Deploying IT Agent With Intune

Pro Tips #68

This month I’m revisiting one of the most popular Pro Tip’s I’ve ever done. We’re diving back into Intune to show you how you can easily deploy the new Lansweeper IT Agent across your environment.

IT What?

Before I start lets quickly recap what IT Agent is, and how it is different form our previous agent LsAgent.

IT Agent is the modernized version of LsAgent, purpose built for the future of Lansweeper. The foundations of this new agent will allow us to have faster, more secure, and importantly, a more flexible platform to add new features to.

Currently, it already has the following additional features over LsAgent:

Direct Discovery Results: IT Agent is able to transmit discovery results directly to your Lansweeper Site, eliminating the need for a Lansweeper Classic setup and preventing data from being temporarily hosted on our relay server.
Cross-Platform Auto-Updates: IT Agent can automatically update Windows, Linux, and macOS machines, expanding beyond the Windows-only auto-update capability of LsAgent.
Expanded Device Data: IT Agent gathers comprehensive data on devices, including additional information like user details on macOS. With open ports arriving soon™
Silent Installation Across Platforms: IT Agent supports silent deployment on Windows, Linux, and macOS. This empowers administrators to implement the agent seamlessly, minimizing disruptions to end-users. In contrast, LsAgent restricts silent installs to Windows.
Reduced Vulnerability Risk: IT Agent for Windows, built on .NET 6.0, mitigates vulnerability risks in comparison to LsAgent for Windows.

IT Agent Prerequisites

As always there are some prerequisites. First up on the list is that you will need to meet the OS requirements.

Second, IT Agent requires access to the specific online resources to send and receive data. You can find those under the connection requirements.

Creating the .intunewin File

Before we can configure the Intune app deployment, we need to create the .intunewin file so we can upload it to Intune.

Downloading the MSI Installer

Start by navigating to your Lansweeper site to the Scanning > Download installers/packages area. This is where you can download the IT Agent MSI installer.

Using an MSI to create an Intune app is better because it provides native support for installation, detection, and uninstallation, enabling more reliable and automated app management.

Generate Your Linking Code

You will need to generate a linking code to get the agent to send the data to the correct site. You can do this by clicking the Link discovery system button. Then create a new code that is valid for the duration that you need it.

Be sure to save this linking code, you will not be able to view it again!

Generate the .intunewin File

Start by getting Microsoft’s IntuneWinAppUtil.exe tool on the official Github.

You can either run the utility tool manually, or simply adjust the following command line argument with:

The directory of the IT Agent MSI file
The specific MSI file name
The desired output folder

Win32 Content Prep Tool Command

IntuneWinAppUtil.exe -c "C:\Temp\LansweeperAgentPackage" -s "Lansweeper-IT-agent-discovery-x.x.x-windows-x64-installer.msi" -o "C:\Temp\Output"

Creating the Intune App

Head over to your Windows Intune apps page, and start creating a new Windows app (Win32) app.

Next you’ll have to select your .intunewin file that we just created. Once selected it will let you start configuring some of the basic details. Only Publisher is required, the rest is optional.

Install Command

Your next page will be the Program page. This is where the we will need to adjust the most important thing, the Install command.

In the install command below you will have to adjust the following:

The file name
The cloudtokenvalue with the linking code we generated earlier

Install Command

msiexec /i "C:\Path\To\Lansweeper-IT-agent-discovery-X.X.X-windows-x64-installer.msi" /quiet ARGUMENTS="--mode unattended --accepteula 1 --path ""C:\Program Files\Lansweeper IT Agent Discovery"" --cloudtoken cloudtokenvalue"

If you need to use a proxy server you can find additional arguments on the IT Agent knowledgebase page.

Additionally you will likely want to adjust the Allow available uninstall option, since you will likely not want to give users the option to uninstall the agent.

Requirements

On the requirements page, there are only the following two requirements:

Operating system architecture > 64-bit
Minimum operating system > Windows 10 1607

Detection Rules

In detection rules, you simply have to select Manually configure detection rules followed by selecting the MSI option. The rest should be automatically populated.

Dependencies, Supersedence & Assignments

On both the Dependencies and Supersedence, we do not have to change anything, so you can safely skip those.

On the Assignments page is where you select which devices will get the deployment, you under Required you can either add specific groups, or alternatively, all devices. Its up to you.

Once completed, you’ll get one final review page before you create and finalize your deployment.

Verifying Your Deployments

You can easily verify your Lansweeper IT Agent deployments by heading over to the list of your Agent-based discovery systems.

Alternatively, you can also navigate to your software inventory, and look for the IT Agent Discovery software.

Custom views, reports and dashboards are also ways an option, but that is for another time

Manage Your IT Agent Discovery

Last but not least, we have a whole Configure IT Agent Discovery knowledgebase article covering how you can manage the discovery configuration of your IT Agents. This includes scanning schedules and maintenance windows.