Run a guest discovery

This document describes the steps to run the different guest discovery methods that the mcdc CLI provides.

Overview

Guest discovery lets you scan and collect data about the running applications on your machines, which includes both virtual machine (VM) instances and physical servers. It also collects data about the machine configuration, hardware, network, as well as open files, services, and processes.

For machines running on platforms for which the Migration Center discovery client CLI doesn't support inventory discovery, such as VMs running on Azure or machines running on-premises, as well as for a full assessment of VMs running on VMware and AWS, you can run a guest discovery. Guest discovery uses a guest collection script to collect data about the machine and writes that data to a guest collection tar file for Linux machines, or zip file for Windows machines.

The machine hosting the mcdc CLI uploads the script to the target machine, runs it, and then downloads the results. You can run the script locally on the target machine, or run it remotely. Depending on your infrastructure, you can choose to use the mcdc CLI in the following ways:

• For Linux and Windows VMs deployed on VMware, the mcdc CLI supports remote execution with the discover vsphere command.
• For Linux machines accessible by the mcdc CLI, you can perform a remote discovery using SSH with the discover ssh command.
• For Windows machines accessible by the mcdc CLI, you can perform a remote discovery using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) with the discover wmi command.
• For Linux and Windows machines without connection to the mcdc CLI, you can download and run the guest collection scripts locally, and then manually import the collected data to the machine hosting the mcdc CLI.

The guest collection script runs a series of commands to gather information about the source machine and also collects information from several files on the machine.

Important: The mcdc CLI might collect potentially sensitive data such as command-line arguments, network information, or environment variables and arguments in running processes. Sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII) is never sent to Google or other third party. The data remains on the machine where it is collected during the mcdc CLI run.

Before you begin

1. Review the requirements for downloading and running the mcdc CLI.
2. Review the requirements for downloading and running the guest collection scripts.
3. Complete the steps to download mcdc CLI.

Collect data remotely using VMware tools

For VMs hosted on vSphere, the mcdc CLI can use VMware tools to deploy and run the collection scripts remotely on both Linux and Windows VMs. When using VMware tools, the mcdc CLI tool does the following:

• Uploads the collection script to the VM.
• Runs the script on the VM.
• Downloads and imports the results.

Two sets of credentials are required to collect data remotely:

• The vCenter server username passed to the mcdc CLI to connect to vSphere, which must have the following privileges on the VM:
  • Guest operation modifications
  • Guest operation program execution
  • Guest operation queries
• User credentials for the VM:
  • On Windows, you must have administrator privileges.
  • On Linux, root access is not required, but root access allows mcdc CLI to collect the data required for a complete assessment.

To collect data using VMware tools, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Linux VM hosting the mcdc CLI.
2. Change to the directory where you downloaded the mcdc CLI.
3. Ensure that the VM is powered on.

4. Run the guest discovery:

   Linux

   ./mcdc discover vsphere guest --url https://VSPHERE_URL -u VCENTER_USER --vm-user VM_USER VM_ID

   Windows

   mcdc.exe discover vsphere guest --url https://VSPHERE_URL -u VCENTER_USER --vm-user VM_USER VM_ID

   Replace the following:

   • VCENTER_USER: the vCenter server user
   • VM_USER: the VM user
   • VM_ID: the name of the VM or MOREF
   Important: If the vSphere cluster has multiple data centers, then you must use the --dc flag to specify the data center name.

5. When prompted, enter the password for the VCENTER_USER and the VM_USER.

To collect data from multiple vSphere VMs in parallel using VMware tools, follow these steps:

Important: All the VMs you want to collect from must have the same username and password. If you have separate credentials for your Windows or Linux VMs, then you can select an operating system using the --os-family flag.

1. Log in to your Linux VM hosting the mcdc CLI.
2. Change to the directory where you downloaded the mcdc CLI.
3. Ensure that all VMs are powered on.

4. Run the guest discovery:

   Linux

   ./mcdc discover vsphere guest all --url https://VSPHERE_URL -u VCENTER_USER --vm-user VM_USER --timeout TIMEOUT_IN_SECONDS

   Windows

   mcdc.exe discover vsphere guest all --url https://VSPHERE_URL -u VCENTER_USER --vm-user VM_USER --timeout TIMEOUT_IN_SECONDS

   Replace TIMEOUT_IN_SECONDS with the timeout in seconds.

   Optionally, limit the discovery to only Windows or Linux VMs using the --os-family flag, or change the level of parallelism using the --max-parallelism flag.

5. When prompted, enter the password for the VCENTER_USER and VM_USER.

6. You can also scope the discovery to specific VMs using the --path flag, as described for VMware in Run an inventory discovery.

You can export and assess this collected data online in Migration Center, or run an offline assessment.

Collect data remotely over SSH

If the machine hosting the mcdc CLI has SSH access to the target Linux machine (Windows machines are not supported), then the mcdc CLI can connect to the target machine over SSH to collect data.

When using SSH, the mcdc CLI does the following:

1. Uploads the collection script to the machine.

2. Runs the script on the machine with the machine user credentials passed to the mcdc CLI.

   Note: While the machine user credentials don't require root access, having root access allows mcdc CLI to collect all assessment data.

3. Downloads and imports the results.

Supported SSH modes

If you're using the mcdc CLI on a Linux machine, you can use two modes to run SSH:

• Default: uses the ssh binary and configurations on the mcdc CLI machine. Default mode can use the local SSH configuration files by default, such as ~/.ssh/config and ~/.ssh/known_hosts, of the workstation hosting it.

  Enter the password when prompted, or use sshpass to pass the password or private key file passphrase on the command line. For example:

  sshpass -p password mcdc discover ssh IP_ADDRESS
  

  Replace IP_ADDRESS with the IP address of the machine.

• Embedded: uses the built-in SSH library. This mode lets you use the embedded SSH client if default mode malfunctions in your environment. However, it doesn't use the local SSH configuration files by default. You can use the -i flag to specify an SSH private key file.

If you're using the mcdc CLI on a Windows machine, only embedded mode is supported.

Run the collection

To collect data over SSH, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the Linux machine hosting the mcdc CLI.
2. Change to the directory where you downloaded the mcdc CLI.

3. Collect data:

   Linux

   ./mcdc discover ssh IP_HOSTNAME

   Windows

   mcdc.exe discover ssh IP_HOSTNAME

   Replace IP_HOSTNAME with the IP hostname of the machine.

4. The SSH private key file of the user invoking the mcdc CLI is used for SSH authentication.

   When prompted, enter the username of an account on the Linux machine. The collection script runs using these credentials. If the SSH private key of the user invoking the mcdc CLI fails to authenticate to the machine with the username, you're also prompted for a password.

Additional scenarios when using SSH

See the following scenarios where you might need to modify the command:

• To specify the machine user with default mode, use the -u flag:

  Linux

  ./mcdc discover ssh -u USER IP_HOSTNAME

  Windows

  mcdc.exe discover ssh -u USER IP_HOSTNAME

  Replace USER with the machine user.

  When prompted, enter the password for the user.

• To specify verbose mode, use the -v flag:

  Linux

  ./mcdc discover ssh -u USER -v IP_HOSTNAME

  Windows

  mcdc.exe discover ssh -u USER -v IP_HOSTNAME

• To specify the SSH private key file, use the -i flag. For example, to specify .ssh/my_private_key:

  Linux

  ./mcdc discover ssh -i ~/.ssh/my_private_key -u USER IP_HOSTNAME

  Windows

  mcdc.exe discover ssh -i ~/.ssh/my_private_key -u USER IP_HOSTNAME

• To specify the password on the command line, use embedded mode:

  Linux

  ./mcdc discover ssh --ssh-client embedded -u USER --passphrase PASSWORD IP_HOSTNAME

  Windows

  mcdc.exe discover ssh --ssh-client embedded -u USER --passphrase PASSWORD IP_HOSTNAME

  Because the embedded form of the command doesn't use the local SSH configuration files by default, ensure that the user you specify in the command is able to access the machine over SSH and has privileges on the machine to execute the collection script.

• To specify the SSH private key file with embedded mode, use the -i flag:

  Linux

  ./mcdc discover ssh --ssh-client embedded -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa -u USER --password PASSWORD IP_HOSTNAME

  Windows

  mcdc.exe discover ssh --ssh-client embedded -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa -u USER --password PASSWORD IP_HOSTNAME

• The mcdc CLI command lets you specify most SSH flags. It then passes these flags to the ssh command using the -a or --ssh-args flag. For example, to use a socks proxy:

  Linux

  ./mcdc discover ssh -u USER -a '-o' -a 'ProxyCommand=nc -X 5 -x 127.0.0.1:proxy port %h %p' IP_HOSTNAME

  Windows

  mcdc.exe discover ssh -u USER -a '-o' -a 'ProxyCommand=nc -X 5 -x 127.0.0.1:proxy port %h %p' IP_HOSTNAME

You can export and assess this collected data online in Migration Center, or run an offline assessment.

Collect data remotely over WMI

If you want to perform a guest discovery on a target Windows machine with WMI support, you can use the mcdc discover wmi command on the Windows machine hosting the mcdc CLI. WMI collection is supported only on the Windows version of the mcdc CLI.

When using WMI, the mcdc CLI does the following:

1. Uploads the collection script to the machine.

2. Runs the script on the machine with the machine user credentials passed to the mcdc CLI.

   Note: While the machine user credentials don't require administrator rights, having root access allows mcdc CLI to collect all the assessment data.

3. Downloads and imports the results.

To collect data over WMI, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the Windows machine hosting the mcdc CLI.
2. Change to the directory where you downloaded the mcdc CLI.

3. Collect data:

   mcdc.exe discover wmi IP_HOSTNAME
   

   Replace IP_HOSTNAME with the IP hostname of the machine.

4. Enter your credentials when prompted.

Collect data on an individual Linux machines

To perform a guest collection locally on a Linux machine, you can run the mcdc-linux-collect.sh script. Then, you can copy the tar file generated by the script into the machine that hosts the mcdc CLI, and import it with the discover import command.

You typically run the script by specifying the sudo option. Optionally, you can run the script using the privileges of the user running the mcdc CLI. However, the script might not be able to collect all the required data.

1. Log in to your machine.
2. Change to the directory where you downloaded the guest collection script.

3. Run the collection script on the machine:

   sudo ./mcdc-linux-collect.sh
   

   The script outputs a tar file named mcdc-collect-MACHINE_NAME-TIMESTAMP.tar to the current directory. The timestamp is in the format YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm.

   Click to see the guest collection tar file format

   The tar file has the following format:

   collect.log # Log output of the script
    files # Directory containing files with their full path from root. For example:
      |- etc/fstab
      |- etc/hostname
      |- etc/network/interfaces
      |- ...
    commands # Output of commands run by the script:
      |- dpkg
      |- netstat
      |- ps
      |- ...
    found_paths # Text file with the list of installation directories
    machinename # Text file with machine name
    ostype # Text file with operating system type (Linux)
    timestamp # Text file with collection timestamp
    version # Text file with the version of the script
    

   Optionally, you can pass the argument --output and specify the path where you want to save the tar file.

4. Copy the collected data from the target machine to the host machine.

5. Import the collected data on the host machine:

   Linux

   ./mcdc discover import PATH_TO_TAR

   Windows

   mcdc.exe discover import PATH_TO_TAR

   Replace PATH_TO_TAR with the path to the tar file.

You can export and assess this collected data online in Migration Center, or run an offline assessment.

Collect data on an individual Windows machine

To perform a guest collection locally on a Windows machine, you can run the mcdc-windows-collect.ps1 script. Then, you can copy the zip file generated by the script into the machine that hosts the mcdc CLI, and import it with the discover import command.

1. Log in to your machine.
2. Open PowerShell using the Run as Administrator option.
3. Change to the directory where you downloaded the mcdc CLI.

4. Run the collection script on the machine:

   powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -File .\mcdc-windows-collect.ps1
   

5. The script outputs a zip file named mcdc-collect-MACHINE_NAME-TIMESTAMP.zip to the current directory.

   Optionally, you can include an output path to specify a different location:

   .\mcdc-windows-collect.ps1 PATH_FOR_OUTPUT.zip
   

6. Import the collected data on the host machine:

   Linux

   ./mcdc discover import PATH_TO_TAR

   Windows

   mcdc.exe discover import PATH_TO_TAR

   Replace PATH_TO_TAR with the path to the tar file.

You can export the collected data and assess it online in Migration Center, or run an offline assessment.

What's next

• Learn how to run an IP range scan.
• Learn how to export collected data to Migration Center.