User Guide

5
Administrator’s Guide 79
5Sending Alert Messages
Using the Alert Manager Client Configuration utility
All McAfee anti-virus software includes wide range of methods to alert you
when it has detected a virus or other malicious software. These methods
include:
• graphical and full-screen warnings that appear on your local computer,
often with response options
• system beeps and custom messages that you can compose
• e-mail messages sent as replies to those who send you infected items, or as
warnings to others that you've received an infected item
• log files that record VirusScan component actions, including virus
detection and response events
• summary and real-time statistical displays that update detection and
response events
Many of these methods alert you only if you are at your computer and
watching as a scan operation runs. If you manage a network of workstations
that you want to secure, however, you often need a method that will tell you
about an infection if you are at any other workstation on your network, or even
if you are not connected to the network at all. You also need a method to collect
and manage alert messages from all over the network in a central repository
so that you can respond whenever any workstation detects an infected file.
McAfee provides Alert Manager server software for just such a need. The
software allows you to centralize alert message collection and processing,
assign priority designations and custom messages to those messages, and
designate any of up to 11 different methods to distribute them to you or to
others. With the v5.1 anti-virus product series, the Alert Manager server now
comes as an independent package bundled with McAfee NetShield anti-virus
software. You can install this new Alert Manager server together with
NetShield software, or by itself on a computer that you want to use as an alert
collection point.
You can install multiple Alert Manager servers, one to a domain, perhaps, or
one on each of the machines in a cluster server. If you do so, you can also
forward alert messages among Alert Manager servers and, thereby, to other
computers on your network or to centralized notification systems. This feature
can allow MIS departments to keep close track of viruses and problem areas.
To learn how to install and configure the Alert Manager utility, see the
NetShield Administrator’s Guide.