Systems Management Server (SMS) is highly configurable, yet very
little configuration needs to be performed to use the product. When
you do need to perform configuration tasks, you perform them in the
SMS Administrator console, under Site Settings.
Note Each SMS site is configured
individually (child sites do not inherit the properties of their
parent sites).
Mandatory Configuration
You must configure the following items before using SMS:
You must create senders for each connectivity system that a
site uses to communicate with other sites. If you have only one
site, no senders are needed.
Before SMS can manage resources, it must find them. There are
several resource discovery methods. You must enable the methods you
want to use in each site.
Client agents determine whether clients can be controlled
remotely, receive advertised programs, have their software usage
metered, and provide hardware and software inventory. You must
choose which client agents to enable.
Optional Configuration
Although you do not need to configure the following items before
you use SMS (they are set to usable defaults), you might want to
modify their default settings for specific purposes:
You can customize the behavior of SMS components that manage
data processing and storage, software distribution, software
metering, status reporting, NetWare accounts, and intersite
communication functions.
To gain access to the various resources that SMS manages, SMS
can use accounts on clients and servers in a site. By default, only
the minimum necessary accounts are created during Setup, most
notably the SMS Service accounts. SMS will function with just these
accounts, but they are highly privileged and often have more
privileges than they need to perform certain tasks. Therefore, SMS
can use several optional accounts to perform specific tasks that
need fewer privileges.
You can strengthen site security by minimizing the propagation
of highly privileged accounts.
By default, all SMS components run on the site server (the
server on which SMS is installed). To lighten the load of the site
server, other systems in the site can take over some of the site
server's duties.
The SMS status filter determines which messages are processed,
stored locally, and/or replicated to the parent site. The SMS
status filter comprises a set of status filter rules that you can
configure.
Status summarizers provide a real-time summary of various
status message categories. You can change the thresholds that, when
exceeded, cause the status of a component or site to change to
Warning or Critical.