SCM 2020.2.5 Release Notes
Release date: March 25, 2021
These release notes describe the new features, improvements, and fixed issues in Server Configuration Monitor (SCM) 2020.2.5. They also provide information about upgrades and describe workarounds for known issues.
Learn more
- For more information on the latest hotfixes, see Orion Platform Hotfix Release Notes.
- For release notes for previous SCM versions, see Previous version documentation.
- For information about requirements, see SCM 2020.2.5 system requirements.
- For information about working with SCM, see the SCM 2020.2.1 Administrator Guide.
New features and improvements in SCM
SCM 2020.2.5 offers improvements compared to previous releases of SCM.
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A "Check text" field has been added to built-in Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG) policies. It explains how to check the rule manually on the target system.
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You now have the option to use registry elements to monitor only values in registry keys without subkeys or to use the "include subkeys" option. This improves performance if you want to monitor only top-level values in a registry key, reducing the number of changes and getting rid of unexpected changes.
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Security enhancements include the following:
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WCF communication has been migrated from net.pipe to net.tcp.
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For polling of Windows Updates that cannot be done remotely, Asset Inventory uses VBScript. The centralized setting that copies the script to a temporary folder and executes it is now set to 'off' by default for new installations of SCM.
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When SCM gets the output of a PowerShell script element type, the script is created as a temporary file on the target machine and then executed using PowerShell command. The execution policy has been changed from a default of "Unrestricted" to "RemoteSigned." This requires a digital signature from a trusted publisher on scripts and configuration files that are downloaded from the internet.
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Orion Platform 2020.2.5 improvements
For details, see the Orion Platform 2020.2.5 Release Notes.
New customer installation
For information about installing SCM, review system requirements and use the SolarWinds Orion Installer, which you can download from the SolarWinds Customer Portal. After installation, use the SCM Getting Started Guide and the SCM Administrator Guide to learn about configuring and using SCM.
How to upgrade
With SCM 1.2 and later, you can upgrade your entire Orion deployment, including the main server and all Orion Platform products, from the My Orion Deployment page. Downloading the Orion Installer for future upgrades is no longer necessary.
- Use the SolarWinds Orion Installer to simultaneously upgrade one or more Orion Platform products on your main Orion server.
- If your scalability engines (additional polling engines, additional web servers, and high availability servers) are able to communicate with the main server, use the centralized upgrade feature to upgrade the rest of your Orion deployment in parallel. For details, see Install or upgrade Orion Platform products.
Fixed issues
SCM 2020.2.5 fixes the following issues.
| Case Number | Description |
|---|---|
|
00167408 00211888 00394642 00467774 |
For polling of Windows Updates that cannot be done remotely, Asset Inventory uses VBScript. The centralized setting that copies the script to a temporary folder and executes it is now set to 'off' by default for new installations of SCM. To turn off this setting for your current environment, see instructions in the KB article Avoid false-positive antivirus alerts related to Asset Inventory polling in SCM or SAM. |
| 00547475 | Custom Discovery step to define SCM monitoring settings is now available on additional website. |
| 00568924 | Out-of-the-box IIS profile "flapping" on parsed file has been repaired. |
Fixed issues in Orion Platform 2020.2.5
SCM runs on SolarWinds Orion Platform 2020.2.5. For information on features and improvements, and to learn more about additional changes not listed here that affect all Orion Platform products, see the Orion Platform 2020.2.5 release notes.
Known issues
| After uninstalling SCM, some Orion products might be disrupted |
|---|
| Issue: After uninstalling SCM, some Orion products might be disrupted because some files are not removed from the API2 directory during uninstallation. This issue was observed in the DHCP and DNS management view in IP Address Monitor (IPAM), which stopped working after SCM was uninstalled. |
| Resolution/Work-around: The following KB article describes a workaround for this issue: After uninstalling SCM, some Orion products might be disrupted |
| Asset Inventory doesn't display operating system information for Linux |
|---|
| Issue: Asset Inventory doesn't display operating system information for Linux systems other than Debian. |
| Resolution/Work-around: None |
| Windows Update information status incorrectly shows a false positive change |
|---|
| Issue: Windows Update information status incorrectly shows a false positive change in AssetInventory when polling Windows Updates for WMI agentless node fails |
| Resolution/Work-around: None |
| Dell warranty information is not displaying correctly |
|---|
| Issue: Users are not alerted to expiring warranties from the Dell warranty lookup service. |
| Resolution/Work-around: None |
| HP warranty information is not displaying correctly |
|---|
| Issue: Users are not alerted to expiring warranties from the HPE warranty lookup service. |
| Resolution/Work-around: None |
| Baseline creation does not work for existing AD users when SCM is installed later, along with other product |
|---|
| Issue: SCM permissions are not applied to existing active directory users when SCM is installed after they are added to existing Orion Platform installation. |
| Resolution/Work-around: Disable the AD group (or domain user) and enable it again. |
End of life
| Version | EoL Announcement | EoE Effective Date | EoL Effective Date |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1.0 1.0.1 1.1 |
June 4, 2020 End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on SCM 1.0, SCM 1.0.1, and SCM 1.1 should begin transitioning to the latest version of SCM. |
September 4, 2020 End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for SCM 1.0, SCM 1.0.1, and SCM 1.1 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds. |
September 4, 2021 EoL – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for SCM 1.0, SCM 1.0.1, and SCM 1.1. |
See the End of Life Policy for information about SolarWinds product lifecycle phases. For supported versions and EoL announcements for all SolarWinds products, see Currently supported software versions.
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