Meshcentral: Feature Request: Allow the agent to specify a name & description

[deajan]

Hello,

Just found your project and gave it a quick try :)
I'm loving it so far, and might have a meshcentral test server installed soon.

So far so good, here's a feature that could be useful I think;

When using the agent as quick support or even as service, the computername is transferred as agent name to the server.
It would be nice to be able to override the computername, and perhaps add a description, so quick support sessions would become easy to identify.

Best regards.

[MailYouLater]

This could be useful for during agent installation too. If I know I'm going to want the device I'm installing the agent on to have a specific name (if that name is not what it's going to default to) it would be nice to set the name during installation and not have to find it in the device list and rename it later.
This could be especially useful during an initial deployment at a new location, where you're installing the agent on a bunch of computers at around the same time, and they may or may not already have meaningful computer names.

[deajan]

Exactly my thoughts too :)
Mass installations could use a parameter like meshagent --name=WHATYOUWANT --description="AYBABTU" ontop of a GUI option to set those for example.

[krayon007]

This should be easy to do. I can add as a DB setting, so you'll be able to specify it in the msh file. I'll take a look at it when I get in the office on Monday.

[Ylianst]

One thing you can try right now is to create a "meshagent.tag" file in the same folder at the agent's executable file. You put up to 1k of text in this file and it will show up in the device's page.

In addition to this, Bryan can add the starting name and description of a device.

[OutbackMatt]

I noticed that you can select an agent, and then on the 'general' tab there is an option to record a description and an edit option to change the agent name

[MailYouLater]

@OutbackMatt: Yes, but this is something you must do from the meshcentral web ui.

This request is for the ability to edit the agent name (and possibly description) during the install/connect stage, so that when you download and run the mesh agent installer/one-time connect module, you can enter a name that makes it easier for the tech support people who are going to log into the machine to find it among all the other computers that automatically inherit the computers network name which may be something that was manually set, and makes sense, or it may be something like "DESKTOP-05D73KBF" despite the computer being a laptop.

[OutbackMatt]

Yes it is something to be done on the web ui.
I like your idea of being asked during install, and that makes more sense to me than setting a parameter in a mesh file.

[Ylianst]

So yes, this is a good request. Bryan and I will be adding the feature so that you can specify the initial device name and description from the agent site.