Agent FAQ

Connected Agents support macOS or Windows-based computers.

The installation packages that install Agent software are relatively small. Windows-based Agent installation packages are about 10 MB in size, and macOS-based ones are about 6 MB.

Yes, for Windows-based Agents. Agents support silent command-line installation and registration on Windows-based computers if your environment uses its own corporate identity provider (IdP) to authenticate users and is configured for Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA). For example, if you use Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) as your corporate IdP, its Primary Authentication global setting for Intranet users must be set to Windows Authentication, which provides automatic sign on to corporate applications. In addition, each computer's User Account Control (UAC) must be enabled and set to Never notify.

For more information, see Silently install and register the Agent (Windows only).

Yes, if you use your own corporate identity provider (IdP) to authenticate users and it is configured for Windows Authentication. For example, if you use Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) as your IdP, its Primary Authentication global setting for Intranet users must be set to Windows Authentication.

There are two benefits to IWA. The first is that users are automatically signed in to the Connected web application when they access it from a browser that supports IWA and is configured to use it. The second is that you can silently deploy the Agent on each user's computer so that it automatically starts protecting data without any user interaction. For more information, see Silently install and register the Agent (Windows only).

There are two ways to install the Agent: interactively or using a command line. Depending on your company's method of software distribution, you can either manually install the Agent on you own computer or you can silently distribute and deploy it through a custom deployment process. For more details about each method, see Agent installation overview.

Yes. Agents support the following types proxy servers, configured by either IP address or host name:

• SOCKS (SOCKS4 or SOCKS5)

• Web (HTTP or HTTPS)

  If your computer has both Web and SOCKS proxy servers configured for the current connection type, the Agent uses the SOCKS proxy.

Agents do not require any special configuration to use a proxy; they can automatically detect and use one. To do so, Agents first try to detect and use the system proxy. If one is not configured, they then try to use a proxy auto-configuration (PAC) file, if available. Otherwise, Agents use a direct connection without a proxy.

Agents support proxies that do not require authentication or that use HTTP basic authentication. Other authentication types, such as NT LAN Manager (NTLM), are not currently supported. If company policy requires you to enter proxy credentials when you connect to the Internet, Agents first try to use the ones stored in your operating system's Internet configuration settings. If your credentials are not stored, are invalid, or have expired, the following occurs:

• Windows-based Agents opens the default web browser and loads the Connected login page for your credentials.

• macOS-based Agents display a message that instructs you to configure your credentials in the Keychain Access application.

If the Agent cannot connect to the proxy for any reason other than proxy authentication, it attempts a direct connection to Connected. When the Agent does connect to a proxy, it logs the proxy's name and port number in the following file:

• macOS. ~/Library/Application Support/Connected/Logs/protocol.log
• Windows. userFolder\AppData\Local\Connected\Logs\protocol.log

On Windows-based computers, the Agent installs the following files and data :

• Files common to all the computer's user accounts that use the Agent:

  • Application files. C:\Program Files\Connected\ (default location)
  • Agent service data files and common user data files. C:\ProgramData\Connected\
  • Agent service log files. C:\ProgramData\Connected\Logs\

• Files specific to each user

  • Application files. userFolder\AppData\Local\Connected\
  • Log files. userFolder\AppData\Local\Connected\Logs\

The Agent also stores data in the registry for the icons overlays that it uses to indicate sync status.

On macOS-based computers, the Agent installs the following files and data:

• Files common to all the computer's user accounts that use the Agent:

  • Application files and uninstall app. /Applications/Connected/ (default location)
  • Common user data files. ~/Library/Application Support/Connected

• Files and data specific to each user:

  • Application files. ~/Library/Application Support/Connected
  • Log files. ~/Library/Application Support/Connected/Logs

  • Connected password. In the following Keychain location:

    • Keychain: login
    • Category: Passwords

    • Name: starts with Connected

The Windows-based Agent requires at least two free TCP/IP ports: one port with a number from 7777 through 7787 and the other from 7788 through 7798. Ports in these ranges are typically open so you do not need to verify their availability. However, in the unlikely event that all ports in these ranges are used, the Agent displays the following error message and closes:

The required TCP/IP ports were not available. To resolve this problem, contact your administrator.

The easiest way to upgrade your own Agent is to download a newer version of the Agent from the Downloads page, and then install it. However, you can also use an automated upgrade method to upgrade multiple users or groups at a time. For information about all upgrade methods, see Agent upgrade overview.

When you change a group's Agent version, the system notifies all applicable Agents so that they can begin a self-upgrade. To reduce the impact on local network devices, upgrade notifications stagger the start of the Agent upgrade process. Each notification includes a variable delay, based on the number of Agents, which can be anywhere from a few seconds to approximately 30 minutes. Once each Agent starts its upgrade, it downloads the specified version and upgrades to it. If an Agent is not running at the time the notification occurs, it will receive and process the notification the next time it connects to Connected.

If the Agent receives an upgrade notification while scanning files, it stops the scan to download the new version and perform the upgrade. After upgrade, when the new version of the Agent starts, it scans the entire computer again. This ensures that the Agent does not miss any file changes that occurred during the upgrade process.

If the notification arrives while the Agent is backing up or syncing, files, the Agent finishes processing the current file and then downloads the new version and upgrades to it. This time when the Agent starts, it not only rescans the computer for modified files, it also continues to back up or sync any remaining files.

Agents contain a robust retry process to ensure that intermittent environmental and system issues do not prevent the Agent from upgrading itself. The exact retry process depends on the type of failure that occurred:

• Failure to download the new Agent. If the Agent fails to download the required Agent installation package, it logs a download error and tries again, up to a predefined number of times. It gradually waits an increasingly longer period of time between download attempts to ensure that it does not exhaust all retries because of intermittent environmental issues. Downloading the file successfully resets the retry counter.
• Failure to install the new Agent. If the initial attempt to install the new package fails, the Agent logs an upgrade error. It then tries again every 24 hours, up to a predefined number of times. Before each attempt, the Agent downloads the installation package again in case a corrupt package caused the failure.

Because of the pattern in which the Agent retries failed downloads and upgrades, the amount of time before a successful upgrade may take many days.

You can monitor the process of Agent upgrades using the Agent Versions report, which displays the actual and expected Agent versions on a per device basis. For information about how to troubleshoot a failed upgrade, see The Agent install or upgrade process failed, what should I do?

If you change only a group's Agent version, the resulting impact to network and system performance is minimal, regardless of the number of users that the group contains. This is because Agent packages are relatively small. Windows-based Agent installation packages are about 10 MB in size, and macOS-based ones are about 6 MB.

Changing a group's policies, however, can impact system performance—regardless of whether you also change the Agent version at the same time. Updating a policy to include a lot more files will cause the Agent to send more files to Connected. This data transfer might impact network performance if a large number of users receive this change at the same time.

For more information, see Understand the impact of group-related changes.

Agent auto-upgrades run silently in the background and have minimal impact on users. They do not prompt users for input or display any installation-related windows. At most, users might briefly experience a slight delay in movement of the cursor if they are actively moving it around the screen at the time the upgrade occurs.

No. The Agent prevents the manual or automated installation of a version earlier than the one currently installed. If for any reason you need to revert to an earlier version, you must uninstall the current Agent, and then install the earlier version. Users can manually revert their own Agent in this manner or you use an automated process to do it for them.

Sometimes, Agent upgrades cause existing Connected badges to disappear temporarily. This can occur whether you manually upgraded the Agent or your administrator initiated an automatic upgrade that occurred silently in the background while you worked. To redisplay the badges after an Agent upgrade, either restart the computer or Windows Explorer.

To restart Windows Explorer

1. Open Windows Task Manager. To do so, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc.

2. On the Processes tab, do one of the following:

   • For Windows 7:

     1. Right-click explorer.exe, click End Process, and then click End process.
     2. On the File menu, click New Task (Run...).
     3. In the Open box, enter explorer.exe, and then click OK.
   • For Windows 8, select Windows Explorer, and then click Restart.

To find your Agent's version, right-click the Connected icon () in the Windows notification area (or click the icon in the macOS menu bar), and then click About.

No. Agents are generic software applications that do not contain any user-specific information; they are suitable for any user. Therefore, as an administrator, you can download one Agent from the Downloads page and distribute it to many users.

Connected comes preconfigured to provide all basic users access to the latest available Agent version for each supported operating system. If you are a customer-level administrator, you can change these default settings so that the Downloads page provides users access to a different version. For more information, see Configure the Agent versions available for user download.

If the Agent did not install or upgrade successfully, try the following, in order:

1. Restart your computer, and then try to install or upgrade the Agent again.

   Another application might have exclusive use of a shared component that the Agent needs for installation or upgrade. If so, restarting the computer will free the component so that the Agent can use it.

2. See the appropriate log file for details about the failures. If you need additional help, contact Support.

   The installation or upgrade method that failed determines which log file you should view:

   • Command-line method.

     • Windows: custom log location that you specify on the command line
     • macOS: /var/log/install.log

   • Interactive method.

     • Windows: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\MSIxxxxx.LOG
     • macOS: /var/log/install.log

   • Auto-upgrade method.

     The auto-upgrade method logs errors to one of two files, depending on which part of the process fails.

     • Windows:

       • File download and general errors: userFolder\AppData\Local\Connected\Logs\User.log
       • Installation tool errors: C:\Windows\Temp\MSIxxxxx.LOG

     • macOS:

       • File download and general errors: ~/Library/Application Support/Connected/Logs/User.log
       • Installation tool errors: /var/log/install.log

   The Device Log report (Customer-level administrators only) lets you view errors that the Agent writes to the User.log file. Agents automatically send this file to Connected every 24 hours. The Troubleshooting tab of the Agent's preference settings lets users manually trigger the Agent to send this file on demand, too. For access to the MSIxxxxx.LOG or install.log file, as well as other Agent log files, the Troubleshooting tab lets users generate a ZIP package of this diagnostic information that they can send to you for manual review under the guidance of Support.

An administrative Agent configuration policy defines your Agent's default preference settings and whether you can override them through preference settings in your Agent. You can view this policy using the Connected web application.

To view the Agent configuration policy that affects your profile

1. In the upper-right corner of the web application, click your name, and then click My Profile.

   Right-click the Connected icon () in the Windows notification area (for macOS, click the icon in the menu bar), point to Connected web application, and then click View Policy.

2. On the profile page, click Admin Rules, and then under VIEWING, click Agent Configuration Policy.

The web application displays the policy's rules and indicates whether each preference is locked () or unlocked ().