Using ARD to audit License Keys

Question

Scenario: The company I work for has a lot of VMWare Fusion licenses that have not been tracked. The license number exists within a text file in /Library/Application Support/VMWare Fusion/ folder.
Is it possible for ARD to be able to audit not simply the number of computers running VMWare Fusion, but to specifically report the License Keys from all of the installs?
If it's not built-in then I would imagine that this can somehow be scripted, but my knowledge of AppleScript is limited. If I am correct that this is the route to go, does anyone have any recommendations on where to start looking? If it is possible I wouldn't be surprised if someone has already created something like this, but so far google hasn't helped.
Thanks all!
-Scott

Answer 1

Well not exactly an automated process, here's what I was able to do without using applescript or customizing any built-in reporting features. I hope it helps someone besides myself...
VMWare Fusion 3.x stores it's license info in /Library/Application Support/VMWare Fusion/license-fusion*
Version 4.x stores it in /Library/Preferences/VMWare Fusion/license-fusion* (I may be remembering the pathnames slightly wrong, so confirm on your own system - you'll know it when you find it -- same goes for the command below).
You can use ARD to issue commands to clients via terminal, so I did this to have every selected client email my address with the full license file. It includes what version they are running, plus the license key (amongst other info from the file that may or may not be useful to some people):
cat /Library/Application\ Support/VMWare\ Fusion/license-fusion* /Library/Preferences/VMWare\ Fusion/license-fusion* | mail -s "VMWare License" [email protected]
This will send the full content of the file for either 3.x or 4.x (and error within ARD of "no file found" for the opposite) to whatever email address you specify, from the email address configured for the client computer. This will allow you to know what license number is running on what system. You can then use this emailed info to assemble a list manually. It may not be assembled in a nice & neat ARD report that can be imported into other apps (such as HSTracker, which is a nice tool btw), but it *will* save you the time of having to visit each workstation -- this will allow you to gather all of this information (albeit in a raw form) without leaving your desk. It can then be compiled in whatever method you need (for me, manually entry into HSTracker and then linking to the computers it's installed on).
Again, I hope this helps other people, and if anyone uses this and discoveres anything else that's worth sharing I would appreciate it. In case you find something that I didn't.
-Scott