for each user (as well as any details about why it was approved). This way if you are over-licensed on a certain software package you can see who had the software approved for installation and why that software was approved for them (i.e. the original business case or request from their manager). So if software just suddenly appears on someone's machine it's a lot easier to determine who isn't supposed to have it installed.

We could have both; one approval flag for known "good" software so it's easy to see at a glance on the All Software page which of the software is "bad"/"junk" (i.e. not approved for corporate use) and then another approval flag for each individual install. i.e. Why 'John' has Microsoft Office installed and why it was approved (or is not approved and thus must be removed as soon as possible). The approval flag (and justification description) for individual application installs would probably need to be located somewhere in the Software Registry section.

So just to clarify these would be separate features: approval for individual application installs of licensed software would be in the Software Register and the overall good/bad approval would be for the All Software list so that we can quickly identify "bad"/non-desirable software.

Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Snoop
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:59 pm 
Offline
Newbie

Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 4:32 am
Posts: 42
Hello Everyone,

GREAT APP!

I've just installed this tool and I must say I'm really impresed, it helps a lot.

About the Approved Software... has any dev been done on this... this is just exactly what I'm looking for (this and an option to remove the programs remotely)


Thanks for any help


Adrian Raduti

_________________
Server Info:
OS : Windows 2003 SP2
Auditing: 1700 Machines
LDAP: Active Directory
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Snoop
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:15 am 
Offline
Newbie

Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 4:32 am
Posts: 42
BUMP

anyone alive? :-)

sorry for bugging

_________________
Server Info:
OS : Windows 2003 SP2
Auditing: 1700 Machines
LDAP: Active Directory
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
jhurd8025
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:22 am 
Offline
Helper

Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 1:32 am
Posts: 73
Location: Dallas,Texas
I like the sound of this!

_________________
1400 Servers Audited (1 hour interval) Applied via a local scheduler, deployed via GPO.
Running OA on IIS6 Web Server
90% Windows 2k3 Server (std,ent)
5% Windows XP
5% Windows 2000
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
A_Hull
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:52 am 
Offline
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:09 am
Posts: 2140
Location: Scotland
Still very much alive, just overworked (and underpaid, but aint we all :lol: ). Waiting for a bit of slack to let me get my teeth in to some of the neat features we have yet to code. Meantime, if anybody else would like to assist with a bit of coding... :wink:

_________________
Andrew

[size=85]OA Server: Windows XP/ XAMPP, Mandriva/Apache, Ubuntu
Auditing: 300+ Wstns, 20+ Srvrs, Thin clients, Linux boxes, Routers, etc
OS's: Windows XP , W2K Srvr, W2K3 Srvr, W2K8, Vista, Windows 7, Linuxes (and a Mac at home)
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Snoop
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 5:27 am 
Offline
Newbie

Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 4:32 am
Posts: 42
know the feeling (underpaid) :-), I'd love to help, just not in any way a coder :-( maybe you can point me to some fast tracks to learn vbs... until then I can only help you with testing...
I'm currently a security specialist for a very big diverse(different OS/HW) company so I can give you an overview of how new implementation behave.

_________________
Server Info:
OS : Windows 2003 SP2
Auditing: 1700 Machines
LDAP: Active Directory
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
NickBrown
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:16 pm 
Offline
Contributor

Joined: Fri Jul 28, 2006 6:30 am
Posts: 157
Location: London
[quote="A_Hull"]At first I thought of a simple approved true/false field, but we actually need to know if the software is..

Approved. i.e. we have allowed this in our list of approved software.

Denied (in other words it must be removed asap) Yahoo Tool Bar, MSN, or whatever things you are trying to discourage.

or

Unknown (the default state of anything the first time it shows up on the audit) This would be something in need of approval or removal.

Has anybody any more thoughts before we start to code this?


I've had a separate need recently to group software which may overlap this request. My own need was to differentiate between:

1. Software that is part of our standard PC build
2. Software not part of our standard build, but approved
3. OEM utility software
4. Non-approved software

This feature could then be used throughout OA to filter results displayed e.g. I might like the "Software Detected ..." section on the home page to only show software from groups 2 & 4 above.

From a DB POV, it's simple enough:
1. New table for the groups
2. New field in the software table - a multi-value list of group ids from the group table.
but, as ever, the GUI will take some time to code.

I might look into this when I've finished some other stuff I'm working on.

(I've also wished in the past that audited systems could be grouped, but that's another issue ...)

Cheers, Nick.

_________________
Cheers, Nick.

[size=85]OA Server: Windows Server 2003 / Apache 2
Auditing: 1600 Workstations, 200 Servers
OS's: Windows XP / Windows 2000 / Windows 2003 Server / Windows Vista
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
A_Hull
 Post subject: Re: Approved Software
PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 2:23 am 
Offline
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:09 am
Posts: 2140
Location: Scotland
[quote="NickBrown"][quote="A_Hull"]At first I thought of a simple approved true/false field, but we actually need to know if the software is..

Approved. i.e. we have allowed this in our list of approved software.

Denied (in other words it must be removed asap) Yahoo Tool Bar, MSN, or whatever things you are trying to discourage.

or

Unknown (the default state of anything the first time it shows up on the audit) This would be something in need of approval or removal.

Has anybody any more thoughts before we start to code this?


I've had a separate need recently to group software which may overlap this request. My own need was to differentiate between:

1. Software that is part of our standard PC build
2. Software not part of our standard build, but approved
3. OEM utility software
4. Non-approved software

This feature could then be used throughout OA to filter results displayed e.g. I might like the "Software Detected ..." section on the home page to only show software from groups 2 & 4 above.

From a DB POV, it's simple enough:
1. New table for the groups
2. New field in the software table - a multi-value list of group ids from the group table.
but, as ever, the GUI will take some time to code.

I might look into this when I've finished some other stuff I'm working on.

(I've also wished in the past that audited systems could be grouped, but that's another issue ...)

Cheers, Nick.

Good ideas, all of them. BTW Winventory used to do machine groups, so you might like to take a look at that for a few ideas, (think it was pretty simple, and needed quite a lot of user input).

_________________
Andrew

[size=85]OA Server: Windows XP/ XAMPP, Mandriva/Apache, Ubuntu
Auditing: 300+ Wstns, 20+ Srvrs, Thin clients, Linux boxes, Routers, etc
OS's: Windows XP , W2K Srvr, W2K3 Srvr, W2K8, Vista, Windows 7, Linuxes (and a Mac at home)
LDAP: Active Directory[/size]
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  Page 1 of 2
  [ 28 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

Board index » Feature Requests

All times are UTC + 10 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group