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Windows Discovery Agent Service Wrapper

The Device42 Windows Service Wrapper is an executable (available separately for i386 32-bit and 64-bit architectures) that can be installed as a service. Download the Windows Service Wrapper from the Device42 Autodiscovery page. The service wrapper calls the Device42 Windows agent, which you can download from your Device42 Main Appliance (MA).

Installation Overview​

You will need three separate files to install the service.

  1. The service executable itself: This is named d42_winservice_x64_v1_0_0.exe. Its default path is C:\Program Files\Device42.
  2. The d42config.json file: This dictates the various settings needed to run the service. Its default path is C:\ProgramData\Device42.
  3. The agent executable: This is called d42_winagent_x(bit).exe. It can be downloaded from the Device42 MA under Discovery > Agent Based Scans (Win7+).

There are multiple ways to install and start the service. For your convenience, we have added a PowerShell script (option 1). Below that we include detailed steps for installing with sc if needed (option 2).

Option 1: Using the PowerShell Script​

  • Download the combined zip file and extract it to your local file system.

  • Ensure that PowerShell remote execution is enabled (Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned).

  • Drop the agent executable, downloaded from the Device42 MA, into the same folder.

  • Optional: Modify the example d42config.json file. For example, you could change the interval or add arguments (as documented below).

  • Run the PowerShell script:

    .\D42Installer.ps1

    This script drops different files based on the machine architecture.

  • Optional: Revert the execution policy.

Option 2: Using sc Commands​

  • By default, the service wrapper looks for an agent named d42winagent.exe under C:\Program Files\Device42 on the end machine. Check that you've saved the agent using the correct name and location.

  • The service calls the agent on service start and then again every 8 hours. You can override these values in the d42config.json file.

    For example:

Click to expand the code block
{
  "executablePath": "c:\\Program Files\\Device42\\d42_winagent.exe",
  "WorkingDir": "c:\\ProgramData\\Device42",
  "arguments": ["-host=https://10.92.11.63","-skip-software=true"],
  "interval": 2
}
note

Each of the "arguments" is enclosed in double quotes.

The "interval" can be anything from 1 to 24 hours.

  • Use sc create to create the service.

    sc create d42AgentService binPath= "C:\Program Files\\Device42\d42_winservice_386.exe" start= auto (or d42_winservice_x64.exe)
note

Notice the space after the = sign in the above command. It is critical.

  • You can use sc start to start the service, or start it from the UI.

    sc start d42AgentService

  • You can use the sc description command to provide a friendly description of the service.

    sc description d42AgentService "D42 service that calls the agent to run every N hours to send inventory details to Device42"

  • To query or stop the service, use the following (optional) commands:

    sc query d42AgentService
    sc stop d42AgentService
note

On Windows, sc create and sc start read from %windir%/system32 by default.

If you don't have C: or don't want to use C:\ProgramData\Device42, you can place d42config.json in the system32 directory.

Arguments for the Config Files​

As shown in the example above, each argument should be enclosed in double quotes and separated by a comma.

Log Output​

The agent_local.log file will be created under the current working directory.

Handling Errors​

Windows service wrapper error

If the service doesn’t start, it's usually because it can’t read the d42config.json file.

The file should be located under $ProgramData\Device42 or %windir%\system32 (sc reads from the system folder by default, so for any non-standard location, this is where the file needs to be).

Another issue might be that the format or the values are incorrect.