IBM Tivoli and Cisco Network Card User Manual


 
154 Building a Network Access Control Solution with IBM Tivoli and Cisco Systems
The status of a posture element can be one of the following:
PASS The data collection was successful, and the security
posture of the selected item matches the required value.
FAIL The data collection was successful, but the detected
value indicates that the client is noncompliant and
remediation
must be performed.
ERROR The data collection failed or an internal error occurred.
WARN The data collection was successful, but the detected
value indicates that the client is not optimally compliant
and remediation
is recommended.
When the posture collector sends data to the Tivoli Security Compliance
Manager server, the contents of the posture item are stored in the posture status
table associated with the posture collector in the database.
Posture collector parameters
Posture collector parameters are generally required and indicate what data
values should be checked, and what remediation should occur if a
noncompliance is found. Parameters are of one of two types:
Operational Operational parameters are used to make a determination
regarding a client system’s security posture. For example,
an operational parameter might indicate the required
software version, or the required frequency of virus scans,
or the maximum password age. If an operational
parameter is not specified, the posture collector does not
check the security posture represented by that parameter
and indicates a warning in the corresponding posture
element.
Workflow Workflow parameters are used for remediation purposes,
and their names generally end with a _WF suffix. If a
specific security posture check fails, the information
provided by the workflow parameter is used to remedy the
problem identified.
6.2.2 Policy collector
The com.ibm.scm.nac.posture.PolicyCollector.jar collector (or policy collector, for
short) running on the client uses the information that is collected by the posture
collectors to make a security posture policy decision without contacting the Tivoli
Security Compliance Manager server. If a posture element returned by a posture
collector indicates a violation, the policy collector can communicate that
information, along with any associated remediation workflow information, to the