Collector management

Nexthink offers an easy-to-use Collector management and update tool. To keep all the components up to date on all supported operating systems and reduce administrative tasks, the Nexthink instance periodically checks if a new version is available and schedules updates when necessary.

Accessing Collector management

• Click on the Administration module in the main menu of the Nexthink web interface.

• Select Collector management from the system configuration section of the navigation panel.

Status

Check the status of Collector instances deployed in your organization and quickly filter the information for better analysis.

Status bar charts

The status bar charts display information by platform, current versions, groups and target versions.

Click on the individual bars to filter the results that appear in the status table.

• Platform: View Collector instances deployed to specific platforms. Currently, Collector supports Windows, macOS and IGEL platforms.

• Current versions: This bar chart shows all current versions deployed in your organization.

• Groups: there are three groups of Collector instances:

  • The pilot group starts making updates two days after a new Collector version is available. By default, it includes 10% of the Collector instances, chosen randomly. Refer to the Update configuration section for more information about customizing the pilot group.

  • The main group represents the remaining Collector instances and the system updates them 16 days after a new Collector version is available. Refer to the Update configuration section for more information about how to customize the main group and target the groups automatically.

  • The unsupported OS group includes all the devices running Collector versions that cannot be updated as the host operating system is no longer supported. See the software requirements page for more information.

• Target versions: View the Collector versions that the system targets for automatic updates.

Status table

The status table lists the results of all the Collector instances according to the filters you applied to the page using the status bar charts. The system organizes table columns by the device name, collector version, platform and target Collector version.

Update configuration

Pausing updates

• Activate the Pause automatic updates feature to pause the Collector updates on all the devices.

• Select the date from the Updates will resume drop-down menu to indicate when to resume the updates.

You can inspect the property device.collector.target_update_date to know when the devices will be updated once the pause expires. If the pause functionality is turned off before its expiration, the update dates will be recomputed from that moment.

Fast-track updates for maintenance releases

Maintenance releases apply to the currently installed versions of Collector and include small fixes for specific security issues or address critical bugs. By default, maintenance releases are rolled out without a delay to all the devices with the same installed version of Collector, to ensure running the most stable Collector release at all times.

Deactivate this setting to let maintenance releases follow the same rollout strategy as new versions of Collector, taking the pilot and main group delays into account. This choice offers more control but delays the adoption of bug fixes.

Update groups

Define a pilot group of devices the system automatically updates with a new version of Collector before the others. If you do not define the pilot group with NQL, the system randomly chooses 10% of the Collector instances installed on the employee devices.

Example

devices | where device.name == '*pilot*'

Defining the pilot query

The query must target the devices collection and can use conditions on any of its fields.

NQL examples

Targeting specific devices by name:

devices | where name in ['abc', 'def']

Targeting specific devices using a pattern:

devices | where device.name contains 'NX'

Targeting devices with a specific property:

devices | where ad_site = 'my site'

The system does not support the summarize , list, with, limit , during past, from .. to .. statements. It recomputes the pilot query every 6 hours and upon any configuration change, such as an updated query or release of a new Collector version.

Rolling out updates

The system schedules all devices in the pilot group for an update two days after a new compatible Collector version is available, and all other devices for an update two weeks later or 16 days after a new compatible Collector version is available. Refer to the Fast-track updates for maintenance releases section for more information about the maintenance releases and how to configure their rollout strategy.

The rollout is paced with the goal of updating all the Collector instances of the pilot group within a week and all other devices within two weeks from the start of the rollout. There is also an upper rate limit to prevent Collector from sending update requests in excess of 100 requests per minute per instance to avoid overloading the network.

Retry policy

If an update fails, the collector updater tries again the update after one hour.

Compatibility

Permissions

You need proper administrative permissions to manage the Collector updates. Refer to the Roles documentation for more information.