Overview
Device groups are used by the agent to figure out which deployments it should execute. They are made up in a variety of methods which even includes memberships in other groups. This allows you to make complex membership scenarios where one group might add a server, but another might remove it again.
Types
There are many types of group types available and some may run on the server while the majority run on the agent.
| Rule | Runs on | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Machine List | Server | A simple list of fully qualified hostnames that can be updated by the administrator. |
| SQL Query | Server | A user definable SQL query that has full access to the region’s database and all the tables it contains. |
| File List | Server | A text file located on the management server or another server over a share that contains a list of the hostnames that should be members of the group. This file could be created and maintained by some sort of automation. |
| Agent Data | Agent | Any data collected on the agent can be used to determine if the computer is a member of the rule. |
| File State | Agent | Membership is based on the existence or non-existence of a file on the agent computer. |
| Script | Agent | A python based script can be defined by the administrator to determine if the computer should be a member of the rule or not. This script has full access to the entire .NET library and can do anything it needs to make the decision. |
| Tool | Agent | A pre-defined tool can be run on the agent and its result code will be used to determine membership. |
| Sub-Group | Agent | This type has a list of include and exclude groups where membership in the included groups adds a computer to the new group, but membership in the excluded groups removes the computer from the new group. These include and exclude lists can use additional AND or ANY conditions to help determine if the computer is a member. |
Used by
Device groups are used to control which deployments an agent will participate in.
- Data Collections
- Software Distributions
- Monitoring
Data collected by the data collection module can drive membership in groups which can then cause more collection packages to run. For example, if a one group checks to see if SQL Server is installed, it can turn on additional collection packages to read more data from the SQL Server configuration. This may in turn cause memberships in other groups and so on…
Scheduling
Device groups are recomputed every five minutes by default on an agent and also after each policy update from the server. This allows group membership to be kept in sync with any changes detected on an agent’s computer.