NightWatchman Enterprise

Each installation of the NightWatchman Management Center Console uses its own console extensions file.

The default configuration is for a single console extensions file residing in one of the folders shown above. This would mean that any NightWatchman Management Console user with permissions on any of the tabs in the Clients section of the console would be able to run the actions defined in the console extensions file.

Each user of an installation of the NightWatchman Management Center Console uses their own console extensions file.

To allow each NightWatchman Management Console user, with the appropriate permissions, to have access to just their own set of actions requires the following steps:

All installations of the NightWatchman Management Center Console use a single console extensions file.

To support this scenario you point the extensions folder to a shared network drive:

Name

This is the text that appears in the right-click context menu.

Description

This is the tooltip text that appears when hovering over the item in the right-click context menu.

Scope

The scope defines when the item will appear in the right-click context menu. It can be set to one of the following values:

CommandLine

This defines the command-line for the action to be executed, including any placeholders.

Computer

The following table shows the placeholders supported for the Computer scope, with descriptions and some example substituted values:

Tier

The following table shows the placeholders supported for the Tier scope, with descriptions and some example substituted values:

ComputerSet

The following table shows the placeholders supported for the ComputerSet scope, with descriptions and some example substituted values:

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Temp\NWMC_SelectedQueryResult_9d94c5e8-54f4-4f9c-a5f5-b5a38487e872.csv

Computer

The following XML definition defines a right-click context menu item called Remote Desktop that will be visible when a single computer has been selected from either of the location or organization hierarchies or from the results of submitting a query. When selected the action will launch a remote desktop session using the selected computer's NetBIOS name.

  <ContextExtension Name="Remote Desktop"
                    Scope="Computer"
                    Description="Launch Remote Desktop session"
                    CommandLine="mstsc /v {$NetbiosName}" />

The next extension definition defines a right-click c ontext menu item called Manage Computer that will be visible when a single computer has been selected from either of the location or organization hierarchies or from the results of submitting a query. When selected the action will launch the Windows computer management console using the domain the computer belongs to and its NetBIOS name.

<ContextExtension Name="Manage Computer" 
                      Scope="Computer" 
                      Description="Launch Windows Computer Management Console" 
                      CommandLine="mmc.exe compmgmt.msc /computer:{$DomainName}\{$NetbiosName}" />

Tier

This extension definition creates a right-click c ontext menu item called Run "my script" that will be visible when a computer tier has been selected from either the Organization or Location tabs.

<ContextExtension Name="Run &quot;my script&quot;" 
                      Scope="Tier" 
                      Description="Run my script" 
                      CommandLine="cscript.exe C:\MyScripts\MyScript.vbs {$TierId} {$TierLevelId} {$TierType} &quot;{$TierName}&quot;"/>

When selected this action will run a command similar to the following:

cscript.exe C:\MyScripts\MyScript.vbs 17 2012 Organization "Sales and Marketing"

ComputerSet

For the ComputerSet scope, you may use the {$ComputerListFileName} placeholder. This placeholder is translated to the full pathname of a temporary file which contains a CSV of the ComputerId, DomainName and NetbiosName of each computer in the selection. Your script should then parse this file as required and take the appropriate actions. This file will be deleted automatically after you have used it.

The following console extension definition creates a right-click c ontext menu item called Run my complex script that will be visible when multiple computers have been selected from either of the location or organization hierarchies or from the results of submitting a query.

<ContextExtension Name="Run my complex script" 
                      Scope="ComputerSet" 
                      Description="Run my script against multiple PCs" 
                      CommandLine="cscript.exe C:\MyScripts\MyScript.vbs &quot;{$ComputerListFileName}&quot;" />

Running this action would execute MyScript.vbs, which would then contain basic parsing logic to read the CSV, for example:

' Open CSV file (passed as command-line argument)
strCsvFilename = WScript.Arguments.Item(0)
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Const ForReading = 1
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strCsvFilename, ForReading)
' Iterate for each entry
Do Until objFile.AtEndOfStream
        strLine = objFile.ReadLine
        arrFields = Split(strLine, ",")

        strComputerId = arrFields(0)
        strDomainName = arrFields(1)
        strNetbiosName = arrFields(2)
        ' TODO: Your per-machine logic might come here
Loop
' Close CSV file
objFile.Close