NComputing PMC Endpoint Manager
Product: NComputing PMC Endpoint Manager
Version: 4.2.1
Supported virtualization environments:
PMC Endpoint Manager has been tested and confirmed to work with the above-mentioned versions of supported hypervisors, but it will also work with other versions of those hypervisors, as well as with other hypervisors.
Supported NComputing access devices:
This document contains important information. Please read the entire document to ensure that your deployment process goes smoothly.
NComputing PMC is an endpoint management system designed and developed to remotely manage NComputing access devices.
PMC Endpoint Manager 4.2.1 (also referred to as 4.2 in this document) is a major product release which replaces the 4.1.1 and earlier versions. This release contains new features, functionality improvements, security patches, and fixes for bugs affecting earlier versions.
Please refer to the More about new product features section for more information.
PMC is NComputing’s endpoint management software for L400, RX300, RX-RDP, RX-RDP+, RX420(RDP), RX440(RDP), RX520, RX540, RX580, LEAF OS (including EX500/EX500W/EX500S), and RX420(vSpace) devices. Number of available PMC licenses depends on managed device model and associated AMP (Annual Maintenance Program) status:
Following are the important points to consider before and during PMC installation:
The order in which the discovery methods are tried is following: (1) DHCP, (2) NComputing Management Portal, and (3) DNS. Once one method returned an address or URL, no other methods will be tried. The devices will keep trying to use the first successfully discovered PMC address even if the actual PMC connection through the discovered address/URL will be unsuccessful.
Since version 3.0.1, PMC Endpoint Manager can be deployed to Azure Cloud.
When deploying PMC to Azure Cloud, it’s advisable to put the PMC VM into dedicated Resource Group. A new Resource Group can be created in the Create virtual machine step. The already created PMC virtual machine can also be moved to the dedicated Resource Group later.
Please refer to following Knowledge Base article for the information where to find and how to install PMC from Azure Marketplace:
Microsoft Defender for Cloud considerations
Based on the reports from customers using PMC Endpoint Manager in Azure Cloud, we have noticed that enabling the Microsoft Defender for Cloud option for the Azure Subscription covering the PMC virtual machine can cause serious problems with PMC appliances. The problems arise because the Microsoft Azure Linux Agent (waagent) software component running in PMC virtual machines in Azure Cloud attempts to install certain VM extensions when the Microsoft Defender for Cloud option is enabled. Due to the incompatibility of some of the Microsoft packages installed by the extensions with Debian Linux (the base OS of PMC), the system services installed by the incompatible packages may write massive amounts of messages to system journal, unnecessarily consuming the storage space. A shortage of storage space can lead to serious system problems. To avoid the potential issues caused by Microsoft Defender for Cloud installation, we advise to create and assign an Azure Policy, which will prevent the Defender installation.
Follow the below steps to create the Azure Policy:
{ "mode": "All", "policyRule": { "if": { "allOf": [ { "field": "type", "equals": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/extensions" }, { "field": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/extensions/type", "in": "[parameters('notAllowedExtensions')]" } ] }, "then": { "effect": "deny" } }, "parameters": { "notAllowedExtensions": { "type": "Array", "metadata": { "description": "The list of extensions that will be denied. Example: CustomScriptForLinux, VMAccessForLinux etc.", "displayName": "Denied extension" } } } } |
If some JSON data was already there, replace it with the above.
The created Azure Policy needs to be assigned to the Resource Group containing your PMC virtual machine:
Note: When you omit the Resource Group selection, the Policy will be applied to all ‘Compute’ resources in your Azure Subscription and will prevent the Microsoft Defender for Cloud installation on all virtual machines covered by the subscription, not only on PMC virtual machines.
["MDE.Linux", "OmsAgentForLinux"] |
When you switch the view to the Resource Group dedicated to PMC virtual machines, the Policy Definition and the Policy Assignment should appear after selecting Settings > Policies from the Resource Group task list on the left-hand side of the page.
PMC Endpoint Manager 4.2.1 supports updates from PMC 4.0.x and 4.1.x. Updates from older versions can succeed but have not been tested by NComputing and thus are not officially supported.
Since version 3.0.0, PMC Endpoint Manager supports “in-place” updates of PMC appliances, without the necessity to create and restore system backups. An in-place update will preserve all contents of PMC database (devices, subnets, subnet groups, profiles, local user accounts, etc.), the system settings (including the check-in operation mode), network settings and the licensing information.
Due to the specifics of the bugfixes included in the PMC 4.0.2 maintenance release (which are also contained in this 4.1.1 release), the in-place update procedures are different for PMC appliances deployed on-premises and for PMC appliances deployed to Microsoft Azure Cloud (where some additional preparation steps are necessary prior to the in-place update).
Upgrading “in-place” from PMC 4.0 or 4.1 to 4.2 (on-prem deployments)
Please follow the below procedure to perform an in-place update of PMC appliance deployed on-prem:
Note: Separate PMC update packages are available for on-prem and Azure Cloud deployments. Please make sure you have obtained the update package for on-prem deployments. An attempt to update PMC with incorrect update package will fail.
Upgrading “in-place” from PMC 4.0 or 4.1 to 4.2 (deployments in Azure Cloud)
Based on the reports from customers using PMC in Azure Cloud, we have noticed that enabling the Microsoft Defender for Cloud option for the Azure Subscription covering the PMC virtual machine can cause serious problems with PMC appliances. The problems arise because the Microsoft Azure Linux Agent (waagent) software component running in PMC virtual machines in Azure Cloud attempts to install certain VM extensions when the Microsoft Defender for Cloud option is enabled. The extensions occupy several hundred megabytes of storage space on one of PMC storage volumes. Due to the incompatibility of some of the Microsoft packages installed by the extensions with Debian Linux (the base OS of PMC), the system services installed by the incompatible packages may write massive amounts of messages to system journal, quickly consuming the remaining storage space. A shortage of storage space can lead to serious system problems.
Following preparation steps are necessary on Azure-hosted PMC VMs prior to in-place upgrade from version 4.0.0 to 4.2.
Note: The below steps are not necessary if they were already executed when upgrading an older version to 4.0.2 or 4.1.1 (e.g., 3.x to 4.0.2 or 4.0.0 to 4.1.1).
pmcadmin@PMC-4:~$ sudo du -ah /var/log/ | grep -v "/var/log/journal" | sort -h -r | head -n 11 | tail -n 10
108M /var/log/syslog
48M /var/log/messages
520K /var/log/daemon.log
169K /var/log/dpkg.log
140K /var/log/cloud-init.log
62K /var/log/bootstrap.log
52K /var/log/kern.log
48K /var/log/auth.log
32K /var/log/faillog
32K /var/log/btmp
On PMC appliances which have been running for several months, especially if Azure Defender for Cloud components have been installed, there might be log files with sizes of several hundred megabytes. To truncate such files, execute the following command on each of them (replace <log_file_name> with actual log file name):
echo | sudo tee /var/log/<log_file_name>
pmcadmin@PMC-4:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev
tmpfs 392M 672K 392M 1% /run
/dev/sdb1 7.8G 957M 6.5G 13% /run/live/medium
/dev/loop0 914M 914M 0 100% /run/live/rootfs/filesystem.squashfs
/dev/sdc 2.0G 231M 1.6G 13% /run/live/overlay
overlay 2.0G 231M 1.6G 13% /
tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
/dev/sde 32G 60K 30G 1% /media/pmc-data
/dev/sdd 7.8G 75M 7.3G 1% /media/pmc-services
/dev/sda1 7.8G 24K 7.4G 1% /mnt
In the above example, the 2 GB overlay volume (mounted on /run/live/overlay) resides on the /dev/sdc device. Write this information down for further use. The filesystem from the overlay volume stores the changes made to the underlying root filesystem (which is read-only). PMC 4.2 appliances newly deployed to Azure cloud will have the overlay volume size already set to 5 GB. Since increasing the overlay volume size cannot be done from within the VM during the in-place update process, the volume size will need to be manually increased before beginning the in-place update.
This disk is the /dev/sdc device from the above example and is mounted on /run/live/overlay.
pmcadmin@PMC-4:~$ sudo resize2fs /dev/sdc
resize2fs 1.46.2 (28-Feb-2021)
Filesystem at /dev/sdc is mounted on /run/live/overlay; on-line resizing required
old_desc_blocks = 1, new_desc_blocks = 1
The filesystem on /dev/sdc is now 1310720 (4k) blocks long.
pmcadmin@PMC-4:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev
tmpfs 392M 680K 392M 1% /run
/dev/sdb1 7.8G 957M 6.5G 13% /run/live/medium
/dev/loop0 914M 914M 0 100% /run/live/rootfs/filesystem.squashfs
/dev/sdc 4.9G 945M 3.7G 20% /run/live/overlay
overlay 4.9G 945M 3.7G 20% /
tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
/dev/sde 32G 60K 30G 1% /media/pmc-data
/dev/sdd 7.8G 75M 7.3G 1% /media/pmc-services
/dev/sda1 7.8G 24K 7.4G 1% /mnt
The Defined Policy and the Assignment should prevent the installation of unwanted Microsoft Defender for Cloud extensions, which overconsume the storage space on the overlay volume and flood the system journal. However, if the extensions have already been installed, they will need to be uninstalled manually.
To uninstall the Microsoft Defender for Cloud extensions:
After completing the above preparation steps, please follow the procedure below to perform an in-place update of the PMC appliance deployed to Microsoft Azure Cloud:
Note: Separate PMC update packages are available for on-prem and Azure Cloud deployments. Please make sure you have obtained the update package for deployments in Azure Cloud. An attempt to update PMC with incorrect update package will fail.
Migrating from PMC 2.9.x (or newer versions) to 4.2 by restoring a backup
Even though it has not been thoroughly tested by NComputing and thus is not officially supported, the below procedure can be followed to try updating PMC versions 2.9.x (or 3.x) to version 4.2. This method can also be used to migrate PMC between different types of hypervisors, where an in-place update is not an option.
Depending on whether the reactivation will be necessary or not, after restoring the backup, you will be redirected to PMC 4.2 activation page or to the logon page. All devices, device settings, profiles, local user accounts, local user groups, uploaded files, and server settings will be restored. Also, virtual appliance’s network settings, all Subnet Groups, Subnets, Name Scopes, Asset Tag-based groups, and Manual Groups, as well as device profile assignments to those groups will be restored.
Important notes:
Please take into account the ‘PMC backup/restore considerations with extended support for tagged Subnets’ from next sections of this document below.
When a backup of a PMC appliance was created with the intention to be restored together with the licensing data on a newer PMC version, then the original (backed-up) appliance should be shut down and never used again. This is to keep consistency of the access tokens contained in the backup and restored on the new PMC appliance with the access tokens maintained by NComputing Management Portal. Continuing to use both appliances will make one of the appliances out of sync with the Management Portal, causing the licensing grace period to begin on the desynchronized appliance. Disconnecting it from the Management Portal and reactivating will be necessary to restore normal operation.
Restoring a backup of a PMC appliance which had a static IP address on a PMC appliance which currently has a different IP address (static or assigned by DHCP), will result with the web-based user interface losing the connection with PMC. To continue working with PMC after restoring such backup, the web-based user interface will have to be reopened through a new URL based on the restored static IP address.
When restoring a backup of PMC deployed to a different hypervisor, e.g., when restoring on a new PMC currently running on VMware ESXi a backup of PMC deployed to Hyper-V, the restore procedure may not correctly restore the static IP address of the original PMC appliance. This may happen due to possible virtual Ethernet interface names mismatch between the hypervisors. Please confirm in the Text-based User Interface that PMC has configured the expected static IP address, after restoring the backup. Set the correct static IP address manually, when necessary.
Using Microsoft Entra ID as an external Authentication System for PMC users
PMC Endpoint Manager 4.2 introduces the support for Microsoft Identity Platform (Entra ID) as yet another external Authentication System. PMC users can now benefit from modern authentication and identity validation technologies, such as passwordless authentication and conditional access.
In order to use Microsoft Entra ID as an external Authentication System for PMC users, the PMC Endpoint Manager must first be registered as an application under Azure tenant’s Entra ID. This can be done on the Microsoft Entra ID > App registrations page of Azure Portal. When registering the application, select the following:
While redirects to URLs containing IP addresses may also work, the best practice is to use a fully qualified domain name (FQDN). Depending on whether PMC’s web-based interface is accessed from the internal network or the public Internet, ensure that the internal or public IP address of PMC is properly registered in the organization’s internal and/or public DNS. The DNS should resolve the FQDN used in the Redirect URL to the appropriate internal or public IP address.
The registered application needs to get the following delegated Microsoft Graph API permissions granted:
To allow seamless (without any consent requests) user authentication in the PMC application, the above listed permissions must have admin consent granted for the user accounts in the tenant organization. The permissions can be added, and the admin consent can be granted in the Azure Portal under Microsoft Entra ID > App registrations > {Name of defined PMC application} > API permissions page:
Configuring Microsoft Entra ID as an external Authentication System
PMC Authentication Systems can be defined in PMC on the Administration > Authentication page. To define Microsoft Entra ID as an Authentication System, use the Create task in the Authentication Systems panel.
The following parameters must be configured:
Server type – selection of the Authentication System type (Microsoft Entra ID).
Display name – the name that will be presented to the users to identify the Authentication System (e.g., on the logon page).
Enable – checkbox to enable the Authentication System.
Use global MFA settings – select this checkbox to additionally enforce the PMC’s own Multifactor Authentication for the users of the Authentication System. In the case of Entra ID, it’s better to use Entra ID’s own MFA, instead of PMC’s MFA.
Tenant ID – the identifier of Entra ID tenant. It can be found in the Azure Portal under Microsoft Entra ID > Overview page.
PMC users group ID – the identifier of the Entra ID user group containing all users allowed to login to PMC. All PMC users originating from Entra ID must be members of this group. Just a successful Entra ID authentication alone is not enough to allow access to PMC.
Client ID – the identifier of the PMC application registered in the Entra ID tenant. This can be found in the Azure Portal under Microsoft Entra ID > App registrations > {Name of defined PMC application} > Overview page.
Configuring authorization for Entra ID users
Successful authentication of Entra ID users does not automatically grant any permissions to them. To grant some permissions, the Entra ID user group(s) the users belong to must be matched with some local PMC group(s), which in turn can have some user roles assigned. This can be achieved by creating a membership rule. This task is available in the Group Membership Rules panel of the user group edit page under Administration > User Management > User Groups > Edit.
For Entra ID, a membership rule contains an identified (Object ID) of an Entra ID user group. Members of this Entra ID user group will automatically become members of the PMC user group and will be authorized to perform the administrative tasks granted by the permissions enabled in the definitions of the Roles assigned to the user group.
Directly adding external users to local PMC user groups
Besides using the Membership Rules to automatically make users belonging to certain user groups in external Authentication Systems members of local PMC user groups, starting with PMC version 4.2, it is also possible to directly assign such users to local PMC user groups. To do so, follow the procedure below:
Since that moment, the selected external users will become authorized to perform the administrative tasks granted by the permissions enabled in the definitions of the Roles assigned to the user group.
Support for Multifactor Authentication (MFA)
Since version 4.2, the Multifactor Authentication (MFA) can be enabled as an additional security measure for PMC user accounts. MFA is a functionality that works in conjunction with and complements the Authentication Systems supported by PMC. The MFA implementation in PMC leverages the Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP) algorithm defined in the RFC 6238 document. With MFA enabled, PMC will enforce the applicable users to configure an authenticator app (e.g., Microsoft Authenticator or Google Authenticator) by scanning a QR code from the logon screen on the first logon attempt. On subsequent logon attempts, with the MFA already configured for a user account, the user will be prompted to provide a one-time password from the authenticator app to be able to successfully log on.
The MFA settings are configurable in the MFA Settings panel of the Administration > Authentication page. The ‘Manage MFA settings’ permission is required to perform the MFA-related tasks in PMC. Once enabled globally, local PMC user accounts will be required to configure and use MFA. For user accounts originating from external Authentication Systems (Active Directory or Entra ID), the MFA is optional and can be disabled by deselecting the Use global MFA settings checkbox in the Authentication System’s settings. This is especially advisable for Authentication Systems (like Entra ID) that offer their own MFA mechanisms.
MFA recovery codes can be optionally enabled for MFA-enforced users. Such codes allow logging on in case of authenticator app unavailability.
Each user can generate their own MFA recovery codes in the User Preferences dialog. This dialog can be opened by clicking the user name in the upper-right corner of the PMC web-based user interface and by selecting the Preferences option. In the same User Preferences dialog, each user can also erase their own MFA configuration. This will force the user to repeat the authenticator app setup on the next logon.
PMC users with the ‘Manage MFA settings’ permission granted will be able to centrally remove configurations and recovery codes for all PMC users. Corresponding tasks are available in the MFA Setting panel of the Administration > Authentication page.
Option to temporarily lock down user accounts after a number of failed authentication attempts
User lockdown can be enabled in the User Lockdown Settings panel of the Administration > Authentication page. With this feature enabled, once the number of sequentially failed authentication attempts for a particular user exceeds the selected value during the selected time interval, the user account will be locked for the selected time. Successful authentication resets the counter.
The global User Lockdown functionality applies to local PMC user accounts and is optional for the external Authentication Systems.
Users with ‘Manage user lockdown settings’ permission can unlock the locked user accounts by executing the Unlock task on user accounts selected in the Users panel of the Administration > User Management page.
Concept of external Notification Systems
PMC Endpoint Manager 4.2 introduces the concept of external Notification Systems. Notification Systems can be used to deliver information about significant events taking place in PMC. They consist of Monitors, which continuously check certain PMC system conditions, and Notification Channels, which are responsible for delivering the information to defined recipients. Monitors act as notification sources for the channels.
System Monitors available in PMC 4.2 are:
Some of the Monitors can be configured to periodically resend the notifications when the triggering condition is continuously met. If resending is disabled (resending interval is set to zero), PMC only sends notifications when new (or previously resolved) problems occur.
Some Monitors can be configured to aggregate the events which happened during selectable time period and to only send summary notifications. With disabled aggregation, the Monitor will immediately send the notification on each new event.
Monitor |
Resending notifications |
Aggregating events |
Device offline time |
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Device user raised hand |
|
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Failed user authentications |
|
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Licensing issues |
|
|
Percent of offline devices |
|
|
Volume space |
|
|
PMC 4.2 provides two channels for notifications delivery: SMTP and Web hook. SMTP channel allows sending the notifications via e-mails. The Web hook channels make use of web APIs to deliver the notifications. For both channels, a Name must be specified and the Notification sources (Monitors) providing information about system events must be selected. Both channels can be independently enabled or disabled.
Settings specific to the SMTP notification channel are:
Settings specific to the Web hook notification channel are:
Web hook channels require some source-specific settings. These are:
Variables can be used when defining context paths and when creating custom request body templates. They have the form of ${variableName}. ${variableName} will be replaced with the actual value of the named variable when sending the API request. Names of variables available for each notification data source can be listed in the Edit source-specific settings dialog boxes. Some variables (especially the ones containing specific event details) only become available when the Split aggregated messages option is enabled.
SSL certificate settings
All connections to PMC Endpoint Manager are encrypted with the TLS protocol. This regards the connections from managed devices, as well as web browser connections of PMC users. TLS relies on SSL certificates to allow clients (managed devices or web browser) verify the authenticity of PMC hosts.
The SSL certificates used by the TLS listener of PMC are configurable in the dedicated panel on the Administration > System Settings page.
PMC allows choosing between:
Certificates which are ready to use and can be selected in the Current certificate combo-box are marked with the Ready to use label. Certificates marked as Not configured require further action to become usable. Each certificate type has a dedicated “accordion item” (expandable/collapsable element) in the PMC SSL Certificate Settings panel allowing the execution of the tasks necessary to configure the certificate.
Using PMC to generate the private key and the signing request
To prepare a certificate (and private key) generated by PMC:
You can then select the signed certificate in the Current certificate combo-box.
If you need to cancel the pending certificate signing request (e.g., when a request with different properties is required), execute the Cancel pending request task.
If you need to remove from PMC the private key and the signed certificate, select another certificate in the Current certificate combo-box and then execute the Reset action.
Uploading the private key and certificate created externally
To upload to PMC a certificate signed by external Certification Authority, with the private key generated outside of PMC:
You can then select the uploaded certificate in the Current certificate combo-box.
If you need to remove from PMC the uploaded private key and certificate, select another certificate in the Current certificate combo-box and then execute the Reset action.
Enhanced Tasks scheduling subsystem
Since version 4.2, the tasks scheduled and executed by PMC can be viewed and managed in a more transparent way. This regards one-time tasks (e.g., firmware updates) as well as repeating tasks, like scheduled device reboots or shutdowns, or tasks executed by Notification Systems.
List of all currently scheduled tasks, including tasks scheduled for all devices, is available on the Administration > Scheduled Tasks page. The permission required to manage the scheduled tasks is ‘Manage tasks’. The built-in PMC super user role grants this permission. The corresponding read-only permission is ‘View tasks’.
Each task can have one of following states:
Following operations can be performed on scheduled tasks:
List of scheduled tasks can be sorted and filtered by most columns. To only display tasks for a specific target, use the Filter option of the Target column and enter a string characterizing the target. This is especially useful when looking for the execution history or current schedule of tasks related to devices.
List of tasks specific to selected device can also be accessed from the Devices list, by clicking the floating “eye” icon ( ), which opens the device details view. List of active tasks will be displayed at the bottom of the dialog box. The view more link opens the Scheduled Tasks page, with the task list filtered to only display the tasks targeted to the selected device.
Role-base access control (RBAC) for PMC users
Prior to version 4.1.1, only two levels of user privileges were available in PMC Endpoint Manager: full-admin (with read-write permissions and with the ability to perform all administrative actions) and help-desk (read-only permissions, with limited access to administrative actions). The control over the permissions for local PMC users was only possible by making or not making the users members of a user group with “Administrative group” flag set. Users not belonging to any such group only had read-only permissions. For local PMC user accounts the differentiation between full-admin read-write privileges and read-only privileges was only possible at the whole organization level. For LDAP (Active Directory) users, for the whole organization, as well as for Subnet Groups and Subnets, it was possible to separately specify Distinguished Names of Active Directory user groups containing users with full-admin and help-desk only privileges.
PMC 4.1.1 introduced role-based access control (RBAC) to make the control over user permissions to execute administrative actions much more granular. Not only the LDAP/Active Directory users can benefit from the role-based access control, but also the local PMC users.
The role-based access control mechanism makes use of following elements:
PMC 4.1.1 and newer versions have following user roles built-in:
Custom roles can be defined and assigned to user groups to grant special sets of permissions.
Note: When updating from pre-4.1 PMC versions, the local user groups which had the “Administrative group” flag set (e.g., ‘pmcadmins’), will automatically get the ‘PMC super user’ role assigned in PMC 4.1.1 (or newer). However, the groups which prior to update did not have this flag set, will not get any roles assigned, especially they will not have the ‘Helpdesk agent’ role assigned. If necessary, the assignment of the ‘Helpdesk agent’ role (or of some custom role) will have to be done manually by a user with appropriate permissions.
The user accounts, roles, and user groups (including the membership rules) can be configured on the consolidated Administration > User Management page.
Using RBAC to configure authorization of PMC users
The authorization to perform specific administrative actions results from the permissions, which have been granted to the PMC user groups the given user belongs to. The authorization is configurable with the Manage assigned user groups task, which is available in the Summary panels of the whole Organization, each Subnet Group and each Subnet. Members of the assigned user groups will be authorized to perform on the device group the administrative actions resulting from the permissions granted to the user groups. The Show user permissions task located in the same place can be used to display the effective permissions for each authorized PMC user. Only permissions related to device management will displayed.
Following user authorization rules apply:
In geographically dispersed environments, this functionality allows nominating regional administrators, helpdesk users, as well as users with custom roles and allowing them to manage and/or see only eligible parts of the infrastructure with the devices managed by PMC.
Concept of external Authentication Systems
Before PMC 4.1.1, the only possibility to authenticate remote users was to enable LDAP authentication. PMC 4.1.1 introduced the concept of external Authentication Systems, with the LDAP/AD being the first (and the only) one supported by PMC 4.1.1.
Using Active Directory as external Authentication System for PMC users
Since PMC Endpoint Manager version 2.5.0 it is possible to use LDAP servers to authenticate the PMC users. An Active Directory domain controller can be used as the LDAP server and act as the repository of user accounts and groups. PMC Endpoint Manager 4.1.1 introduced the concept of external Authentication Systems, where Microsoft Active Directory was the fist supported one. Authentication Systems can be defined on the Administration > Authentication page.
To define a new Authentication System, use the Create task.
Following parameters must be configured:
Server type – selection of the Authentication System type (e.g., Microsoft Active Directory).
Enable – the checkbox to enable the Authentication System.
Display name – the name which will be presented to the users to identify the Authentication System (e.g., on the logon page).
Server URL – the URL of the Active Directory domain controller acting as the LDAP server. Unencrypted (ldap://…) and encrypted (ldaps://…) LDAP connections are supported. If an incomplete URL will be specified, PMC will automatically extend it by prepending the protocol prefix and appending protocol-specific TCP port number. For the ‘ldap’ protocol (which is the default) the TCP port 389 will be used. For the ‘ldaps’ protocol (which must be specified manually) the TCP 636 port will be used. If a non-standard port should be used for the communication with the LDAP server, the port number should be entered manually. E.g., to securely connect to an AD forest’s Global Catalog server, the ‘ldaps’ protocol will have to be used with manually specified port 3269.
Domain name – the name of the Active Directory domain. It will be appended to the username specified on the logon page when performing LDAP binds to authenticate the user.
CA certificate – an uploaded Certification Authority certificate can be selected here. It will be used to verify the LDAP server certificate when a secure LDAP (ldaps://…) Server URL will be specified.
Ignore certificate subject – this option allows using the ‘ldaps’ protocol for connections to LDAP servers presenting certificates with Subject’s canonical name not matching server’s FQDN.
User lookup base DN – this must be the distinguished name (DN) of an Organizational Unit, not a user group, containing all user and user group objects, which will be used by PMC. All LDAP searches will start at this point and go deeper into the directory structure. In simplest case, this can be the distinguished name of the root of the Active Directory tree (however, this is only advisable for small directories).
PMC users group DN – this must be the distinguished name of a user group containing the accounts of all PMC users. All signing-in PMC users must be members of this group for the Active Directory authentication to succeed.
Advanced user lookup settings – the advanced user lookup settings are preconfigured with values appropriate for typical Active Directory deployments.
Active Directory configuration when updating a PMC instance which had LDAP/AD authentication enabled
When updating to 4.1.1 (or to a newer version) from an older PMC version (2.5.0 or newer) with LDAP/AD authentication enabled, an external authentication system with the type set to ‘Microsoft Active Directory’ will be added automatically. Its configuration will be taken from the LDAP configuration of the original version. Based on the Distinguished Names of the user groups which in the original version were authorized as full-administrator or helpdesk, the new user groups will be created with group membership rules configured with appropriate LDAP/AD Distinguished Names. The created user groups will get the PMC super user or Helpdesk agent roles assigned, depending on the authorization configuration in original version. The created user groups will also be assigned to the device groups (Organization, Subnet Group, or Subnet) where the Distinguished Names were originally specified in Manage User Authorization dialog.
Configuring authorization for Active Directory users
Successful authentication of Active Directory users does not yet grant any permissions to them. To grant some permissions, the Active Directory group(s) the users belong to must be matched with some local PMC group(s), which in turn can have some user roles assigned. This can be achieved by creating a membership rule. This task is available in the Group Membership Rules panel of the user group edit page.
For Active Directory, a membership rule contains a distinguished name of an Active Directory user group. Members of this AD user group will automatically become members of the PMC user group.
Ability to define IP address whitelists for PMC users and managed devices
To enhance the security of PMC, since version 4.1.1, it is possible to define whitelists of IP addresses for PMC users and managed devices. Only user or device connections originating from whitelisted addresses will be accepted.
IP address whitelists consist of IP rules in form of Subnet CIDR or IP address range. E.g., 10.200.57.0/24, 10.200.52.0-10.200.59.0, 107.15.144.36/32. The last example, which is a CIDR with 32-bit network mask, defines a subnet consisting of single IP address, effectively limiting the access to the 107.15.144.36 IP address only. Alternatively, a range with the same start and end address can be use to also limit the rule to just a single IP address.
To enable the IP whitelist feature, the Enable IP access rules switch needs to be turned on in the IP Access Restrictions panel on the Administration > System Settings page.
IP access rules for devices can be configured on the dedicated panel on the Administration > System settings page.
Note: When determining device’s eligibility to connect to PMC, PMC checks whether the Visible IP address of the device is allowed by any of the defined IP access rules.
IP access rules for user group members can be configured when editing properties of a user group.
Note: If the IP whitelist has been improperly defined, effectively preventing access for all PMC users, then the main Enable IP access rules switch can be turned off in the Text-based User Interface (TUI).
Ability to define web session policies for PMC users
The ability to define web session policies is yet another security feature introduced in PMC 4.1.1. The web session policy defines the behavior of existing user sessions when the same or another user logs on from another web browser. The available web policy selections are:
The web session policies are properties of user groups and can be selected when editing the groups.
New location of tasks related to Device Profiles
Prior to PMC 4.1.1, the dedicated Device Profiles page was accessible from the side menu. This has been removed in PMC 4.1.1 and all task related to the management of Device Profiles have been moved to Device Profiles panels in the device groups. New profiles can be now directly created in the target device groups and there is no need to assign the Device Profiles anymore.
New profiles, which will be created in PMC 4.1.1 or newer versions, are not enabled by default. Configurations of not yet enabled profiles can be edited and saved, but the device settings from such profiles will not be included in the calculation of effective configurations. Only after enabling the profile, the device settings will go to the effective configurations.
PMC Endpoint Manager versions up to 4.0.2 allowed creation of multiple unassigned profiles for the same device family, device model, and configuration version. Since 4.1.1, with the new location of the device profile tasks, it is not possible anymore, as each created profile will be immediately assigned to the device group, where the profile was created. When upgrading from previous PMC versions, the profiles which existed but were not assigned to any device group, will be converted to profile files and made available on the Administration > Files page. The new Import configuration profile task allows importing the profile from a file. Export configuration task can be used to save the selected profile as a file. This allows reusing the profile in some other device group or even in other PMC instance.
Localization of the PMC web-based user interface
The web-based user interface of PMC Endpoint Manager is now available in following languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Korean, and Japanese. The user interface language can be selected on the logon screen. After logon, the language can be changed under User Preferences.
The User Preferences settings can be accessed through the menu, which appears after clicking the PMC username in the upper-right corner of PMC GUI.
Note: The Text-based User Interface (TUI) of PMC virtual appliance, accessible through the dedicated management tool of your hypervisor, is and will remain only available in the English language.
Offline mode – ability to activate and use PMC in environments without Internet access.
The offline activation mode is an option for customers whose PMC appliances are connected to restricted networks and cannot get in direct touch with NComputing Management Portal. When activating the PMC appliance or refreshing the licensing information in offline mode, the same information which PMC normally (in online mode) sends over the Internet will be exchanged in form of request and license files.
Note: The offline activation option is not enabled by default for customer accounts in NComputing Management Portal. To enable the offline option, please get in touch with NComputing Technical Support or with your NComputing Sales Representative before proceeding.
PMC activation in offline mode
To activate PMC in offline mode, proceed as following:
Note: If you generated a new offline activation request file after downloading the license file from the Management Portal, you will have to repeat the procedure starting at step 4.
PMC license refresh in offline mode
In online mode, PMC contacts the NComputing Management Portal every day and automatically refreshes the license information. Manual license refresh is only necessary when the PMC administrator wants to accelerate the process after connecting new devices (for which PMC does not yet have the AMP information) or after purchasing or renewing the AMP licenses.
As in offline mode such automatic license refresh process cannot take place, the manual offline refresh will be usually necessary when:
To perform a PMC license refresh in offline mode, proceed as following:
Note: If you generated a new offline license update request file after downloading the license file from the Management Portal, you will have to repeat the procedure starting at step 3.
Offline activation/licensing mode limitations
In offline mode, some limitations apply to following product features:
As in offline mode the PMC license refresh requires manual creation of license update request file and upload of that file into Management Portal, it is advisable to perform the license refresh as soon as possible. Otherwise, if the devices with invalidated licenses or the devices marked as lost will be moved to a network with Internet connectivity, the Management Portal, based on the outdated information it will still have, will re-send to the devices the previous licenses, or will unlock the lost devices.
Firmware updates leveraging the update source specified in device configuration.
When scheduling a firmware update, PMC administrator can select one of the following firmware source options:
Note: If this new type of firmware update will be scheduled to happen ‘now’ and the firmware update source has been configured with PMC just before that (a minute or less), it can happen, that both commands will be delivered to the target device(s) at the same time. In such case, devices running firmware released prior to December 2022 can start the firmware update before applying the configuration change containing the firmware update source information. To avoid such a situation, it is advisable to wait some time (a minute or two) after applying the configuration change and before scheduling the firmware update. This is to ensure that the device will complete the configuration changes before beginning the firmware update.
Customization of lists presentation
The ‘Gearwheel’ icon has been added in the upper-right corner of all lists to allow opening the list customization dialog. The list columns can be displayed, hidden, and moved according to PMC user’s preferences.
New PMC system update mechanisms
PMC Endpoint Manager versions up to 2.9.x required deployment of virtual appliance containing the new PMC version and then restore of a backup created on an older version to perform system update, which was inconvenient, time consuming and error prone. PMC Endpoint Manager 3.0 introduced a new structure of internal filesystems, which allows quick and easy in-place updates of appliance software. No deployment of new appliance nor restore of older version backup will be necessary in the future. Subsequent PMC versions will be provided as full image (for new deployments) and as a system update package (to update existing PMC 3.x deployments).
Send message feature
A new task, Send message, has been added to Devices list. It allows the PMC user to send text messages to selected devices.
The messages will pop-up on device screens. The information about the PMC user who sent the message as well as the date and time when the message was sent will be displayed to device user.
Support for ‘Raise Hand’ requests
PMC Endpoint Manager 3.0.1 introduced the support for the ‘Raise Hand’ requests, which can be sent by the managed devices. Such requests will be sent when the device user presses the Shift-Ctrl-F2 key combination. Upon receiving the ‘Raise Hand’ request, PMC will display a notification and put timestamp information into the newly introduced Raised hand time column of Devices list.
This will allow the PMC administrator or helpdesk agent to quickly identify the devices whose users need assistance and use the Raise Hand feature to indicate that. The Raised hand time column allows sorting and filtering to find the devices even quicker. The new Clear raise hand task of the Devices list allows clearing the raised hand timestamps for selected (or all) devices.
Ability to export the contents of all PMC lists
All PMC lists can be exported in Excel (XLSX), comma-separated (CSV), PDF and HTML formats. Filtered and unfiltered lists can be exported. In the case when the Devices list display is limited due to licensing issues, the list of unlicensed devices can be exported to determine which devices (not shown on the Devices list in PMC GUI) are causing the issue.
Ability to mark selected devices as ‘lost’ or ‘found’
PMC Endpoint Manager 2.9.0 can be used to mark selected devices as ‘lost’ (e.g., stolen). This action will result in the ‘lost’ information being sent for the selected devices to NComputing Management Portal. For LEAF OS devices, the device license will additionally be revoked. The devices marked as ‘lost’ (if still connected to PMC) will receive the request to reset the configuration to factory defaults, lock the UI and block the operability. The ‘lost’ devices will stop communicating with PMC and will become offline. When a device is found, it can be unlocked from the PMC interface. However, PMC will only send this information to NComputing Management Portal. Devices marked as ‘lost’ will have to be rebooted and will need Internet connectivity to directly contact the Management Portal to receive the ‘found’ information, get unlocked and restore the normal operation.
Ability to revoke LEAF OS licenses
For LEAF OS devices which are no longer in use, it is possible to revoke the licenses (which effectively de-activates the device and resets them to factory defaults). The revoked licenses return to the license pool associated with the license key originally used for device activation and can be re-used to activate other LEAF OS devices.
Basic support for tagged Subnets (introduced in PMC 2.6.1)
Up to PMC 2.5.1, when a device with a Visible IP Address different than Ethernet or Wi-Fi IP address was checking-in to PMC, PMC was assigning the device to a Subnet which was configured to consider the Visible IP address. When devices are connecting to PMC through the Internet from NATed Subnets, PMC recognizes the public IP address of the Subnet as Visible IP Address of the connecting devices. As most Internet Service Providers by default do not assign to customers static public IP addresses, PMC (versions up to 2.5.1) was creating for the connected devices new Subnets, whenever the public/visible IP address was changing. As these new Subnets were created in the ‘Auto-created Subnets’ Subnet Group, additional manual actions were necessary to move the newly created Subnets to appropriate Subnet Groups, where necessary device profiles were assigned. To eliminate that inconvenience, PMC 2.6.1 introduces support for ‘tagged Subnets’. When a device, in check-in data, reports to PMC a non-empty Subnet Tag value, PMC will ignore the Visible IP Address, but instead will consider the Subnet Tag value, when assigning the device to a Subnet. This allows management of devices located in separate Subnets, even if the Subnets are using the same IP addressing schemes (e.g., 192.168.1.0/24). The Subnets will be differentiated by the Subnet Tag values reported by the devices. Device profiles dedicated to those different Subnets can be reliably assigned that way.
Example:
|
Branch Office A |
Branch Office B |
Network address |
192.168.1.0 |
192.168.1.0 |
Network mask |
255.255.255.0 |
255.255.255.0 |
Connection to PMC |
Over the Internet |
Over the Internet |
Public IP address |
Dynamic |
Dynamic |
Subnet Tag value configured on devices |
OfficeA |
OfficeB |
Subnets created by PMC for connected devices |
Subnet 192.168.1.0/24 (OfficeA) |
Subnet 192.168.1.0/24 (OfficeB) |
In the above example, even though the networks in two branch offices, Office A and Office B, use the same addressing scheme (192.168.1.0/24), even though the devices from both branch offices are connecting to PMC over the Internet with unpredictable public IP addresses, as the managed devices have different (and branch-office-specific) Subnet Tags configured, PMC puts them into separate Subnets. Device Profiles appropriate for each branch office can be assigned to those Subnets. The unpredictable Visible IP addresses of the devices are not taken into consideration when determining the Subnet affiliation of the devices.
When a device reports a Subnet Tag value in the check-in data, but no Subnet with the reported Subnet Tag value exists yet, PMC will create a new tagged Subnet with the reported Subnet Tag value.
Tagged Subnets can also be predefined by PMC administrator. The Consider Subnet Tag and Consider visible IP address options are mutually exclusive.
Subnet Tag values are case insensitive.
Extended support for tagged Subnets (introduced in PMC 2.7.0)
PMC 2.6.1 introduced support for ‘tagged Subnets’. For devices reporting a non-empty Subnet Tag value, PMC 2.6.1 was ignoring the Visible IP address when assigning the devices to Subnets, but the Ethernet or Wi-Fi addresses were still considered. Please refer to the ‘Support for tagged Subnets’ section below for more information.
PMC 2.7.0 (and newer versions) handle the devices reporting empty Subnet Tag values in exactly same way as 2.6.1 (the Ethernet/Wi-Fi and Visible IP addresses are the factors considered by PMC when determining device’s Subnet affiliation), but to better fit the work-from-home scenarios PMC 2.7.0 further extended the support for ‘tagged Subnets’.
The way how PMC 2.7.0 (and newer versions) handle the devices reporting non-empty Subnet Tags depends on PMC’s operation mode, which must be selected after PMC activation. Two options are available:
The operation mode is only selectable after PMC activation and cannot be changed later. This is because with the same inventory of devices in the database, the PMC Management Server needs to maintain a different layout of Subnets.
Please refer to following NComputing Knowledge Base article for more information about the extended support for tagged Subnets introduced in PMC 2.7.0: https://support.ncomputing.com/portal/en/kb/articles/how-to-use-subnet-tags-to-assign-devices-to-groups-in-pmc
PMC backup/restore considerations with extended support for tagged Subnets
Due to the different layouts of Subnets the PMC Management Server needs to maintain depending on the selected PMC operation mode (“standard” vs. “IP-neutral”), the following needs to be considered when restoring PMC backups:
In PMC 2.7.0 (or newer) deployed in “standard mode”:
In PMC 2.7.0 (or newer) deployed in “IP-neutral mode”:
Support for device screen shadowing
The software components allowing device screen shadowing from PMC act yet another VNC viewer application. The VNC screen shadowing feature needs to be enabled on the managed devices for the PMC screen shadowing feature to work.
Note: The Raspberry Pi-based devices (RX300, RX-RDP, RX420(RDP) and RX-RDP+) can use the hardware-based H.264 decoder to accelerate the video decoding in RDP, AVD and Windows 365 sessions. The output of that hardware H.264 decoder is inaccessible for the VNC server and thus the shadowing of the device only shows a black screen. To allow shadowing of RDP, AVD and Windows 365 sessions, the H.264 support needs to be disabled. It can be done by specifying following custom parameters:
Screen shadowing of devices running RDP or AVD sessions will be possible then, however the session performance can be slightly degraded. We recommend only temporarily disabling the H.264 support, for the duration of the troubleshooting session, and re-enable it then for normal operation.
Support for passcode-based device onboarding
When the Require passcode for device onboarding option will be activated under Administration > System Settings, then newly connecting devices will prompt the users to provide the onboarding passcode. Only if the user will provide correct onboarding passcode the device will successfully check-in and will be added to PMC’s database. This is a one-time process only. Already onboarded devices will never prompt users for any onboarding passcodes.
PMC appliance troubleshooting information collector.
PMC troubleshooting files contain numerous Linux system logs, application logs and configuration files, which can greatly help NComputing developers resolve product issues. The troubleshooting information can be collected in:
Requesting troubleshooting information from managed devices
The ‘First aid kit’ floating icon of the Devices list allows requesting from the device the troubleshooting logs.
After collecting, the device uploads the archived logs to PMC. This process can take a while (even a few minutes, especially when network tests are executed). The same ‘First aid kit’ icon in the Flags column of the Devices list indicates that the device has uploaded the troubleshooting logs to PMC. Administrators can download the logs in such cases.
Troubleshooting logs collected from all devices are available on the Administration > Files page.
PMC keeps up to five troubleshooting log archives uploaded by each managed device.
Event notifications
Whenever an event related to devices, device groups, profiles, licenses, files, or user accounts happens, PMC 2.6.1 can display a pop-up notification and also automatically refresh the affected GUI elements. Each PMC user can configure own preferences regarding which events should cause what actions.
The User Preferences settings can be accessed through the menu, which appears after clicking the PMC username in the upper-right corner of PMC GUI.
In case of user-initiated events, only other logged on PMC users (not the user who initiated the event) will receive the notifications.
Tools for automatic and manual device profiles upgrades
PMC, when composing the effective configuration which will be sent to the managed device, strictly controls the versions of the device configurations used during this process. If multiple profiles for different device families, models and configuration versions are assigned to the device groups, making a hierarchy of groups containing the managed device, then only the profiles matching the managed device family, model and configuration version will be merged when composing the effective configuration. NComputing continuously develops the device firmware to bring new valuable device features. As these new features often require specific settings, the new firmware versions containing new product features usually introduce new versions of device configurations. Although the new device configuration versions usually contain incremental extensions to older versions, some obsolete settings can be removed too. The strict control of the device configuration versions ensures completeness and consistency of the configuration settings delivered by PMC to managed devices. Thanks to that approach, the managed devices will never receive from PMC incomplete configurations nor receive configurations with parameters not existing in the specification of device’s current configuration version.
When an organization was using some devices for a while, profiles for the then-current configuration version of the devices were likely created in PMC. If at some time the Organization decided to upgrade (all or some) devices to a newer firmware version which introduced new product features and thus also a new configuration version, the existing profiles will be no more used for composing the effective settings for the upgraded devices. This is because of the configuration version mismatch between the existing profiles and upgraded device firmware. With no profiles existing for devices’ current configuration version, the effective configuration composed by PMC will be empty. Such configuration will not affect any device settings.
To avoid the necessity to manually create new profiles for devices’ new configuration version, PMC offers tools which greatly simplify or even fully automate the upgrade process.
Following functionalities are available:
When multiple upgrade paths exist, e.g., in case existing profiles for multiple older configuration versions can be upgraded, the administrator will be able to select which profiles and to which configuration version should be upgraded. The upgraded profiles can be automatically assigned to the same device groups, where the original (old) profiles were assigned.
The upgrades can be performed with the Upgrade task of the Device Profiles list.
In this case the profiles will be automatically upgraded to the latest available configuration version only. The upgraded profiles can be optionally assigned to the same device groups where the original profiles were assigned.
When the device configuration was edited in the past directly on a device when the device was using some older configuration version, then PMC will automatically upgrade the edited configuration to device’s current configuration version when the device will report a newer configuration version during check-in.
Device reboot and shutdown schedulers
PMC allows scheduling device reboots and shutdowns. The schedules can be defined with the Reboot and Shutdown tasks of the Devices lists. As the scheduled events will be defined using the time zone of PMC Management Server, the proper Time zone needs to be set for the PMC appliance under Administration > System Settings. Because the Reboot and Shutdown actions will be initiated by PMC (at the scheduled time PMC will send to the devices appropriate commands), the devices must be in online state to be able to execute the actions.
Workaround: The below steps must be followed to update the RX300 3.1.3 firmware to a newer version:
systemctl stop firewalld
After this change, PMC will create the firmware download URLs using the modified Base URL. This will allow the devices running the 3.1.3 firmware to successfully download and update the firmware.
To revert the changes after completing firmware updates on all devices do the following:
systemctl start firewalld
Workaround: If the managed device displays in its local GUI the Audio output priority list with the Audio item spelled with uppercase ‘A’ then resetting the device to factory defaults should resolve the issue. To reset the device to factory defaults, do the following:
Note: This issue was specific to RX300 device with firmware version 3.2.7 or older. Newer RX300 firmware versions correct this issue automatically during firmware update. NComputing strongly recommends updating all devices to the latest available firmware version before starting to manage them from PMC.
Disclaimer
Information contained in this document may have been obtained from internal testing or from a third party. This information is for informational purposes only. Information may be changed or updated without notice. NComputing reserves the right to make improvements and/or changes in the products, programs and/or specifications described herein anytime without notice.
All NComputing software is subject to NComputing intellectual property rights and may be used only in conjunction with Genuine NComputing hardware and in accordance with the NComputing End User Licensing Agreement and Terms of Use.
© Copyright 2025 NComputing Global, Inc. All rights reserved. NComputing is the property of NComputing Global, Inc. Other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners. Specifications are subject to change without notice. Performance may vary, depending on the configuration of the shared computer.