Selecting agents randomly for a policy run

You can use a feature on the ESM console to randomly select agents for policy runs. This feature lets you run policies on fewer agents in a particular domain. You can save time and resources while evaluating network security.

The feature uses a property file to provide necessary information. The file lists the manager names, user names, passwords, port numbers, domains, policies, module lists, and the numbers of agents to randomly select.

You can use any text editor to create the property file. You must name the file randpol.dat. Save the property file in the same folder with the randpol.exe program.

The property file is a plain text, tab-delimited file. The module lists are comma-delimited lists. You can specify "all" instead of listing the modules in a policy. The property file has the following format:

manager_name<tab>username<tab>password<tab>port<tab>domain<tab> policy<tab>module_list<tab>number_of_agents

The following is an example:

manager1 esmuser my1pass+ 5600 All Agents Phase 1 account,network 50 manager2 esmuser2 my2pass+ 5600 Windows 2000 Agents Phase 1 all 20 manager5 esmuser5 my5pass+ 5600 Windows XP Agents Phase 2 all 40

To randomly select the agents for a policy run

  1. In a text editor, create a property file.

  2. Save the properties file with the name randpol.dat in the same folder with the randpol.exe file.

  3. Change directories to the Program Files\Symantec\Enterprise Security Manager\ESM\ bin\ <operating system> folder.

  4. Type the following:

    randpol.exe randpol.dat