Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent 6.0 includes new features, improves usability, and resolves several previous issues.
Many of these improvements were made in direct response to suggestions from our customers. We thank you for your time and valuable inputs. We hope you continue to help us ensure our products meet all your needs. You can post feedback in the Secure Configuration Manager forum, our community Web site that also includes product notifications, blogs, and product user groups.
For more information about this release and for the latest Release Notes, see the Secure Configuration Manager Documentation Web site. To download this product, see the Secure Configuration Manager Web site.
The following outline the key features and functions provided by this version, as well as issues resolved in this release:
SCM Windows Agent 6.0 allows you to manage network device endpoints using the Windows agent. For more information, see Managing Network Device Endpoints in the Installation and Configuration Guide for NetIQ Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent.
SCM Windows Agent 6.0 adds support for Windows Server 2012 R2. For more information, see Requirements for the Windows Agent in the Installation and Configuration Guide for NetIQ Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent.
This release resolves the following major customer issues. For the list of software fixes and enhancements in previous releases, see the Secure Configuration Manager Documentation page.
Issue: When the AD New Users check is run, it fails to find new users even when new users are present. (BUG 834039)
Fix: This issue is resolved, as the Agent performance is improved in this release.
Issue: The following error is displayed when running SQL Server Agent proxy account: (BUG 870679)
Cannot connect (server) using protocol TCP/IP and property 1433. Check network connection and authentication mode
Fix: This issue is resolved, as the SQL Server Agent proxy account check is updated.
For information about hardware requirements, supported operating systems, and browsers, see the Installation and Configuration Guide for NetIQ Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent.
To install Secure Configuration Manager 6.0 Windows Agent, see the Installation and Configuration Guide for NetIQ Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent.
You can upgrade to Secure Configuration Manager 6.0 Windows Agent from Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent 5.9.1 or 5.9. To upgrade to Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent 6.0, see Installation and Configuration Guide for NetIQ Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent.
NetIQ recommends that you review the following considerations before installing or upgrading to this version:
If you want to install or upgrade an agent on a local computer, use the NetIQSecurityAgentForWindows.msi setup program included in the installation kit.
If you want to install or upgrade the agent on remote computers, use the Deployment wizard in the Secure Configuration Manager console. Before using the remote deployment feature, you must locally install or upgrade at least one agent in each domain. Secure Configuration Manager uses this first upgraded agent as a Deployment Agent for the domain. Once an agent is upgraded, Secure Configuration Manager can automatically assign it as a Deployment Agent. For more information about deployment and Deployment Agents, see the Installation and Configuration Guide for NetIQ Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent and the User Guide for NetIQ Secure Configuration Manager.
The Secure Configuration Manager 6.0 setup program automatically adds a Windows agent to the Core Services computer. If a Windows agent already exists on the computer, the setup program upgrades the agent to this version. Secure Configuration Manager also assigns this agent as the default Deployment Agent for the computer's domain.
Before using the Deployment feature in the console to upgrade older agents, you might need to specify a fully qualified host name (FQHN) for the agent computer. Secure Configuration Manager needs to know in which domain each agent resides so that Core Services can assign a Deployment Agent to use for deploying version 6.0 to the agents.
During installation and deployment, the installation program makes the following changes on the target computer:
Automatically grants the “Log on as a service” right to the specified account for the Windows agent service.
Enables the Services utility in the Windows Control Panel to automatically restart the Windows agent service after a failure.
If you want to use an upgraded agent as a Deployment Agent, you might need to modify the run-as account for the NetIQ Security Agent for Windows service on that agent's computer. The service account for Deployment Agents must have the credentials to deploy to remote computers. For example, specify a domain administrator account. When you upgrade a Windows agent, the setup program persists the agent settings, including baselines and registry key settings.
If you upgrade an agent that communicates with Core Services on a port other than the default ports, you must manually re-register the upgraded agent. When the upgraded agent registers with Secure Configuration Manager Core Services, the default communication port changes from 1626 to 1627.
This version does not install these release notes or the Installation and Configuration Guide for NetIQ Secure Configuration Manager Windows Agent included in the installation kit. To maintain the latest documentation on the console computer, copy the files to the Documentation folder, by default \%Program Files%\NetIQ\Secure Configuration Manager\Documentation.
You can upgrade a Windows agent that has the NetIQ Secure Configuration Manager Module for SCAP (SCAP module) installed on the agent computer.
If you want to re-deploy an agent that has already been successfully deployed to a remote computer, you must uninstall the agent first. For example, you might want to change the credentials of the Windows agent service or resolve issues with the agent. The Deployment wizard does not change the settings for a previously installed agent, even though you modify the settings as part of the deployment process. The Windows agent setup program prevents you from installing an agent when the same version already exists on the computer, but the Deployment wizard does not.
To verify that the Windows agent installation was successful, on the computer where you installed the Windows agent, open the Control Panel utility for adding and removing programs. The currently installed programs should include NetIQ Security Agent for Windows 6.0.
There are no known issues.
For the list of known issues in previous releases, see the Secure Configuration Manager Documentation Web site.
Our goal is to provide documentation that meets your needs. If you have suggestions for improvements, please email Documentation-Feedback@netiq.com. We value your input and look forward to hearing from you.
For detailed contact information, see the Support Contact Information Web site.
For general corporate and product information, see the NetIQ Corporate Web site.
For interactive conversations with your peers and NetIQ experts, become an active member of Secure Configuration Manager forum, our community Web site that offers product forums, product notifications, blogs, and product user groups.
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