Application Resilience policies for Ivanti Security Controls

You can activate an Application Resilience policy for Ivanti® Security Controls (formerly Ivanti® Patch for Windows) to collect information about the functional status of Ivanti Security Controls installed on your Windows devices and view the results in reports. You can also configure the policy to attempt to repair or reinstall the application.

The product name changed from Ivanti Patch for Windows to Ivanti® Security Controls in version 2018.3. Ivanti Security Controls and Ivanti Patch are used interchangeably.

Application Resilience policies for Ivanti Security Controls are supported on devices running:

  • a supported version of the Windows operating system

  • PowerShell version 5.1 or higher

    Due to PowerShell restrictions imposed by Microsoft, Application Resilience isn't supported for this application on devices running Windows 11 SE.

  • one of the following versions of Ivanti Security Controls:

    • 9.4.x or higher

      Significant software changes in higher versions may cause health checks to become invalid.

    • 9.3.x

In addition to checking the version, the following table describes the health checks performed:

If you select Report higher versions as Compliant, higher versions report Compliant without running health checks.

Component Test performed
Services Installed Running Signed by
  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent (STAgent.exe)
  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent Dispatcher (STDispatch.exe)
 P P

One of the signers entered in the policy configuration

By default, Signers contains "Shavlik Technologies" and "Ivanti, Inc.".
Application name

The application uses one of the following names:

  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent * (the asterisk [*] indicates the health check accepts any additional characters starting from that position in the application name)

  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent

In addition to checking the version, the following table describes the health checks performed:

Report higher versions as Compliant is not available.

Component Test performed
Services Installed Running Signed by
  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent (STAgent.exe)
  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent Dispatcher (STDispatch.exe)
 P P Shavlik Technologies
Application name

The application uses one of the following names:

  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent * (the asterisk [*] indicates the health check accepts any additional characters starting from that position in the application name)

  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent

You can configure an Application Resilience policy for Ivanti Security Controls to enable the Application Resilience (RAR) component A lightweight software component of the Secure Endpoint Agent that detects the status of third party applications installed on a device. The component may also attempt to repair the third party application if it is non-compliant. The RAR component is deployed on a device only when the device is associated with a customized policy group and that policy group's Application Resilience policy is activated. to attempt to repair Ivanti Security Controls if it's not functioning, or reinstall it if it's missing or can't be repaired.

Depending on the Absolute product licenses associated with your account, the Report and repair and Report, repair, and reinstall options may not be available.

The RAR component of the Secure Endpoint Agent can respond to the following issues:

Issue Resolution
Repair

One or more of the following services aren't running:

  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent (STAgent.exe)
  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent Dispatcher (STDispatch.exe)

The RAR component restarts each stopped service.

One or more of the following services aren't installed and the service's executable can be detected on the device:

  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent (STAgent.exe)
  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent Dispatcher (STDispatch.exe)

The RAR component reinstalls each missing service.
Reinstall

Downgrades are not supported. If the version installed on a device is higher than the expected version, no action is taken.

One or more of the following services aren't installed and the service's executable cannot be detected on the device:

  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent (STAgent.exe)
  • Ivanti Security Controls Agent Dispatcher (STDispatch.exe)

The RAR component downloads and installs the configured version of the application.
Ivanti Security Controls failed to be repaired, or the expected version isn't installed
Issue Resolution
Repair

One or more of the following services aren't running:

  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent (STAgent.exe)
  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent Dispatcher (STDispatch.exe)

The RAR component restarts each stopped service.

One or more of the following services aren't installed and the service's executable can be detected on the device:

  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent (STAgent.exe)
  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent Dispatcher (STDispatch.exe)

The RAR component reinstalls each missing service.
Reinstall

Downgrades are not supported. If the version installed on a device is higher than the expected version, no action is taken.

One or more of the following services aren't installed and the service's executable cannot be detected on the device:

  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent (STAgent.exe)
  • Ivanti Patch for Windows Servers Agent Dispatcher (STDispatch.exe)

The RAR component downloads and installs the configured version of the application.
Ivanti Security Controls failed to be repaired, or the expected version isn't installed

The installer:

  • must be an EXE file

  • can have any file name

The RAR component looks for the following files names when checking pre-cached installers:

Component File name
Installers STPlatformUpdater.exe

Before you activate an Application Resilience policy, you need to configure the policy. You need to configure the application version in addition to the settings in Configuring Application Resilience policies.

To configure the application version:

  1. Under Application version, select 9.4.*+ from the drop-down.

  2. Under Ivanti Security Controls version, enter the version of Ivanti Security Controls you expect to be running on your devices.

    • The target version must be a sequence of digits separated by a period.
    • You can use wildcard "*" characters after the minor version number, for example, 9.4.* or 9.4.34640.*.

    Make sure the version you are entering is consistent with version 9.4.x or higher.

If you selected the Report, repair, and reinstall option, you also need to configure these settings in addition to the settings in Configuring Application Resilience policies.

To configure the Ivanti Security Controls specific settings:

  1. In the Console Server URI field, enter the address and port of the console server. Use the format:

    Copy 
    https://consolename:3121
  2. In the Agent Policy field, enter the name of the agent policy to assign to the agent.
  3. In the Passphrase field, enter the passphrase that is used by Ivanti Security Controls to authenticate to the console server.

Agent policies and the passphrase are configured in the Ivanti Security Controls console. For more information, refer to Ivanti documentation.

Before you activate an Application Resilience policy you need to configure the policy. If you selected the Report, repair, and reinstall option, configure these settings in addition to the settings in Configuring Application Resilience policies.

To configure the Ivanti Security Controls specific settings:

  1. In the Console Server URI field, enter the address and port of the console server. Use the format:

    Copy 
    https://consolename:3121
  2. In the Agent Policy field, enter the name of the agent policy to assign to the agent.
  3. In the Passphrase field, enter the passphrase that is used by Ivanti Security Controls to authenticate to the console server.

Agent policies and the passphrase are configured in the Security Controls console. For more information, refer to Ivanti documentation.