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Hello out there! I just wanted to let our Community know that we have refreshed some of our WSMan documentation on our Manageability Community! Did you know that WSMan will soon replace the legacy SOAP interface in the Intel® AMT SDK? This means that new features are no longer offered along with SOAP APIs and soon, [...]
Lately I've been playing with the Intel® SCS 6.0 Liteutility to provision my system. Last week I tried it out using a provisioning certificate (Remote Provisioning.) I thought it might be useful to post the steps that are needed in order to set up the network and certs. In my environment, I run the SCS Service [...]
Intel released its 5.0 firmware prior to the publication of the final DASH 1.0 specification. After reviewing the final version of the DASH 1.0 spec, we adjusted our firmware to be wholly compliant to the specification. We published the compliant version as AMT5.1. There are minor differences between DASH API calls in AMT 5.0 and AMT [...]
Those of you who have used our Manageability Forum might have some good advice for Software Developers trying to find answers for their Intel AMT questions. Chances are, if you are having an issue or can't get something to work, someone else has also run into the same problem and there is a similar post [...]
Since I am tired of digging through old e-mails for instructions on the steps involved in successfully provisioning an AMT client using Certificates (PKI) I thought it would be a good time to just blog it. At a very high level, the flow is as follows: (Did I mention that each of the 4 easy steps have more [...]
Hi - It's been a while since we talked about the latest Intel® AMT Software Development Kit. Not a whole lot has changed moving from Intel® AMT 5.0 to Intel® AMT 5.1.1. For AMT 5.1.1 the changes were mostly bug fixes. For more information regarding known issues, please refer to the readme file in the [...]
Are you looking for real-life Intel® AMT applications that are now available to purchase (or at least to try out?) We have recently put together a Wiki page on the vPro Expert Center that lists some! Here is a snapshot of what it looks like: Our goal here is to bring attention to Software Vendors who have [...]
Hello out there! I was just noticing that our download area for the SCS Tech Preview 2 is rather lacking in a description of what comes with this product. I figured I'd blog about it here - to get the info out to our customers who may want to know more information about it. If [...]
Why? Well you just do. Gina B. knows everything from what to use to clean off all that icky and dangerous stuff that comes on our fruit and veggies to where on our Forum do we find our favorite Search tool that disappeared a month or so ago. Here is what it looks like - it lets you pick which areas [...]
One of the things we are always trying to figure out on our Manageability Community is how does the community like to get their information. This poll asked the community where they find their best answers to their Intel AMT questions (note: not where they would *like* to find their best answers - which I [...]
We are often asked how we can get the UUID of a system outside of having AMT enabled on a system. The problem here being that sometimes there are AMT systems in an environment that have never been enabled (this is sad, I know...) and for whatever reason they many not have the ME/LMS drivers installed, [...]
The answer is "No." One of the more common topics on our Manageability Forum is SOL/IDE-R (Serial-Over-LAN and IDE-Redirect.) SOL and IDE-R are features that are normally used in the "Diagnosis and Repair" Use Cases in order to remotely load an OS with a diagnostic utility onto an Intel AMT client that is in need of [...]
This seems to be my favorite word lately. Just found another place to use it. I was just looking at the number of responses we have received so far for our latest poll on the Manageability Developer's Community. This poll has been out there for weeks and yet only 4 people have responded (probably all [...]
We had an interesting forum question the other day. A customer said he/she has an Intel® AMT 5.0.1 system and could not figure out why he/she was getting error messages when trying to make calls related to the Audit Log (or Access Monitor.) This customer also ran the "GetCodeVersion" API to get the SKU information [...]
Hi Everyone, I just wanted to let you know that the 5.1 version of the Setup and Configuration Service is now available for download on the Manageability Developer's Community. Note that this is the full-blown version of the Setup and Configuration Service and is not associated with SCS 6.0, which is, at this time the "Light Weight" [...]
We have been talking a lot about the SCS Lite lately on the Manageability Developer's Community. For those of you who don't know, SCS Lite (the first Preview) supports only Enterprise Mode, Non-TLS. Corey Morris wrote a really nice blog about it a couple weeks ago - you can read about it's planned progression and [...]
I found myself in a strange situation with my T400. I was trying to provision it and suddenly I could not get into the Manageability Engine (ME) with any of the normal passwords. Actually this happened twice to me on this system. I looked for a way to reset the ME to factory settings from the [...]
We recently made available to our Intel AMT Developers the first version of the SCS (Setup and Configuration Server) Lite tool. Eventually this tool will morph into a full blown setup and configuration server that supports all the infrastructure that SCS 5.0 now supports. This "Lite" version, however, is very "Lite" as the name implies. It does not [...]
Just wanted to let our Developers (and Intel® AMT Stalkers) know that we now have a group on Facebook just for YOU! The new group is called "Intel® Manageability Developer Community"; it is owned by Ajay Mungara and Monitored by Moi. It is an open group, so all you need to do is join. I know that a lot [...]
About 3 weeks ago we put a poll out on our Manageability Forum and our Manageability Community home page asking Intel® AMT developers if they thought Intel® AMT was difficult for them to use. I can't say that the answers were shocking to me. Had I taken the poll I probably would have ranked the options exactly [...]
It was my week to watch the Manageability Forum and things were very quiet. I decided to mix things up a bit post a question to our developers. My question was simple: "Intel® AMT Developers: What are you doing?" We got some great responses and so I thought it would be good to recap them in a [...]
Hi there! We just got a hold of some Intel® AMT Scripts written in Perl. Take a look and let us know if you find them useful! Overview Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) Perl Scripts package contains scripts designed for ISVs developing manageability applications and for system integrators or administrators who are looking for scripting capabilities. The scripts contained here [...]
Ok... Now that I have your attention, I just wanted to let you know that we have posted our first ever Poll in our Manageability Developer's Community Forum page - here. (Look at the Right Hand Side of the page and you may have to scroll down to see it.) The purpose of this poll is [...]
NEW FOR THE HOLIDAYS!!! Please download these tools and give us feedback on the enhancements and bug fixes. Your feedback is very important to us and helps us define our upcoming workload. Get the latest Manageability Developer Tool Kit here!! Windows* based utilities included in the kit: Utility Name Description / Use Manageability Commander Tool Sample management console that enables users [...]
Joe the Plumber has already found Intel® AMT 4.0 systems to purchase, but now he has decided to go look for some Intel AMT 5.0 systems. Having gone through the exercises with his Intel AMT 4.0 systems, this went a little faster. He already had some links from the Intel web sites and he also [...]
Today I have posted a few blogs about the provisioning process with respect to Intel® AMT. But really, what most ISVs want to know about is how to do this without touching the Intel AMT system - after all, there may be hundreds, if not thousands of these in an environment, and who wants to [...]
In the blogs that I wrote prior to this blog, I talked about some of the basics required for provisioning an Intel® AMT system. This blog will cover what is happening when an AMT System goes from Factory Mode to Setup Mode - you will be able to see that if this transition does not [...]
As I was looking through the "Developer's Guide to the Sample Setup and Configuration Application, I found that it actually has some good examples of the various ways one can provision an Intel® AMT system. This post covers the steps that are taken in the Setup and Configuration Sample that is located in the Intel® [...]
I was recently going through the Developers Guide to the Sample Setup and Configuration document that is in the Intel® AMT Software Development Kit. I found some good reference material that I thought perhaps our developers could use as they are trying to figure out "What the heck is going on in the provisioning process??" The first [...]
We are starting to get questions on how to test CIRA, one of the new features in the Intel® AMT 5.0 SDK. Specifically, how to test it. I have included in this blog steps that I have documented on testing this feature (note that Ajith Illendula is the guy who designed the lab - but [...]
One of the questions we get quite often on our Manageability Forum is: "How do I programmaticly determine if a system on my network is Intel® AMT capable?" This is a very good question because we can't simply tell them to call some API that would return the answer (unless the system has AMT enabled, then [...]
Hint: Intel® AMT 4.0 is: Intel WiFi 5100 A/G/N or Intel WiFi 5300 A/G/N Chipset: M45 Series Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Check out the Intel® Centrino™ 2 with vPro™ Technology website to match up with the correct CPU Ids Joe's shopping got cut short yesterday due to an exploding sink emergency. Today he has decided to continue [...]
Hey. It could happen. Besides, maybe "Joe" isn't really a plumber. Joe is most likely a Mavericky Intel® AMT developer. Today I'm going to pick on Intel AMT version 4.0 for a couple reasons. 1- if Joe is really a plumber, he isn't going to to want to lug around a desktop all day (although [...]
We recently published the latest Intel® AMT SDK on our Manageability Developer's Community website. This version of the Software Development Kit supports both the 4.0(Mobile) and the 5.0(Desktop) versions of Intel® AMT. However. Should one download the SDK and start looking through it one might realize there is nothing in there about some of our [...]
And will the Bootcamp drill-master say mean things about my mother because she does not have an Intel® AMT equipped PC at home? So what exactly is this Bootcamp that we are putting on? Well, to be more specific, this is an Intel® Core™ 2 processor with vPro™ Technology Bootcamp. We will be presenting all [...]
Ok so I'm at Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco and I'm sitting at an Intel Software Network sponsored dinner. All sorts of things are being discussed from "I can't believe I didn't get fired after that one blog" to "Hair Loss. " I then asked our very upper management if it would be OK [...]
We have a new (3.3.1) Hot Fix on the the Manageability Community Site for the Intel Setup and Config Server (SCS). This Hot fix can be downloaded here. This release has the following fixes: Fix of AD issue - When the SCS creates Active Directory objects; it performs all operations on one domain controller, even if the [...]
SCS 3.2.2 includes the following new feature: The user can now type-in the SQL server username and password, to address their own Data Base strong password requirements. Note that this change is NOT included in the 3.3 Version of the SCS Use SCS 3.2.2 only if you have a Strong Password requirement for the SQL data base user and cannot use [...]
We have updated the Intel Manageability Community Website with a Hot Fix for the Intel® SDK. This hot fix contains the following fixes/updates: Memory Leak in the Storage Library Redirection Library fix: SOL Boot can hang the Intel® AMT system Various documentation corrections in the Network Interface Guide and the Developers Guide to the Sample Setup and Configuration Application For more information [...]
This blog is based on a recent Forum question regarding the compliance of DASH within Intel® AMT. It turns out that this user ran a program called SIMFIRE (developed by AMD) against an Intel® AMT 3.0 capable system and it reported out that no, we are not compliant. So I thought it might be a [...]
Now that everyone (I'm sure) has started developing their Intel® AMT applications to use the WS-Man interface - I have a few configuration tips here. WinRM service does not start automatically on all compatible OS's - make sure the service is running: Starts automatically on Windows Server 2008 Must be started manually on Windows Vista WinRM is not installed [...]
This is my third post on Intel AMT Local/Remote access. My first post provided an overview of how they differ and then my last post covered just the Local Access. This post focuses on just the Remote Access. Like the blog on Local Access, most of the information in this blog comes directly from the [...]
This is my second Blog on Intel AMT Local/Remote access. My first blog post provided an overview of how they differ. This post focuses on just the Local Access. Most of the information in this blog comes directly from the Overview.pdf located in the Intel AMT SDK. So here is everything that I'm sure you wanted to know about Intel [...]
I'm the kind of person who likes to see results and the numbers associated with them. Since I have been very involved in supporting the Manageability Community, I am always trying to figure out what kind of impact our Manageability Community has had on the Intel AMT Developers that are using us as a resource during their development [...]
We recently received a forum question asking for more details around how Intel® AMT conforms to DASH. Ajith Illendula responded with a really nice and crisp table that I would like to include here so that this valuable information does not get buried in the forum. Ajith did not have the time to write the blog [...]
A couple weeks ago I ran into an interesting problem. I was not getting the "Hello" packet from my AMT Client while trying to use the AMT Director (from the DTK) to provision one of my systems. Quite a bit of time was spent troubleshooting this. I was not trying to do anything fancy - [...]
This is another blog post that goes back to one of our Manageability Forum questions. I will attempt to cover the basics of Zero Touch Configuration in this blog. As we all know, we can enjoy Zero Touch Configuration (ZTC) using the Remote Configuration Tool which is part of the Intel SCS (Setup and Configuration Server.) [...]
... And all about great knowledge sharing on our Manageability Community Developer's Forum! Nope, I'm not talking about the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.... I'm talking about Platform Event Traps and how they relate to managed systems. Intel AMT Remote Management provides always-available access to event logs of the following: PC Sensors, effectors, and other non-volatile [...]
Hi - this is just a quick post to let Intel® AMT 3.2 developers know that Intel AMT 3.2 has a known issue where only 64KB for 3PDS space can be specified (it should be 192KB per Business.) This has been fixed for the next version of AMT. Note that this is firmware (not an SDK issue.)
RCT 3.3.1.0 contains a small modification to the previous RCT releases - now the RCT sends hello packets even if the RCT cannot send the Intel® AMT configuration properties to the SCS (Setup and Configration Server). This modification is useful if the RCT is used to emulate hello packets to the SCS 3.0. Click here for more [...]
This blog post, I mean blurb, speaks to all Intel® AMT developers who are writing manageability software using the Legacy Network Interface Samples that are currently part of the SDK (folks may have noticed that there are now WS-MAN samples in the SDK as well and those samples were not added just for the fun of it. :) They were [...]
We recently received a question on our Manageability Forum asking how would we reset the Intel® AMT / "ME" password to factory defaults in the case where it may have been forgotten. Well, as with most BIO's there is an option to "Unprovision" and restore AMT/ME back to the factory defaults. As with most BIOS's this will [...]
What is a ME Password? Well if you have to ask, you probably don't need to be in this blog post. :-) I was just doing some research on AMT vs ME passwords and here is what I found out. When we first get our Intel® AMT systems and we are setting them up for the first time, we [...]
I have been monitoring a couple Blogs with their respective comments on Second Life lately - and why is this? It's because I have had some issues getting some of my systems to connect. I find out there are many issues with Second Life and certain Graphics Cards (Intel graphics cards, mostly.) There are a [...]
What is this? Recently a couple collegues and I took this Environment Detection lab to an Intel® AMT training event and delivered it to a group of engineers supporting AMT. Since we got such great feedback from the course we decided to post it on our Manageability Site (here). Start with taking a look a the Network [...]
Recently I wrote a blog here that described a change that could be made to the settings.xml file setting 'UseOcclusions' to FALSE, therefore allowing us to connect to Second Life. This worked great for most of us, however, it seems SL has released a new veiwer that causes this "fix" to not work. The following is [...]
Since we have been receiving a number of questions regarding how AMT deals with Wireless Profiles - here is some information that I found in the SDK docs - hopefully it will answer some of those questions. Wireless connections operate at two levels - the wireless network interface and the interface driver executing on the platform [...]
I'm just blogging this to help get the word out. We have posted the Errata Doc here on our Download site (scroll down to the bottom of the page.) The following errata was found in the Intel AMT Release 3.0 Firmware: In a NAC environment where an authorization failure VLAN is configured, if credentials become invalid after a successful connection [...]
There are hacks for everything, right? Well I have this brand new HP 6910p with the Intel 965 Express chipset running Vista and I could not get onto Second Life. Everytime I tried to connect, it would ask me if I wanted music and then it would crash. Well I thought, maybe my HP doesn't [...]
We have just updated the Manageability Downloads with the latest update for the Intel® SCS (Setup and Configuration Service) Version 3.2.1 Hotfix (Build 3.2.1.2). Here is what is new in this release: The behavior of the SCS SOAP API command GetNextServiceNewAMTProperties() is the same as it was in SCS 3.0 Fixed a memory leak in SCS SOAP API A login [...]
We get a lot of questions on the Manageability Forum regarding problems encountered with Successfully configuring an AMT Client using the Intel® SCS. One thing that can be done to help out your debugging as well as ours is by simply enabling the SCS Debug Log. Here is how to do this: Run regedit (from a command [...]
Well we all know that the Intel® AMT Manageability Engine's password must be changed from it's factory default (admin) to a "strong password," correct? So what kind of strong password would that be? We had a post on our forum this morning where a user tried something similar to "Location_1" which looks to be strong. It has an [...]
We are refreshing the 3.0 SDK Errata doc to include the following Errata concerning two of the Environment Detection APIs: SetEnvironmentDetection -- There is mismatch between documentation and WSDL. NULL should be replaced with empty array (in documentation). Calling SetEnvironmentDetection with null parameter throws a SOAP exception. In order to disable the service set EnvironmentDetectionDomainType to an empty [...]
11/5/2007: A lot of folks have been asking about what I've been doing for the last two months. While I was out, I was updating my Flickr account as well as my Getjelous account. Note that "Getjelous" only allows up to 40 pictures so that is why I had to move over to Flickr (I [...]
Ok - I just put "Easy Button" in my title in order to get blog hits from everyone out there looking for one. I'm not below using cheap tricks for blog counts! One of the new AMT features for cPro systems that I have been playing with lately is the Environment Detection and VPN routing features. [...]
If you are currently using the Intel 3.0 SDK, you may want to check out the latest Errata document that has been posted to the download site. This document contains 4 errata descriptions for the 3.0 SDK. Two have to do with the Developer's Guide to the Sample Setup and Configuration documentation, one with the ssl_auth_init() [...]
We seem to be in a brand new era in our work places. Our work places are moving into this thing called Second Life. I was curious about it so I got an account and tried to connect. I could not. I gave up. I figured that I was too busy with my First Life [...]
Aug152007: If you are working with the 3.1 release of the Intel Setup and Configuration Service and you are getting this error, here is why: If the AD (active directory) OU (organizational unit) is NULL, an error will occur and provisioning will be unsuccessful. The workaround is to put something (anything) in there even if AD is not [...]
Earlier this week, certain questions were brought to my attention regarding the System Defense Filters and Policies regarding implementing a Quarantine. The System defense document clearly states that AMT has a built-in Pass filter for DHCP transmit messages but AMT does not have this built-in Pass filter for DHCP receive messages. This means that, in [...]
Announcing an update to the SCS 3.1 - We have made some updates to the SCS 3.1 located on the Manageability Website. Here is what changed: SCS 3.1 sample scripts contained the following errors that were fixed Correction of the script creating an auxiliary table in the DB Removal of timeout in script Changes in the names of the scripts Added [...]
And "Yes Virginia, you must have AMT 3.0 Hardware in order to take advantage of them." I recently blogged about the new Power Packages included with AMT 2.5/2.6. Here I will include what's new with AMT 3.0. AMT 3.0 also provides support for multiple power policies and supports configuration of the maximum Power State where Intel AMT will operate. Power Packages [...]
Well, a couple weeks ago we posted the new Intel SCS 3.0 (Supporting AMT 2.2, 2.5, 2.6, and 3.0) onto the Manageability Community Developer's website and now there is an updated release containing additional enhancements (SCS 3.1.) Here's what's new: AMT 2.2/AMT 3.0 Feature: Support for the Remote Configuration Tool (RCT), including new APIs and a new SCS user [...]
One of the questions that I get often is about to what extent IPV6 can be used with Intel® AMT. There are three documents in the SDK that cover how they are used in APIs (Intel® AMT WS-Management Flows, the Network Interface Guide, and the System Defense and Agent Presence Overview documents.) This blog post is [...]
I'm sure it is what we all have been waiting for on the Manageability Community Developer's web site: an updated Intel® AMT SDK supporting the new AMT releases 2.2, 2.6 and 3.0 (What happened to AMT 2.5? It is now AMT 2.6!) I will use this post to describe what has changed from AMT 2.1. AMT 2.2: (Desktops [...]
It has been brought to our attention that there is an error in the SCS Documentation that affects both the SCS 1.2 and the 3.0 releases which is applicable to developers who are writing their own script. The Environment Variable called CS_AMT_ADDR should actually be referenced as CS_AMT_ADDRESS. The document has been updated and will be [...]
We all know that Power Management is one of the new features in AMT 2.5, right? Well maybe not. With Mobile Processing mixed with Intel AMT mixed with battery life, what could be a better topic? AMT 2.5 provides support for multiple power policies and supports configuration of the maximum Power State where Intel AMT will operate. Power [...]
Updated: Aug 7, 2007 - There are so many websites that have really good information pertaining to Intel® AMT that I thought it would be nice to have them in one place. (This is a living blog post.) Intel's Manageability Community Site: http://software.intel.com/en-us/manageability/ Intel® AMT - Manageability Community Forum: http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/manageability-software-development/ Look at the most current blog posts: http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/ Intel® AMT Access [...]
With this post I would like to welcome the new and improved Intel® SCS 3.0 which is now available on the Intel Manageability Community Website: http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/isn/home/manageability.aspx. Here is what is new in the Intel SCS 3.0: (Note that while it will be necessary to have an OEM system that supports AMT 2.2, AMT 2.5, or AMT 3.0 to implement the following [...]
Age 71: My mom gets her own computer. It is a Macintosh. It's huge. It was $50 at a garage sale. It was acquired at this garage sale by my nephew in Seattle. (He is a MacFan and currently works at an Apple store and is a member of a band that I cannot type the title to on [...]
I had the oppurtunity to attend Research Day at Intel this week. What an amazing event. It began with Justin Rattner, Intel's CTO giving participants a glimpse of the fascinating research projects that we would be looking at throughout the day. Reasearchers from all over the world were here to show us what technologies they are [...]
This post shall contain very important information that I don't feel like hunting for every time I need it! I will be adding information as I bump into it. Updated: August 09, 2007 Q: How do I turn on the error logs for the Intel SCS application? - 08/09/07 A: You can do this by going into the registry as follows: [...]
Everyone knows that in order to be able to use Intel® AMT features, one must first enable AMT via the ME BIOS extentions and provision the system in either Small Business Mode (very easy and can be done quicky inside the AMT Configuration in the BIOs extentions) or Enterprise Mode (which requires a provisioning server and PID/PPS keys). But what developers don't [...]
One of the new features with Intel® AMT 2.5 (for Centrino Pro) is called "Environment Detection." Since Intel AMT is now available on wireless notebooks, one of the most frequent questions I get is: How does Intel AMT work if I'm away from my office and connected to a foreign network that is not directly interconnected [...]
In a managed environment, it is important that all hardware assets have a unique identifier so as to not have naming conflicts (unless this environment is managed by a bunch of mathamaticians who just happen to enjoy a little chaos.) This unique identifier is known as the UUID. UUID stands for: Universally Unique ID. The UUID format as defined in [...]
This is another blog post resulting from our Manageability Forum posts. (You've been blogged!) Often, when developers dive into the Intel® SDK, they find their way to the Agent Presence Sample code, they try to register the agent and then they get a failure "Soap Error 22." (I know, I've done this, but I did not do it [...]
With the recent launch of Centrino Pro we are starting to get questions on our Manageability Forum about how Intel® AMT will be supported on a mobile platform, or should I say, what are the limitations. Since the associated documentation, white papers, new SDK are not available on the Manageability Community site quite yet (but will be soon!), [...]
There has been quite some discussion on the Manageability Forum concerning the AMT Status Window that pops up and tells folks whether their system is AMT Enabled or not. Even though a checkbox has been added to the window that will stop displaying it, I am hearing that they just don't want it to appear [...]
There seems to be some confusion on our Manageability Forum with regards to the various Tools that we have as downloads on the Manageability Community Site. Here are some brief descriptions and when to use them: RDK: Reference Design Kit - This is a "solution" written in Java on Linux provided to help folks implement Intel® [...]
We all know that the State motto for New Mexico is "Red or Green" but how many folks know what the Intel® AMT motto is? I've decided it must be: "Did the firewall get turned on again??????" It seems like no matter how good we are about making sure the Windows Firewall on our Intel® AMT [...]
My System Hardening Blog was inspired last week when I was maintaining my Mother's laptop. This post is inspired by one of the comments to that Blog. I was trying to keep it simple since she (and she represents a huge on-line population) doesn't really understand Cookies, Firewalls, Router Passwords, etc. The funny thing is: I [...]
My life is on my computer! How safe is my life? (A precursor to my thoughts on Intel® Active Management Technology) I didn't' realize that it takes only a matter of minutes from the time a system is on the internet for an attack to occur. Today's hackers have software that is constantly looking for unprotected systems. Since [...]