Mounted network filesystems excluded from file-evidence inventory on UNIX-like systems

Title

Mounted network filesystems on UNIX-like operating systems can be excluded from file-evidence inventory depending on how the FlexNet Inventory Agent’s configuration preferences interact. This article describes the relationship among these preferences and how they influence scanning behavior.

On UNIX-like systems, mounted network filesystems appear within the standard directory hierarchy. During a recursive file scan, the FlexNet Inventory Agent begins with the directories defined in IncludeDirectory.

When recursion reaches a mounted network filesystem and IncludeNetworkDrives is either unspecified or set to False, the agent does not continue scanning within that mounted path. This may produce log output similar to the following:

File tracking looking for files in directories '/w001/nfs'
File tracking of files on mount point '/w001/nfs/domains'
of type 'nfs' will be excluded

This behavior does not necessarily indicate that an ExcludeDirectory preference was configured. The exclusion can instead result from the network or filesystem type of the mounted directory.

Relevant preferences:

IncludeDirectory – Identifies the directories targeted for file-evidence scanning.
IncludeNetworkDrives – Controls whether recursive scanning continues into mounted network filesystems.
IncludeFileSystemType – Explicitly allows specified UNIX filesystem types.
ExcludeFileSystemType – Explicitly blocks specified UNIX filesystem types.

These settings have different priority levels. IncludeDirectory has the lowest priority, while filesystem-type rules have higher priority. If a filesystem type is listed in both IncludeFileSystemType and ExcludeFileSystemType, the exclusion rule takes precedence.

For example, inventory from an NFS mount can be enabled by allowing the nfs filesystem type:

[ManageSoft\Tracker\CurrentVersion]
IncludeFileSystemType=nfs,ufs,zfs,lofs

Alternatively, a broader traversal of mounted network drives can be allowed with the following setting:

[ManageSoft\Tracker\CurrentVersion]
IncludeNetworkDrives=true

Use broad network-drive scanning with care. Depending on IncludeDirectory, Recurse, and the amount of data available through mounted filesystems, enabling this setting can significantly increase scan time, system load, and inventory volume.

For a policy-managed FlexNet Inventory Agent, file-scanning behavior should be configured through IT Asset Management Inventory Settings where appropriate. Values manually edited in config.ini, especially IncludeDirectory, may be overwritten when device policy updates are applied.

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Flexera One

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IT Asset Management

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Flexera One;FlexNet Manager Suite

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Cloud;On-premises

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Case id: 00001065