Owner's Manual

214 Ensuring a Secure Dell OpenManage IT Assistant Installation
Securing Managed Desktops, Laptops, and
Workstations
Securing the Managed System’s Operating System
The first step in promoting a secure network environment is to ensure that all
managed system operating systems are running the most current service pack
and/or any additional critical security hotfixes. To simplify this process,
Microsoft has introduced Software Update Services. See the Microsoft
website for more details. Perform similar updates for other managed systems’
operating systems as well.
Session Time-out
An IT Assistant UI session can be configured to time-out after a defined
period of inactivity. To configure the session time-out interval, click
Preferences on the top IT Assistant navigation bar and choose Web Server
Properties. You can either disable session time-out altogether, or allow for up
to 30 minutes of inactivity.
NOTE: If the data communication channel between the IT Assistant user interface
and the Web server is active due to any asynchronous updates such as
performance monitoring tasks, discovery of devices, status polling, and so on, the
user session will not time-out even if session time-out is enabled.
ASF and the SNMP Protocol
A final security consideration, starting with Dell OptiPlex GX260 systems, is
the support for the Alert Standard Format (ASF) for integrated Network
Interface Controller (NIC). ASF issues Platform Event Traps (PET)
corresponding to system health and security issues. Since these traps are
supported by the SNMP protocol, the managed system NIC must be
configured with the IP address and community string of the management
station running IT Assistant.