Attention : support for WAPT 2.2 ended on March the 3rd 2023.

Please upgrade to the latest supported version

Frequent problems and questions

Resetting the WAPT Linux Server password

It sometimes happens to setup a WAPT Server and then forget its password.

To reset the WAPT Console SuperAdmin password you have to relaunch the post-configuration process on the WAPT Server:

• Connect to the WAPT Server with SSH.

• Connect with user root (or use sudo).

• Launch the post-configuration script.

I lost my WAPT private key

WAPT security and its correct functioning rely on sets of private keys and public certificates.

Losing a private key thus requires to generate a new key and its associated certificates, and then to deploy the new keys and the new certificates on the Organization’s computers.

Therefore, losing a key bears some consequences, the process to recover from a lost key is not trivial, although it is relatively simple.

Generating or renewing a private key

The procedure is:

• Generate a new private key/ public certificate. You will then keep the private key (file .pem) in a safe location;

• Deploy, manually, using a GPO or using an Ansible role (not documented), the new certificate .crt on your clients in the ssl folder.

  • C:\Program Files (x86)\ssl on Windows;

  • /opt/wapt/ssl on Linux and macOS.

Re-signing packages in the repositories

WAPT packages hosted on the repositories were signed using the former private key, so you MUST re-sign every package of the repository using the new key:

• Using the WAPT Console, or

• Using the command line.

My private key has been stolen

Attention

WAPT security relies on protecting your private keys.

WAPT does not handle key revocation yet using a CRL.

The solution consists in deleting every .crt certificate associated to the stolen private key, located in the ssl folder:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\ssl on Windows;

• /opt/wapt/ssl on Linux and macOS.

That operation can be done using a GPO, manually, with a WAPT package or with an Ansible role (not documented).

My BIOS UUID bugs

• Some problems happen sometimes with some BIOSes. WAPT uses the UUID of the host as the host identifier.

• The UUID is supposed to be unique. Unfortunately, for some OEMs and some manufacturing batches, BIOS UUID are identical.

• The host will register in the WAPT Console but it will replace an existing device, considering that the host has only changed its name.

Solving the BIOS UUID issue

WAPT allows to generate a random UUID to replace the one retrieved from the BIOS.

wapt-get generate-uuid

The WAPT Agent FQDN may be used instead of the UUID. In the wapt-get.ini configuration file, define in the [global] section:

use_fqdn_as_uuid = True

The WAPT Deploy utility does not work

The the WAPT Deployment utility does not succeed in installing the WAPT agent.

Launching the WAPT Deployment utility locally

Launching the WAPT Deployment utility locally can be a good method for showing errors explicitly.

Attention

You MUST launch the command prompt using a Local Administrator account.

Example of command to launch:

C:\Program Files (x86)\wapt\waptdeploy.exe --hash=2a9971aad083d6822b6e4d1ccfb9886be9429ec58bb13246810ff3d6a56ce887 --minversion=2.1.0.10550 --wait=15 --waptsetupurl=https://srvwapt.mydomain.lan/wapt/waptagent.exe

In our case the hash for the WAPT Deploy utilityis not correct.

Error with the WAPT Deploy utility hash in a text terminal window

The WAPT Deploy utility works manually but does not work with GPO

Check that port 8088 is listening correctly on the host:

gpresult /h gpo.html & gpo.html

To force the application of the GPO:

gpupdate /force

If the WAPT Deployment utility does not show up you will have to double check the GPO settings:

• You may be using an old WAPT Deployment utility version, then download the latest version of the WAPT Deployment utility from the WAPT Server web page.

• Thanks to Emmanuel EUGENE from French public research institution INSERM who submitted this possible cause for the WAPT Deployment utility not functioning properly, if you are replicating domain controllers, ensure that the GPOs are correctly synchronized between your DCs and that ACLs are identically applied on the SysVols.

Windows does not wait for the network to be running on startup

By default Windows does not wait for the network to be up at computer startup.

This can cause problems during the WAPT Deployment utility execution because the WAPT Deployment utility requires network connectivity to retrieve the new WAPT Agent.

There are 2 solutions:

1. We recommend adding waptdeploy.exe to the startup and shutdown scripts on the GPO.

2. You can enable the GPO: Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon with Computer Configuration ‣ Administrative Templates ‣ System ‣ Logon ‣ Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

The WAPT Exit utility will not launch

Despite the script actually being registered in the local security shutdown strategy, the waptexit script does not launch at computer shutdown.

Hybrid shutdown

Windows 10 hybrid shutdown MUST be disabled because it causes many problems and strange behaviors, disabling Hybrid Shutdown will restore the WAPT Exit script execution at shutdown.

Hybrid shutdown can be disabled by setting a value in wapt-get.ini file of the WAPT Agent.

It is possible to set this value when creating the WAPT Agent.

A WAPT package exists to solve the Hybrid Shutdown problem: tis-disable-hybrid-shutdown.

Windows Home edition

Local security policies are not available when using a Windows Home edition computer, so it is normal that the script will not launch.

The workaround consists in using a scheduled task that will launch C:\Program Files (x86)\wapt\wapt-get.exe with the argument upgrade.

Corrupted local GPO

It sometimes happens that local security policies on a computer are corrupted.

One of the possible solutions is to:

• Remove local security strategies by deleting the file C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\gpt.ini;

• Restart the computer;

• Re-install the shutdown scheduled tasks with:

wapt-get add-upgrade-shutdown

If the problem occurs again, this may mean that another application also manipulates the local GPO.

The WAPT Exit utility halts after 15 minutes and does not finish the installing the WAPT packages

By default, Windows shutdown scripts are only allowed to run for 15 minutes.

If a script has not finished before that limit, Windows will interrupt the script.

To solve that problem, increase the pre_shutdown_timeout value and the max_gpo_script_wait value in the wapt-get.ini file of the WAPT Agent.

Define these values to change the default behavior.

max_gpo_script_wait = 360
pre_shutdown_timeout = 360

The WAPT package tis-wapt-conf-policy sets this configuration.

The other solution may be to use the GPO File.ini.

Using a GPO ini File to configured the script execution delay

Error message when opening the WAPT Console

Version check

The WAPT Console version is not the same as the version of the WAPT Server. Upgrading the WAPT Console to the same version of the WAPT Server is the recommanded course of action.

Connection refused

The WAPT Console can not contact the WAPT Server on port 443:

• Check whether the Nginx web service is running on the WAPT Server.

systemctl status nginx

• If Nginx is not running, restart the Nginx service.

systemctl restart nginx

• If Nginx still does not start, you will need to analyze the journal logs in:

  • /var/log/nginx/ on Linux;

  • C:\Program Files (x86)\wapt\waptserver\nginx\logs on Windows.

Service unavailable

It is possible that the WAPT Server service is stopped:

• Check whether waptserver is running.

systemctl status waptserver

• If the command returns an error, then start the waptserver.

systemctl start waptserver

Error connecting with SSL … verify failed

The WAPT Console seems not to be able to verify the WAPT Server’s HTTPS certificate.

Attention

Before doing anything, be sure that your are not facing a MITM attack!

Note

If you have just rebuilt your WAPT Server and that you use a self-signed certificate, you can recover the old keys of your old WAPT Server in /opt/wapt/waptserver/apache/ssl.

• Close your WAPT Console.

• Delete the folder %appdata%\..\Local\waptconsole.

• Launch the command wapt-get enable-check-certificate.

• Be sure that the previous command has gone well.

• Restart the WAPT service with net stop waptservice && net start waptservice.

• Restart the WAPT Console.

In case you do not use the certificate pinning method, this tells you that the certificate sent by the WAPT Server can not be verified with the python certifi bundle of certificates. Be sure to have the full chain of certificates on the WAPT Server.

Problems with registering a host with WAPT

If you do a wapt-get register and it returns:

FATAL ERROR : ConnectionError: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /add_host

You need to check that the 443 port is correctly forwarded to the WAPT Server and not blocked by a firewall.

Problems when enabling enable-check-certificate

Message “Certificate CN ### sent by the WAPT Server does not match URL host ###”

This means that the CN in the certificate sent by the WAPT Server does not match the value of the wapt_server attribute in the wapt-get.ini file of the WAPT Agent.

• There are 2 solutions:

1. Check the value of wapt_server in the wapt-get.ini file of the WAPT Agent.

If the value is correct, this surely means that an error has happened during the generation of the self-signed certificate during the WAPT Server post-configuration (typing error, …).

You MUST then regenerate your self-signed certificates.

2. On the WAPT Server, delete the content of the /opt/wapt/waptserver/apache/ssl/ folder.

Then, relaunch the post-configuration script (the same as the one used during initial installation, with the same arguments and values).

Then, be sure that the value of FQDN for the WAPT Server is correct.

• You may now retry enable-check-certificate.

Problems when creating a WAPT package

Problems with access rights and PyScripter

When trying to install a package from PyScripter, if the following message appears:

Launch PyScripter using a Local Administrator account and redo the desired action.

The WAPT package is too big and I can not upload it on the repository

When a package is too big, it is necessary to build the WAPT package locally then to upload it with WinSCP or an equivalent utility.

• Build the WAPT package with PyScripter or manually build the package.

Hint

The WAPT package in C:\waptdev.

• Download and install WinSCP

• Using WinSCP, upload the WAPT package in the correct repository location according to the version of the WAPT repository.

• Once the upload has finished, recreate the Packages index file on the WAPT repository using the following command and remplacing repository by the repository location according to the version of the WAPT repository.

wapt-scanpackages repository

Access violation error while re-signing a WAPT package

If the Access violation error appear, it may mean that the WAPT package is too big.

Manually edit the package and visit this procedure for signing large WAPT packages.

WAPT package in error

Problem installing a WAPT package

I have a package that returns in error and the software is not installed on the computer when I physically go to check on the computer.

Explanation

An error has occurred during the execution of the setup.py.

You can read and analyze error messages returned in the WAPT Console and try to understand and solve them.

The installation of the package will be retried at each upgrade cycle until the package does not return an error.

Solution

• If WAPT returns an error code, research the error code on the Internet.

  Example for a MSI: 1618: another installation in already running. Restarting the computer should solve the problem.

Note

MSI error codes are available by visiting this website.

• Go to the computer and try to install the package with the WAPT command line utility. Then check that the software has installed.

Attention

Once the silent installation has finished, do nothing else.

The objective is to reproduce the behavior of the WAPT Agent.

• If the package installs silently in user context, this may mean that the software installer does not work in SYSTEM context.

• If it is still not working, launch the installation manually. It is possible for an error to appear explicitly describing the problem (ex: missing dependency, etc).

• It is possible that the installer does not support installing over an older version of the software, so you will have to explicitly remove older versions of the application before installing the new one.

Error “timed out after seconds with output ‘600.0’”

Some packages return the following error in the WAPT Console:

"Error timed out after seconds with output '600.0'"

Explanation

By default, when installing a WAPT package embedding a run and a install_msi_if_needed command, WAPT will wait 600 seconds for the installer to finish its task.

If the installer has not finished in this delay, WAPT will stop the running installation.

Solution

If the software to be installed is known to be big (Microsoft Office, Solidworks, LibreOffice, Katia, Adobe Creative Suite), it is possible that the 600 second delay will be too short.

You will have to increase the timeout value, ex: timeout = 1200.

run('"setup.exe" /adminfile office2010noreboot.MSP', timeout = 1200)

Error “has been installed but the uninstall key can not be found”

Some WAPT packages return the following error in the WAPT Console.

XXX has been installed but the uninstall key can not be found.

Explanation

WAPT relies on Windows to install .msi binaries with install_msi_if_needed and .exe binaries with install_exe_if_needed.

By default, WAPT accepts return codes 0 (OK) and 3010 (computer restart required) and it verifies that the uninstall key is present.

Unfortunately, we can not fully trust these return codes, so WAPT does additional checks after completing the installation to make sure that all has gone well:

• It checks the presence of the uninstall key on the host.

• It checks that the version number of the software is equal or greater than the version number in the control file.

• If this is not the case, it infers that the software may not be present on the host.

The function returns the WAPT package in error. The installation will be retried at every upgrade cycle until the WAPT package returns no error.

Solution

Attention

Before doing anything, it is advisable to go physically to the computer returning in error and to manually check whether the software has correctly installed. If the software has not installed correctly, refer to the section of this documentation on installing a package.

• If the software has installed correctly, this may mean that the uninstall key or the software version in the package is not correct.

• Retrieve the correct uninstall key and make changes to the WAPT package accordingly.

• If the error happens when using the install_msi_if_needed function, this means that the MSI installer is badly packaged and that it is returning an incorrect uninstall key.

Error “has been installed and the uninstall key found but version is not good”

Some WAPT packages return the following error in the WAPT Console.

XXX has been installed and the *uninstall key* found but version is not good.

Explanation

When using install_msi_if_needed or install_exe_if_needed functions, additional checks are performed to make sure that all has gone well.

Solution

Attention

Before doing anything, it is advisable to go physically to the computer returning in error and to manually check whether the software has correctly installed. If the software has not installed correctly, refer to the section of this documentation on installing a package.

Solution: with install_msi_if_needed

The informations being extracted from the MSI installer, this means that the MSI file does not return correct values or that the uninstall key is incorrect.

You can check using the Windows Command Line utility.

wapt-get list-registry

If the returned key is not that which has been entered in the install section of the setup.py, it is not possible to use install_msi_if_needed.

You MUST review the install section of your setup.py, use the run() function and manually manage exceptions.

Solution: with install_exe_if_needed

This probably means that the version number entered in the install_exe_if_needed function is not correct. Make corrections to the WAPT package accordingly.

Note

If the min_version argument has not been entered, WAPT will try to retrieve the version automatically from the .exe installer.

You can check the uninstall key and the version number using the command:

wapt-get list-registry

If no version is provided with the wapt-get list-registry command, this means that the software installer does not provide an uninstall key.

There are 2 solutions:

• Use the argument get_version to provide the path to another uninstallkey.

def install():

   def versnaps2(key):
       return key['name'].replace('NAPS2 ','')

   install_exe_if_needed('naps2-5.3.3-setup.exe',silentflags='/VERYSILENT',key='NAPS2 (Not Another PDF Scanner 2)_is1',get_version=versnaps2)

• Providing an empty value for min_version tells WAPT not to check for versions.

min_version=' '

Attention

With this method, versions are no longer checked during updates!

Frequent problems caused by Anti-Virus software

Some Anti-Virus software falsely raise errors when checking some internal components of WAPT.

Among the components is nssm.exe used by WAPT as a service manager for starting, stopping and restarting the WAPT service.

Below is a list of useful exceptions to declare in your central AV interface to solve false positives related to WAPT:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\wapt\waptservice\win32\nssm.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\wapt\waptservice\win64\nssm.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\wapt\waptagent.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\wapt\waptconsole.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\wapt\waptexit.exe"
"C:\wapt\waptservice\win32\nssm.exe"
"C:\wapt\waptservice\win64\nssm.exe"
"C:\wapt\waptagent.exe"
"C:\wapt\waptconsole.exe"
"C:\wapt\waptexit.exe"
"C:\Windows\Temp\waptdeploy.exe"
"C:\Windows\Temp\waptagent.exe"
"C:\Windows\Temp\is-?????.tmp\waptagent.tmp"

I have an issue with my proxy - THttpClientSocket.SockRecv(1) read = 0

If you have this issue:

The error comes from a timeout option in the waptconsole.ini.

Indeed, since WAPT 2.1 version, timeout is defined in milliseconds and not in seconds like before.

You will need remove the timeout option in the waptconsole.ini file located in %localappdata%\waptconsole.

Common mistakes

How to move my repository to another partition

For any reason, you may need move the repository to another partition.

Your repository contains 3 folders which can be quite large:

• wapt;

• wapt-host;

• waptwua.

Linux

On Linux, create a mount point on fstab.

For this example, the second partition is named part2.

part2 is an ext4 formated partition.

Debian / Ubuntu

• Create a temporary folder.

mkdir /mnt/tmp

• Create a temporary mount point.

mount /dev/part2 /mnt/tmp

• Move the folders.

mv /var/www /mnt/tmp

• Unmont the partition.

umount /dev/part2

• Edit the fstab file.

vi /etc/fstab

• Add the following line to the fstab file.

# <file system> <mount point> <type>  <options> <dump>  <pass>
/dev/part2      /var/www      ext4    defaults  0       0

• Mount the partition.

mount -a

Hint

If there is no error, the partition is mounted.

• You can check by running.

df -h

#Result
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
dev/part2       15G          944M       14G   7% /var/www

• Remove the temporary folder.

rm -rf mnt/tmp

RedHat and derivatives

• Create a temporary folder for copying the folders.

mkdir /mnt/tmp

• Create a temporary mount point.

mount /dev/part2 /mnt/tmp

• Move the folders.

mv /var/www/html /mnt/tmp

• Unmont the partition.

umount /dev/part2

• Edit the fstab file.

vi /etc/fstab

• Add the following line to the fstab file.

# <file system> <mount point> <type>  <options> <dump>  <pass>
/dev/part2      /var/www/html      ext4    defaults  0       0

• Mount the partition.

mount -a

Hint

If there is no error, the partition is mounted.

• You can check by running.

df -h

#Result
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
dev/part2       15G          944M       14G   7% /var/www

• Remove the temporary folder.

rm -rf mnt/tmp

Windows

On Windows, the best method is to backup and restore the WAPT Server on the new partition.

Note

It is possible to install the WAPT Server on another partition than C:.

Using a network drive to store and deliver WAPT packages

The standard way WAPT works is with a secure web server delivering WAPT packages to the WAPT Clients.

Tranquil IT advises against using a network drive for delivering WAPT packages for several reasons:

• A web server is extremely easy to setup, secure, maintain, backup and monitor.

• To work correctly, a WAPT package needs to be self-contained. Indeed, we do not know if the network will be available at the time of the installation launch (for example if we have a waptexit that starts when the workstation is shutting down on a network with 802.1x user authentication, there will no longer be a network available at the time of installation). The self-contained nature of WAPT makes it more deterministic than other deployment solutions.

• Network congestion may result from downloading large packages on large fleets of devices because you have less control over bandwidth rates or you may not be able to finish a partial download.

• This method breaks or at least weakens the security framework of WAPT.

• This method does not allow you to expose your repositories to Internet for your traveling personnel.

Attention

Even though WAPT can work independently of the transport mode, Tranquil IT will not officially support using a network drive to store and deliver WAPT packages.

Using the register() function in your audit scripts

The register() function forces the sending to the WAPT Server of the WAPT Agent’s hardware and software inventory.

This function is very taxing on the WAPT Server’s performance because it forces the WAPT Server to parse a relatively large JSON BLOB and to inject the result into the PostgreSQL database.

The function is by default triggered manually or when a new WAPT package upgrade is applied.

When you use the register() function in a WAPT audit script, it will run every time the audit script is triggered so it will load the WAPT Server with no apparent benefit.

Therefore, we do not recommend the use of the :code:`register()` function in audit scripts.

EWaptBadControl: ‘utf8’ codec can not decode byte

If you get this message, it may mean that you have not set up correctly your development environment. Visit this section of the documentation on setting up UTF-8 (no BOM).

I have a lot more hosts in the WAPT Console than I have host packages on my Server?

Following a remark from Philippe LEMAIRE from the Lycée Français Alexandre Yersin in Hanoï, if you use the Enterprise version of WAPT and you make heavy use of the unit packages or profile packages, you may realize that you will have many more hosts in your WAPT Console than host packages on you WAPT sSrver. This is normal.

In fact, WAPT unit and profile packages are not explicitly assigned to the host (i.e. as dependencies in the host package) but are implicitly taken into account by the WAPT Agent dependency engine during the WAPT upgrade.

So one might have no host package on the WAPT Server if only unit packages are used for managing a fleet of devices.