KB2301292 - PC-Check Best Practice

Jan-29-2023

This article explains some Best Practice approaches to PC-Check 4.

Refers to: PC-Check 4
 

Default configuration for all users

First, you should ensure that all users in your organization have a base of checks that apply to everyone. This includes checks such as processor utilization, free hard disk space, user account, ping on default gateway, Internet access and others. For the standard configuration, you can use the supplied "default" configuration and adapt it with the PC-Check Designer. But here you should already include company specific checks like ping on file server (or TCP port check 139 on file server) or TCP port check 443 on Exchange server and others. So anything that is available to all users / PCs. Leave the default configuration at Order=1, Scope=Always and Mode=Add.
 

Special configuration for specific users / computers / IP addresses

If you want to assign additional checks to specific AD users, computers or IP addresses, please proceed as follows: Use PC-Check Designer to create a new, empty configuration called, for example, "User Smith". The name is not relevant here. Within this configuration, create one or more checks that should only be available to user Smith. Perhaps Mrs. Smith is a user from a department who administers a particular server and wants to check at any time whether the server is responding on TCP port 27000. Set the following values in the "User Smith" configuration: Order=10, Scope=User and as user Mrs. Smith's AD account, for example "smith" or "domain\smith". Set the mode to "Add" and the configuration to "active". This configuration ensures that Mrs. Smith receives the checks for all users and additionally the checks for user Smith. In the "Replace" mode, the checks from the default configuration would be discarded and only the checks for user Smith would be applied.
 

Special configuration, if certain software installed

You have users in your organization who use a particular application, such as CRM software. The software accesses a certain server (the CRM server) and is used only by some users, but not by all. You want exactly these users to check with PC-Check if a certain TCP port is responding on the CRM server, for example TCP port 8081.

Use PC-Check Designer to create a new, empty configuration called "CRM Server". The name is not relevant. Within the configuration "CRM Server" create a check "TCP port responds" with the appropriate parameters. Set the following values in the CRM Server configuration: Order=20, Scope="Folder exists" and then the directory that exists locally for the CRM software, for example C:\Program Files (x86)\CRM software. Set the mode to "Add" and the configuration to "active". This configuration ensures that the configuration "CRM Server" with the TCP port check is applied to all computers that have the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\CRM software.
 

Special configuration for servers or special computers

If servers or special computers should receive a completely different configuration than the standard computers, proceed as follows: Create a new, empty configuration named "Special configuration Server1" using PC-Check Designer. The name is not relevant. Within the special configuration, create special checks that only affect the specific server. For example, these can be checks that check specific TCP ports of your own server or of other servers. Set the following values in the "Special configuration Server1" configuration: Order=10, Scope=Computer and for Computer the computer name of the server in question. Set the mode to "Replace" and the configuration to "active". This configuration ensures that only the checks of the "Special configuration Server1" configuration are applied on the server.
 

Special configuration, if the VPN is not yet active in the HomeOffice

You want to apply a different configuration to all computers that are in the HomeOffice and have problems establishing the VPN connection than in the default case. This is very useful because it allows you to draw conclusions about the state of the employee's notebook: Does the employee have no Internet, is the VPN software not running, or is it the VPN gateway in the company?

Proceed as follows: Use the PC Check Designer to create a new, empty configuration called "VPN". Within the VPN configuration, create several checks that are used for diagnostics. The most important one would be a check "TCP port responding", which checks on the corresponding port (usually 443) of the VPN gateway. Create another check "Process exists" which checks if the VPN software is started. In addition, perhaps a ping to your file server, which contributes to the diagnosis. Set the following values in the VPN configuration: Order=30, Scope="Folder does not exist" and as directory a folder from your company network, which is only available if the client computer is connected to the company network. Set the mode to "Replace" and the configuration to "active". This configuration ensures that the "VPN" configuration only takes effect when the client computer is not connected to the company network.
 

Start PC-Check from network drive / USB stick

PC-Check is a portable software that can be started from a network drive or from a USB stick. Simply copy the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\PC-Check to a network drive or to a stick and start PC-Check.exe from there. This avoids having to install PC-Check on a server, for example.

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