About Baseline Files - Symantec ALTIRIS INVENTORY SOLUTION 7.0 SP2 - V1.0 Manual

108 Gathering baseline inventory

About baseline files

About baseline files
Baseline inventory reports newly added files, missing files, registry keys, and
version mismatch. It also reports duplicate files with the version change.
You can use the baseline management features for the following purposes:
Track files and registry deviations from the corporate standards.
Verify the accuracy of rollout and upgrades.
Automatically notify system administrators or help desk when a computer is
non-compliant.
View a compliance level summary of the computer and reports the changes in
file.
Baseline inventory uses standard tasks to perform the baseline and compliance
scans. You view reports to track baseline and compliance scan information.
See "About baseline files"
The baseline management process is the same for file and registry baselines.
However, the configuration files, snapshot files, and tasks differ. The baseline
configuration file contains options that determine the files or registry settings
to scan. You can use the default configuration file, edit it, or create one or more
custom configuration files.
The compliance scan compares the current files or registry keys on one or more
computers with the baseline snapshot files. The differences between the baseline
and the compliance scans are written to an output file on the scanned computer
and also reported to the CMDB.
The baseline scan captures the current files or registry keys settings on a standard
configuration computer. It also compiles a baseline snapshot file which is used
during the compliance scan.
The baseline and compliance scans report information about the computers that
were scanned and the scan results. You can use notification tasks to automatically
notify system administrator or help desk when certain events occur. This feature
helps prevent system failures that might occur when a computer becomes
non-compliant.
See "Creating a Registry Baseline Snapshot task"
See "Compiling a file baseline snapshot"
The baseline inventory process uses and creates several files. The baseline
configuration file contains options for running the scans. For example, you
configure the files or registry keys to be included or excluded, directories to scan,
on page 108.
on page 109.
on page 123.