A software dictionary can be updated in the following ways:
Manually download the latest version of the dictionary from TID 10093255 in the Novell Support Knowledgebase to each Inventory server.
NOTE:The dictionary is updated and published once in every three months in this TID.
Manually download the dictionary from the Novell Support web site to one Inventory server (preferably, the Root Server) and automatically distribute the dictionary to all servers in your setup by configuring the Dictionary Update policy.
An Inventory server can receive dictionary updates from any other Inventory server, irrespective of the server's role. The role of the Inventory server indicates whether the server receives the inventory information, stores the information into a local Inventory database, or rolls up the inventory information.
To update and distribute the software dictionary between Inventory servers:
Manually download the dictionary from the Novell Support Web site and save it in the zenworks_installation_directory\zenworks\inv\server\dictdir directory on the Inventory server.
Configure the Dictionary Update policy. For more information see, Section 73.8, Configuring the Dictionary Update Policy.
All Inventory servers have Dictionary Provider and Dictionary Consumer services that are automatically installed during the Workstation Inventory installation.
When an Inventory server is started, the Dictionary Consumer reads the Dictionary Update policy and contacts the Dictionary Provider (running on another Inventory server) specified in the policy.
Subsequently, the Dictionary Consumer checks for the dictionary updates based on the schedule set in the Dictionary Update policy. It compares the date of the dictionary file on the Dictionary Provider with the file that has been locally stored. If the file on the Dictionary Provider is newer, then the Dictionary Consumer downloads the file from the Dictionary Provider using XML-RPC as per the schedule.
The user-defined rules in the downloaded dictionary file are merged with the rules present in the local dictionary. If the merge yields a different set of rules from those locally present, the consolidated set of rules is written to the local dictionary. During the merge process, conflicts might arise, which are resolved on the basis of the following considerations:
The rules in the downloaded dictionary always override the rules in the local dictionary.
If a conflict arises between the software identifiers, the conflicting identifiers in the local dictionary are removed from the final (merged) dictionary.
For a software dictionary rule, the final result is obtained by first writing the downloaded rules and then the local rules into the final dictionary; eliminating the duplicates during the process. This ensures that the downloaded software rules precede the local rules.
The following scenario illustrates the distribution of the software dictionary among the Inventory servers.
In this scenario, there is an Inventory tree consisting of one Root Server (R1), one Leaf Server (L1), and two Standalone servers (S1 and S2). L1 rolls up the inventory information to R1.
Follow the below procedure to update the software dictionary on all the Inventory servers.
Manually download the dictionary on R1 from the Novell Support Web site.
Create and configure a Dictionary Update policy by specifying R1 as the Dictionary Provider, and associate the policy to L1. For more information on how to configure the Dictionary Update policy, see Section 73.8, Configuring the Dictionary Update Policy.
For S1 and S2, you can either manually download the dictionary from the Novell Support Web site or configure the Inventory servers to automatically receive the latest version of the dictionary from R1.
For S1 and S2 to automatically receive the latest version of the dictionary from R1, create and configure a Dictionary Update policy by specifying R1 as the Dictionary Provider, and associate the policy to S1 and S2. For more information on how to configure the Dictionary Update policy, see Section 73.8, Configuring the Dictionary Update Policy.