NIS -Server- Installation Guide

NIS server should have following components and pre-requisites for installation.

Minimum System Requiredments for NIS Server / Pre-requisites

Minimum Server Requirement
Server
BIOS based system
SATA directly attached HDD
Core 2 Duo Processor
2.0 Ghz Processor Speed
DVD ROM Drive
3GB RAM
80GB HDD
Integrated or PCI Network Card
Keyboard
Monitor Display Screen

(Note: NIS server should be installed on a BIOS system, UEFI for installation of NIS server is currently not supported, also SATA directly attached HDDs should be used, RAID hardware is not supported at present, if you want to install NIS on UEFI / BIOS system; please make sure Legacy mode BIOS is used.

Installation

Prior to installation make sure you have a server pc ready for installation, please check the pre-requisite for the server in previous section.

In order to begin installation, download the latest copy of software in zipped ISO format following location.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/nis-network-inventory-software/files/latest/download?source=files

Once you have downloaded NIS_v5.img.zip file, please unzip it.

nis_v5.img.zip file has size of approximately 4.9 GB, after unzipping the file name is nis_v5.img and file size is 8.00 GB
Note: nis_v5.img is raw USB disk image file, it is already bootable. You just have to burn it to the USB stick to make use of it.

You will need a minimum 8 GB USB flash drive. Now burn the IMG image file nis_v5.img to a usb flash drive.

If you are a Windows user, please use either rufus or Win32 Disk Imager application to burn the ISO image to USB flash drive. Please refer to rufus or Win32 Disk Imager guide. (You may google to find instructions)

Note: You can download Disk Imager from https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/files/latest/download

If you are Linux user, you can use dd command to burn the image to USB flash drive.

in Linux for example, dd if=./nis_v5.img of=/dev/sdb status=progress

Explanation: dd is a linux command to burn image, if=./filename is your source image of=/dev/sdX is the usb flash device status=progress will display the progress of image transfer to USB drive. (Please check the usb device name using dmesg)

After successfully burning the image to usb flash drive, you are now ready to begin NIS installation.

Plug the usb flash drive into installation server machine and boot from it.

You will come to following screen.

Important Note: type “Yes” and press Enter key on the keyboard

If you do not type Yes and continue, it will timeout in 5 seconds and will continue to install NIS software to machine it booted.

Above action will format the hard disk of your server machine and install NIS - Network Inventory Software. (You will loose all your existing data).

Follow the on screen instructions and continue to install the software, once completed reboot your server.

Important! After System Restore / Installation completion please reboot / reset your server

Once the server has been successfully installed and rebooted. You should be able to access the server’s web GUI interface.

Note: Please make sure your management console laptop / desktop where you are going to access the server’s GUI is on configured IP address: 192.168.1.252 subnet: 255.255.0.0, also ensure your management desktop / notebook network PXE boot option is disabled.

Server machine will boot into NIS software and will display either login prompt or graphical user interface.

NIS - Server has successfully installed and is now ready for use. Please refer to NIS - user guide.

Once you see above screen and login prompt, that means you have successfully installed the NIS software. You do not need to know the NIS server login credentials. You can manage everything from web GUI interface.

You should be able to access the server’s web GUI interface.

Note: Please make sure your management console laptop / desktop where you are going to access the server’s GUI is configured with IP address: 192.168.1.252 subnet: 255.255.0.0, also please ensure your management desktop / notebook network PXE boot option is disabled; otherwise NIS may record your management console as a inventory item and automatically prints the barcode lable. To avoid this please disable the PXE / network boot of your management console system.

Thermal Label Printers Network Configuration

USB thermal labels are no longer supported, therefore you should only use ZPL compatible thermal label with Ethernet/ Network RJ45 port. Each thermal label should be configured with IP address. When you boot inventory laptop / desktop, you may notice a screen indicating to select Warehouse location from a list of available warehouses. Each warehouse location corresponds to a specific thermal label printer in the warehouse. See below the mapping of printer names with IP addresses.

Warehouse1 = IP address: 192.168.1.21 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse2 = IP address: 192.168.1.22 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse3 = IP address: 192.168.1.23 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse4 = IP address: 192.168.1.24 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse5 = IP address: 192.168.1.25 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse6 = IP address: 192.168.1.26 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse7 = IP address: 192.168.1.27 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse8 = IP address: 192.168.1.28 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse9 = IP address: 192.168.1.29 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse10 = IP address: 192.168.1.30 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Warehouse11 = IP address: 192.168.1.31 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Home-Office = IP address: 192.168.1.76 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0

You must configure each thermal label printers with IP addresses from the above list. Make sure the printer is accessible on the NIS network by pinging it's IP address.

When inventory laptop / desktop boot, it prompts to select the location of warehouse, for example you have selected warehouse-2, NIS will send the label to warehouse-2 printer automatically after processing the data.

This way you can have several employees working in different parts of a very large warehouse using just a single NIS server.

Graphical User Interface (GUI) NIS - Network Computer Hardware Inventory

Access the GUI at following URL http://192.168.1.253

Below you can see the main menu of the automated NIS - Network Computer Hardware Inventory software.

As you can see above there are number of options available in the main menu.

You can now start the inventory by clicking - START INVENTORY button. The next screen would look like below image.

Kindly fill all the information in the section shown above and click save button to proceed.
Next window will show you a success message, close the dialog box and now you can begin physical part of the automated computer hardware inventory.

Start Automated Inventory

In order to begin automated computer / laptop / server hardware inventory, please ensure your inventory item has network cards and pxe boot option is enabled. Also ensure the NIS server has already booted up and is connected to the network switch. ZPL printer is also connected to the NIS server using USB cable and a correct self adhesive thermal labels roll is installed in the printer.

Note: Some workstations / inventory items needs a key pressed to show the boot option (for example Dell Desktops when powered on pressing F12 key presents the boot option, this is where you can select to boot from network). Please refer to manufacturer's instructions to access the network boot option.

Now boot the workstations inventory items one by one into PXE.

You may see following screen during the boot process.

After the above screen display you will see following message. A countdown of 300 seconds will begin after this the inventory item will be automatically shutdown to save energy. During the message a serial number will be shown on the screen which you can match with the printed label serial number to quickly identify the inventory item.

Note: If you are booting several hundred workstations via NIS solution, expect same number of labels to be printed at the same time, unless you have disabled the label printing in GUI main menu. It may become difficult to identify the right label for the right inventory item. See this example below " the serial number on the screen helps you identify the correct label for this inventory item"

After approximately 30 seconds a self adhesive label will automatically print, see below an illustration.

Once you see the labels have been printed and the success message appears on the inventory item's screen stating that the information has been stored in the database. You can safely shutdown the inventory item system and remove it from network and process the next inventory item.

Each inventory item takes approximately less than 1 minute to complete. You may connect upto 20,000 inventory items concurrently to the NIS network and the system will process all concurrently and automatically.

NIS Hardware Inventory Data Reporting

You can access the hardware inventory reports from the GUI portal. http://192.168.1.253

Click the "detailed reports" button, see below.

In the next section, please select all the required parameters, such as start date, end date, the customer and batch number. Click the submit button.

The next page will show you comprehensive and detailed report. See below example.

Due to huge information availability in the report, It is impossible to show all the fields here in one screenshot, but just to give you an overview this is how the report looks like. Below report screen shot is broken down into 7 screen shots. Screen shot taken from left to right, and top to bottom.

Detailed Report Screen Shot 1

Detailed Report Screen Shot 2

Detailed Report Screen Shot 3

Detailed Report Screen Shot 4

Detailed Report Screen Shot 5

Detailed Report Screen Shot 6

All above screenshots consolidated into one screen shot below.

Export Data to other formats

You can see in the first screen shot there are several options to export the data into your desired format. See below the screen shot.

Settings
JSON
JSON (with Escape)
XML
SQL
CSV
TXT
XLS
Word
PowerPoint
PNG
PDF

The first option Settings button allows you to disable and enable columns from the reports, giving you the power to choose what should be displayed on the screen.

Rest of the butons such as Json, xml, sql, csv, txt, xls, word, powerpoint, png and pdf allows you to export data into selected formats. Which you can then import into your own application or use it as you desire. Clicking one of these buton will download the file with associated extension. For example, if you click XML button it will download filename.xml which contains all the report's detailed information in XML format. Other button will produce downloadable report in their associated format and extensions.

Summary & Brief Reports

As you have already seen above, detailed report has too much information. Some times it can be difficult to handle too much information. Therefore we have created a summary & brief reports section. In order to access this section click "BRIEF REPORTS" button in the main menu.

The next screen prompts for the start date, end date, customer ID and batch number. Please select desired report criteria and click the submit button.

See below, this report contains less information and is shown in a single screen shot.

As previously with detailed report, you can export this brief report to your desired format, or enable and disable column to show only desired information.

Audit Report

Network Computer Hardware Inventory Software has an audit functionality. Audit menu can be accessed using GUI http://192.168.1.253

Clicking the "AUDIT REPORT" button will produce the following page.

In the next page, please write barcode of the inventory item manually, or use a 2d barcode scanner to scan the barcode of the inventory item.

If 2d barcode scanner is used to scan the barcode from inventory item, next page will produce an audit report.

As you can see above, the audit report contains comprehensive information for just single inventory item. This information can also be exported to other formats.

DATA CHARTS & GRAPHS

NIS - Network Computer Hardware Inventory Software also has functionality to visualize KPI (Key Performance Indicator) Data, that you can use to quickly identify main areas of concern regarding your business.

In order to access the DATA CHARTS, go to the main menu http://192.168.1.253 and click DATA CHARTS button.

In the next section, fill all the required information such as start date, end date, customer ID and batch number and click submit. The next page will produce professionally designed data charts and graphs.

See below.

As you can see above, there are approximately 16 data charts available, however, we are currently busy adding more. If you would like us to create custom data charts or reports please get in touch with the author for more information.

Barcode Labels Reporting

You can quickly create a inventory report by scanning the barcode from each inventory item into the NIS portal, doing so will produce report that we can export into many formats.

For example, you have 500 inventory items, out of 500 items you just want to sell or move 25 inventory items and want to create a report. In this case, simply scanning the barcode label with 2d barcode scanner will produce report just for the scanned inventory items.

In order to access the Barcode Labels section, go to the main menu http://192.168.1.253 and click "BARCODE LABELS" button.

The next page allows you to scan the barcodes with 2nd handheld barcode scanner. Make sure a 2d barcode scanner is attached to the console management machine and start scanning the barcodes for each inventory item. Once you have scanned all the inventory items please click the submit button.

As you scan the barcode, scanner will make a beep sound and the scanned barcode will appear underneath the submit button. See below the screenshot. Once submitted the next page will produce the required report.

In this case we have scanned 128 inventory items. The next screen shots shows inventory items for the scanned barcodes.

As with any other report, you can also export this report into many formats. Please click the desired button to export the report into required file format.

On-Demand Barcode Label Printing

On-demand barcode label printing is a barcode label printing functionality that enables you to print the required barcode label from GUI of NIS - Network Computer Hardware Inventory Software.

In order to print the label, go to the main menu http://192.168.1.253 and click BARCODE LABEL button.

In the next section either scan the serial number of the inventory item or manually type the serial number and click enter key.

Note: If you do not have a barcode scanner or for some reasons unable to scan the barcodes and have opted to type the serial number manually. Please ensure you press the enter / return key after every serial number.

As you scan the barcode, scanner will make a beep sound and the scanned barcode will appear underneath the submit button. See below the screenshot. Once submitted the next page will produce the required report.

In the next screen there will be a report, extreme right hand side column has button "Print Barcode Label" for every inventory item.

Clicking the "Print Barcode Label" will generate a new page, see the next screenshot.

Please select your desired barcode label size and style.

Before click submit button, please make sure ZPL compatible printer has correct self adhesive thermal label roll installed and is powered up and connected to the NIS server via USB cable. Click submit will generate another page.

See below the screen shot.

At this point barcode label should successfully be printed. see below ZPL printing labels on-demand.

You can attach these labels to your inventory items. see below.

Label size 50x25mm attached to the workstation

Label size 76x25mm attached to the workstation

Label size 76x50mm attached to the workstation

Label size 76x50mm attached to the workstation

Label size 102x50mm attached to the workstation

Label size 102x50mm attached to the workstation

Label size 102x76mm attached to the workstation

Label size 102x152mm attached to the workstation

Label size 102x152mm attached to the workstation

Label size 102x152mm attached to the workstation

Conclusion

As you can see above, this solution more or less does all the computer hardware inventory tasks automatically without touching the keyboard or mouse, also without installing any software in the inventory items.

If you like this software, please leave a comment or review.

If you think there are mistakes in this software or bugs, please report the bugs to the author so they can be quickly fixed.

If you are looking for customization and want to add more features please get in touch with the author.

License, Source Code and Copyrights

Copyrights (You are allowed to make changes to this software)

You can obtain the Sourcecode of this software using following methods.

1. Sourcecode in raw format is available in /src directory
2. Sourcecode is available in /var/www/html and /root directory after ISO is successfully installed.
3. Request author to provide customized or raw source code.

License: This software is released with license. OSI-Approved Open Source » GNU Library or Lesser General Public License version 3.0 (LGPLv3)