Pre-Installation Preparation

This information is provided to give you an opportunity to prepare for the SysTrack installation before your scheduled meeting with Lakeside Software Support. As part of that preparation, there are prerequisites you should install in advance to decrease the time needed for the actual SysTrack installation.

Database Preparation

As a best practice, we recommend you only use the included SQL Express for SysTrack installations that have fewer than 1500 non-load balanced users. If the database load becomes too great, you may have to switch to a different edition of SQL Server in the future.

For existing SQL Server installations, the following applies:

  • Database Hardware should be configured and communicating on the network.

  • The database server to which the SysTrack server is connected must reside in one of the following locations:

    • The same domain as the SysTrack server

    • A domain that trusts the domain in which the SysTrack server resides.

  • The SysTrack database currently supports Latin collation sequences.

    • In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, Lakeside Software requires that the SQL database collation be set to SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS to be used for data processing for the Lakeside Software database and system databases.

  • Customers in other countries contact Lakeside Software Support for more information.

For SysTrack installations that have more than 1500 non-load balanced users:

  1. Install SQL Server 2016 or above prior to SysTrack installation.

    IMPORTANT: To view SQL reporting data, the Reporting Services feature must be installed with your SQL Server installation.

  2. Beginning with the release of Microsoft SQL Server 2016, Microsoft removed the installation of Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) from the main SQL Server installation process. SSMS will need to be installed separately.

  3. After SQL Server installation:

  4. Verify that TCP and Windows authentication are enabled.

  5. Make sure a verifiable certificate is in use. For more information, see Enable encrypted connections - SQL Server.

  6. Create a SQL database to be used as the SysTrack database

  7. Make sure that the Database recovery mode is set to Simple.

  8. To use the SysTrack reporting tools such as SysTrack Dashboard, SysTrack Visualizer, and SQL Server Reporting Services reports, you need to set up a Reporting User Account. This should be a Windows domain account (not a SQL or SA account). The Reporting User Account needs Allow Logon Locally permissions to the SysTrack server and the server where SSRS is hosted (in most cases, the SQL Server).

For virtualized installations with pooled, non-persistent desktops and non-persistent terminal servers, a full version of Microsoft SQL Server is required for environments with more than 200 users. SQL Server Express can be used for environments with less than 200 users.

In SysTrack, the product can be configured to handle MSI installs for non-persistent virtual machines for a given pool. The Golden Image used for this process has a specially-prepared configuration placed on it so that the Agent knows it is in a non-persistent system when it starts up. This Golden Image cannot be used on a persistent VM interchangeably.

A pool is a resource defined in the VM hosting farm (such as VMware). This pool of resources simply claims a portion of the CPU/Mem and other resources and designates them for use by the virtual machines that are assigned to that pool. These VMs can be persistent or non-persistent.

Certificate Preparation

SysTrack 10 utilizes Transport Layer Security (TLS) for access to all tools and client server communications, which requires a valid and trusted certificate. Refer to Generate a Certificate for certificate generation options.

NOTE: Certificate generation and distribution is the sole responsibility of the client, and this section is provided purely as ancillary information. Third-party implementations and practices are subject to change, and this may not reflect said changes immediately or in their entirety.

Basic Certificate Properties and Recommendations

To ease deployment requirements, we recommend that the certificate be part of an existing trusted certificate chain.

  • Key Usage: digital signature and key encipherment

  • Extended Key Usage: server authentication

  • Encryption Type: SHA256 or higher

  • Common Name: FQDN of SysTrack master server

  • Alternative Names: FQDN, short name, and any DNS aliases of SysTrack master server

IMPORTANT: Wildcard certificates will cause complications when integrating with SSRS.

Default Security Considerations with MSOLEDBSQL Driver

Beginning with release 10.2.1, Microsoft OLE DB Driver 19 for SQL Server is a prerequisite for SysTrack installation. It is installed during the Software Prerequisites step, unless already installed.

As described in Release notes for the Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server, the driver now defaults to secure-by-default options, with encrypted connections now enabled by default. If client-side encryption is off but the server requires encryption, the server certificate will now be validated.

Recommended practice is to set up your SQL Server with a verifiable certificate—typically a domain certificate—so that the client side trusts the certificate through normal validation. For more information, see Enable encrypted connections - SQL Server.

NOTE: Although using a self-signed certificate is not recommended, you can restore previous driver version behavior by opting in to non-encrypted connections (Encrypt or Use Encryption for Data option) and trusting the server certificate (Trust Server Certificate option). For more information, see Encryption and certificate validation.

Antivirus Exclusions

Regardless of the deployment method used, certain antivirus software contains separate file and printer sharing options that may override the local machine settings and also need to be configured for a successful deployment to endpoint systems.

  • Exclude all items listed under \Program Files\SysTrack\Agent\.

For some SEP configurations, additional steps are necessary. If the Block Applications from running option is enabled in the SEP policy, exceptions will have to be made to the Application and Device Control settings. Additionally, the SysTrack Agent and associated utilities must be allowed to run to collect data.

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Installation

A report server is the central component of a Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) installation. An SSRS installation is required to include the Analyze Reports in various SysTrack applications, such as SysTrack Visualizer and Transform.

See Microsoft’s Install SQL Server Reporting Services article for more information.