Browse documentation
Choosing a collection method
↩ Servers
JOATOS can collect from a server in three ways. You choose per server, depending on the access you have and how much detail you want.
The three methods
| Method | How to set it up | What you get | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agent | Install the agent on the server | Full inventory: stats, disks, software, services, roles (Windows), patches, vulnerabilities | The agent installed on the host |
| Agentless | Add the server and assign a scanning profile | Full inventory, polled over the network | An SSH / WMI / Proxmox API credential |
| ICMP-only | Add the server with just an ICMP profile | Up/down (reachability) status only | Nothing beyond network reachability |
How to choose
- Agent — best for machines you can install software on; deepest data, pushed on a heartbeat, and works even across networks since it's outbound-only.
- Agentless — best when you can't (or don't want to) install anything. Where the site has a Site Collector, the collector does the polling; where it doesn't, JOATOS polls the server directly from the cloud on the scanning profile's own interval. Either way it uses the stored credential.
- ICMP-only — when you just need to know whether a host is up.
By operating system:
| OS | Agentless method |
|---|---|
| Linux | SSH |
| Windows Server | WMI (WinRM) — needs a prepared local account, see Preparing a Windows server for agentless scanning |
| Proxmox VE | Proxmox API |
Two independent settings
A server has two separate profiles:
- Scanning profile — the inventory/stats source. A server uses one source: agent or agentless, not both.
- ICMP profile — ping-based up/down monitoring. This is independent and can be added to any server regardless of how (or whether) its inventory is collected.
Set or change both from the server's Edit form, or review them on the Monitoring tab — see Server dependencies and monitoring.
Notes & tips
-
Windows agentless needs setup on the target first. WinRM must be enabled and the account must be a local administrator — a domain account cannot authenticate. See Preparing a Windows server for agentless scanning.
-
A Site Collector is not required for agentless polling. Where a site has one, it polls; where it doesn't, the poll runs from the cloud instead. A collector is still the right answer for any server that isn't reachable from the internet — the cloud can't reach a private LAN, and such a server will record a connection error every interval.
-
A failed agentless poll records the error against the server and leaves its up/down status alone. Reachability is ICMP's job, and a wrong password isn't an outage; the error clears on the next success.
-
For agentless servers, a Scan now button lets you poll immediately instead of waiting for the interval.