MeshCentral2 - Intel AMT ACM/CCM + Agent/Agentless Activation

MeshCentral is an open source web based remote computer management web site that supports Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel AMT). This week, we added many more improvements to support Intel AMT activation in many different situations on both Windows and Linux operating systems. Intel AMT is an important part of being able to fully remotely manage a computer no matter the state of the operating system and today it’s getting even better with this new Intel AMT activation “super option”.

When a computer is first purchased, Intel AMT needs to be activated. There are two ways to activate Intel AMT: In Client Control Modes (CCM) and Admin Control Mode (ACM). CCM is simple but offers limited remote management options, while ACM requires a more complex activation flow but offers more management features. MeshCentral now supports activation in both these modes, with ACM activation requiring a trusted certificate from a certificate authority.

In addition to ACM and CCM modes, MeshCentral offers the uncompromising choice of activating Intel AMT with or without an OS agent. You don’t have to use tools that limits your choice anymore. This way, you get to select the tradeoff that is best for your business and can even activate some computers with and others without OS agent. To activate without the OS agent, MeshCentral uses a new version of the MeshCMD tool that runs on both Windows and Linux. This way, MeshCentral offers Intel AMT activation is most situations.

There are currently some limitations, only host-based activation is supported (not bare-metal yet) and after activation, CIRA is only automatically setup when using MeshAgent+CCM. Improved CIRA automatic setup will be supported in upcoming versions. Many more improvements are bug fixes are sure to follow.

I want to give a big thank you to Matt Primrose who did a lot of the advance work on this feature and is building a lightweight activation server that also supports MeshCMD. Matt has been an outstanding partner in developing this feature. Current version of MeshCentral as of this post is v0.3.6-w, get started here.

As usual, feedback is appreciated.
Enjoy,
Ylian
MeshCentral2: http://www.meshcommander.com/meshcentral2
Twitter: https://twitter.com/meshcentral





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