Novell ZENWORKS LINUX MANAGEMENT 7.3 IR2, Administration Manual, Page: 107 / 684

Managing Registration Keys and Rules
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Managing Registration Keys and
Rules
You can manually add devices to folders and groups, but this can be a burdensome task if you have a
large number of devices or are consistently registering new devices. The best way to manage a large
number of devices is to have them automatically added to the correct folders and groups when they
register. To accomplish this, you can use registration keys, registration rules, or both.
Both registration keys and registration rules let you assign a name, folder, and group memberships to
a device. However, there are differences between keys and rules that you should be aware of before
choosing whether you want to use one or both methods for registration.
Š
Registration Keys: A registration key is an alphanumeric string that you manually define or
randomly generate. During installation of the ZENworks
®
Agent on a device, the registration
key must be input manually or through a response file. When the device connects to a
ZENworks Server for the first time, the device is given a name according to the defined naming
scheme and then added to the folder and groups defined within the key.
You can create one or more registration keys to ensure that servers and workstations are placed
in the desired folders and groups. For example, you might want to ensure that all of the Sales
department's devices are added to the
/Workstations/Sales
folder but are divided into three
different groups (SalesTeam1, SalesTeam2, and SalesTeam3) depending on their team
assignments. You could create three different registration keys and configure each one to add
the Sales workstations to the
/Workstations/Sales
folder and the appropriate team group.
As long as each device uses the correct registration key, the device is added to the appropriate
folder and group.
Registration key names are not case sensitive. For example, registration keys named “MyKey”
and “mykey” cannot exist in the same folder. If you try to create a registration key named
“Mykey” in a folder that already contains a registration key named “mykey,” you receive the
error message “Unable to complete your request for the following reason: Unable to create the
New Registration Key, see Tomcat logs for details.”
Š Registration Rules: If you don’t want to enter a registration key during installation, or if you
want devices to be automatically added to different folders and groups based on predefined
criteria (for example, operating system type, CPU, or IP address), you can use registration
rules.
ZENworks includes a default registration rule for servers and another one for workstations. If a
device registers without a key, the default registration rules are applied to determine the folder
and group assignments. The two default rules cause all servers to be added to the
/Servers
folder and all workstations to the
/Workstations
folder. The device hostname is used for its
name. You cannot delete these two default rules, but you can modify the naming scheme and
the folder and groups to which the servers and workstations are added.
The two default rules are designed to ensure that no server or workstation registration fails. You
can define additional rules that enable you to filter devices as they register and add them to
different folders and groups. If, as recommended in
Section 1.1.3, “Folders vs. Groups,” on
page 25 , you’ve established folders for devices with similar configuration settings and groups
for devices with similar assignments, newly registered devices automatically receive the
appropriate configuration settings and assignments.