N-central 2023.9.1.30

N-central version 2023.9 HF1 addresses a critical UI authentication vulnerability. This issue was responsibly disclosed and we’ve seen no exploitation of it across our customer base. We are recommending all partners upgrade to this version as soon as possible in order to fix this vulnerability prior to any details being published.

Fixed Issues in N-able N-central 2023.9 HF1

2023.9 HF1

Category	Description	Item
Core	2023.9 HF1 includes a critical UI security fix that N-able is recommending all partners address by updating. All supported versions of N-central prior to 2023.9 HF1 are impacted by this. The issue is server side, agents are not impacted.	NCCF-168702
Core	Resolved an issue where services applied by newly added service templates resulted in invalid service parameters	NCCF-130499

What’s New in N-central 2023.9

REST APIs

This release contains our very first set of REST APIs. These new APIs enable partner systems to programmatically interface with N-central to execute common N-central tasks. For this first release, Partners and Vendor integrators alike will be able to develop services to utilize the new ‘Scheduled Tasks’ API to run scripts against target devices and pass variables to those scripts. This first iteration will run tasks immediately, with more features to come in a future release. This release also includes a handful of REST APIs with GET methods for device and customer related information.

N-able Admin Console moved!

N-able Admin Console is now GA with 2023.9. If you have not been previewing this important security enhancement already, when you upgrade to 2023.9, you’ll be able to turn off port 10000 to outside access. The items that were previously in the port 10000 interface can now be found at the System level of N-central, under the System Settings menu, and Administration > Defaults. This also means that on-premise servers can enable MFA on the productadmin account! For more information on this feature, please refer to The N-able N-central Administrator Console overview.

Automation Manager

Automation Manager 2.93 is released alongside N-central 2023.9. This version of Automation Manager has added a new set of Meraki objects that use the v1 API. The previous objects are still available for compatibility, but if you have created custom AMPs around the first iteration, you should update those AMPs to use the new objects. We anticipate having the Services for Meraki from the Automation Cookbook updated in the near future. For a detailed list of fixes, please refer to the fixed issues list later in this document.

New Customer Name Limitations

As of N-central 2023.9, new Service Organization, Customer and Site levels may no longer start with the following characters: =,-,+, or @. Additionally, the names may not contain the following characters: % & $ # < > ; ” /

If you already have these characters in existing level names, they will not be modified by the upgrade. However, to edit those level names in the future, they will need to adhere to the same rules as newly created ones. If you have rules existing based on these levels, and the names do not meet the new criteria, you may see a system error attempting to edit those customers. If so, rename the related rules first, then rename the customer level.

Cove-related Enhancements

With 2023.9, N-central continues to enhance capabilities around Cove Data Protection! In addition to the previously released new left hand menu item, and the deployment AMPs, 2023.9 adds a new icon in the Features column of the All Devices view to show you Windows devices where Cove is installed on the device. There’s also a new Cove App Monitoring service that will be automatically added to the Windows device.

Ecosystem Agent Changes

Ecosystem agent will no longer get installed on devices and will only be installed on devices where Intune and/or DNSF integrations have been enabled on that device. If all integrations have been disabled on a device, the Ecosystem agent will automatically be uninstalled.

Key Bug Fixes

NCCF-56348 – Correct agent version not reflecting in N-central UI.

NCCF-101768 – Custom IDP providers can now be configured with OKTA.

KUIP-5591 – Fixed an issue where the Title Header does not update to ‘Integration Management’ when that is the selected view for the user and displays the previous screen title.

KUIP-5397 – Fixed an issue where clicking the Activate button from the Integration Management page did not update the activated state, without logging in and out and clicking Activate again.

KUIP-4449 – Fixed an issue where EDR and DNSF were not getting uninstalled automatically upon trial/contract expiration.

KUIP-3155 – Fixed some noisy logs around ecosystem-agent-updated-configurations that may affect performance for larger partners.

Upgrade paths and notes

Upgrade versions

To upgrade to N-able N-central 2023.9, your N-able N-central server must be running one of the following versions:

View versions:

N-able N-central 2022.7.1.44
N-able N-central 2023.4.0.32
N-able N-central 2023.5.0.12
N-able N-central 2023.6.0.9
N-able N-central 2023.7.0.10+
N-able N-central 2023.8.0.11+
N-able N-central 2023.9.0.25
N-able N-central 2023.9.0.26

Notes the following when upgrading N-able N-central.

Tasks may expire if the agent on an associated device is being upgraded when the task is scheduled to be completed. Agent upgrades are normally short in duration but may be delayed if a re-start of the device is pending.

Fixed Issues in N-able N-central

Release 2023.9 HF1

2023.9 HF1 GA

Category	Description	Item
Core	2023.9 HF1 includes a critical UI security fix that N-able is recommending all partners address by updating. All supported versions of N-central prior to 2023.9 HF1 are impacted by this. The issue is server side, agents are not impacted.	NCCF-168702
Core	Resolved an issue where services applied by newly added service templates resulted in invalid service parameters	NCCF-130499

Release 2023.9

2023.9 GA

Category	Description	Item
Analytics	Info icon for “Recipients” field on scheduler modal dialog window	DV-5359
Analytics	Missing Mouse-Over tooltip for Schedulers Subject field in Manage scheduler list screen	DV-5355
Analytics	Export buttons(ppt/pdf) should be disabled immediately after export is requested	DV-5354
Analytics	Wrong naming definition	DV-5224
Automation Manager	AM registry record is not updated	AM-3740
Automation Manager	AM Object: DVD Get DVD Drive Information	AM-2514
Automation Manager	Check if downloaded DLLs version matches expected version obtained from metadata	AM-2618
Automation Manager	“Stop Process” object runs until timeout when run as different user than owner of process	AM-2743
Automation Manager	Reboot Prompt object runs multiple times causing duplication of alerts	AM-2780
Automation Manager	AM “Get Last Boot Time” object doesn’t handle well exception	AM-3421
Automation Manager	AM object – GetRegistryKeys output property PathNoRoot contains the root for HKCU registers	AM-3465
Automation Manager	201 Cannot convert value “rror: 0x800705B” to type “System.Double”. Error: “Input string was not in a correct format.”	AM-3561
Automation Manager	RemoveUserFromLocalGroup object does not compose username correctly	AM-3763
Automation Manager	GetDate object formats output incorrectly	AM-3766
Automation Manager	Send Mail object keeps attachments locked	AM-3822
Automation Manager	EnableWirelessAdapters	AM-3851
Automation Manager	Get Windows Events – Designer execution error until object is seen under the Policy Builder	AM-3852
Automation Manager	ScriptRunner installation breaks – doesn’t comply with custom path from installation parameters	AM-3866
Automation Manager	Possible Security issue with Automation Manager Service	AM-3906
Automation Manager	NC – AM creates app domain with unsigned assemblies	AM-3911
Core	Fixed errors introduced via newly added customer name restrictions	NCCF-174998
Core	N-central 2023.9 contains an upgrade to the Apache Struts version to v2.5.33	NCCF-170867
Core	Not able to create SOs manually on N-central server build	NCCF-165357
Core	Analytics:Users Can Export A Report & Users Can Export A Report After Downloading – Keyword ‘Element Should Be Visible’ failed after retrying for 2 minutes. The last error was: Element with locator ‘//span[contains(text(),’Patch Missing’)]’ not found.	NCCF-158477
Core	Error cleaning up /tmp/migration directory	NCCF-158456
Core	Failed eventing startup can result in a null pinter exception in MspRelayPublisher that never gets cleared and blocks eventing forever.	NCCF-152628
Core	Adjust cli migration parameters template to match current cli app parameters	NCCF-150297
Core	Linux agent installation script does not exit properly	NCCF-147130
Core	Add a new column to the “Script/Software Repository” table that allows making a script runnable by REST APIs	NCCF-145883
Core	Add the ability to determine which scripts can be invoked from REST APIs	NCCF-145880
Core	N-central: add a new UI status for failed URLs pre-checks	NCCF-143691
Core	[Disaster Recovery] Rerun the migrate command when NC fails during a migration	NCCF-141917
Core	Create new Cove filter to get devices with Cove Backup Manager installed	NCCF-139882
Core	Link monitoring status with Cove device backup status	NCCF-139610
Core	Agent Module to support Cove App Monitoring service	NCCF-139609
Core	Automatically assign/remove Cove services based on asset discovery	NCCF-139608
Core	Create new service for “Cove App Monitoring” production status	NCCF-139607
Core	N-Central should not be monitoring integrations if none are turned on	NCCF-137409
Core	DMA:Commands from Device View don’t work	NCCF-137255
Core	Patch Status title is missing on the report	NCCF-134769
Core	Windows OS Version not showing correctly	NCCF-134250
Core	Password Reset Successful Change Email Shows IP Instead of FQDN	NCCF-131240
Core	Windows Agent: ComponentStatusUpdate should be called only after installation status was changed	NCCF-130229
Core	Change the Cove Icon and report on Cove status	NCCF-130209
Core	Verify Windows Log Event Has Single Backslash	NCCF-127838
Core	Issue with EDR status on Ncentral UI when S1 Uninstallation triggered from EDR Tab.	NCCF-127371
Core	Upgrade 2023.4,2023.5,2023.6 to 2023.7 on Probe/Agent device is showing duplicate windows agent on USeNewUpdate=False	NCCF-120402
Core	Copy of Device Name has preceding white space	NCCF-109980
Core	VSS Script Service for EDR (Not API Data Driven)	NCCF-109180
Core	Okta Support for Custom (OpenID Connect) SSO Provider	NCCF-101768
Core	Cove Icon for Enabled “Features”	NCCF-100243
Core	Custom Device Property “Password” Should Save at Device Level	NCCF-101757
Core	Modify how agent checks for Take Control being functional	NCCF-92486
Core	LDAP Login Adding Extra Backslash Just to UI Display	NCCF-91561
Core	Move MSP Backup / BUi to its own Backup menu in the left nav	NCCF-58745
Core	Correct agent version not reflecting in N-central UI	NCCF-56348
Core	N-central needs to limit the amount of Soap data from agents scheduled tasks output	NCCF-16873
Core	“My Links” update to fix the Default Links and point to correct URLs	NCCF-16813
Core	Add Usage Example for {{Device Property}} in Notification Templates	NCCF-15112
Ecosystem Framework	“Integration Management” Title Header missing in UI view	KUIP-5591
Ecosystem Framework	Failed Devices List – UI	KUIP-5492
Ecosystem Framework	Add New Hidden Registry Key to Point to New Agent Path (v5)	KUIP-5482
Ecosystem Framework	DMS: REST endpoint to return the current status of the migration for ON-PREM migrations	KUIP-5435
Ecosystem Framework	DMS: REST endpoint to run migration script on ON-PREM servers	KUIP-5434
Ecosystem Framework	Remove Reinstall of Ecosystem Agent from N-central Agent	KUIP-5424
Ecosystem Framework	Automatic Install of Ecosystem Agent – Upgrades	KUIP-5404
Ecosystem Framework	Automatic Install of Ecosystem Agent- New N-Central Installs	KUIP-5403
Ecosystem Framework	Remove Ecosystem Agent if all integrations are disabled	KUIP-5402
Ecosystem Framework	Remove automatic install of Ecosystem Agent	KUIP-5401
Ecosystem Framework	NC agent to uninstall Eco agent based on device UUID (not Publisher)	KUIP-4263
Integrated AV	Syntax issue in N-Central UI when no threats were found	IAV-1924

Release 2023.8

2023.8 GA

Category	Description	Item
Analytics	WorkspaceId is sometimes not provided in embeddedtoken request	DV-5076
Analytics	Restricting Custom Report creation with duplicated name under the same category	DV-4927
Analytics	“Last sync” is not getting updated for other Golden dataset reports in case of one of them having a proper Last sync value	DV-4622
Analytics	“Last sync” showing wrong value(ie Refreshing) on Dashboards List screen even in case of /reports/status having “Ready” status	DV-4621
Analytics	“Development” value is highlighting always when clicking on the Category dropdown	DV-4513
Analytics	Duplicate report names are allowing for Custom reports	DV-4511
Analytics	Filter functionality on dashboards list screen is giving wrong result set	DV-4467
Analytics	Dropdown list in reports view page is not getting closed when EU clicks on report details	DV-4269
Automation Manager	Disable Pendo on Automation Manager	AM-3861
Automation Manager	Get Windows Events – issues with date formats	AM-3738
Automation Manager	Object Sync Time with External NTP returning Result 0 on error	AM-3560
Automation Manager	Designer logs rotation	AM-3356
Core	[FEATURE] Enhanced EDR Integration available in N-central for New EDR users	NCCF-49731
Core	API-Service Related Enhancements	NCCF-132837
Core	Contact Link Text Adds Escape Slashes to Links	NCCF-131729
Core	Snapshot creation for CentOS and Ubuntu are failing	NCCF-130279
Core	Cove Deployment AMPs need to be added to the N-central repository as stock, permanent items	NCCF-130207
Core	Address code in Cove Integration related classes	NCCF-127943
Core	Excessive Log Rollover Due to Linux Agent Spam	NCCF-121288
Core	Linux agents skipping first entry in endpoint list when session is lost	NCCF-121020
Core	Incorrect Spelling of N-central	NCCF-120987
Core	Self-Healing is running much to often than is configured	NCCF-120506
Core	Fix string exception HTTPS Monitoring Service misconfigured.	NCCF-115464
Core	N-central Backup Restore throwing DFM restore errors with SQL on Azure	NCCF-111559
Core	Optimize ServerUI API invocation from OS scripts	NCCF-108882
Core	SPX Services not connecting	NCCF-107926
Core	Unlinking SSO Account Does Not Re-Enable MFA	NCCF-65882
Core	Command Prompt Timeouts After 5 Minutes	NCCF-40857
Core	Modify Openfire Settings to Drop Offline Messages and Cleanup	NCCF-30867
Core	configtypesignature Has No Foreign Key Constraint, So it Never Gets Cleaned Up	NCCF-24480
Core	Miss-Spelling of N-central on Server Restart Warning	NCCF-22942
Core	Uploading anything through Direct Support that takes more than 5 minutes has it’s request killed	NCCF-18911
Device Management Apple	Change order of parameters when generating AAID	MSAD-3204
Device Management Apple	Make DMA menu only visible at SO level for on-prem and NCOD instances	MSAD-3172
Device Management Apple	Handle mobile device list at System level	MSAD-3163
Device Management Apple	Remove DMA dropdown from System level	MSAD-3162
Device Management Apple	Update Client / Site sync	MSAD-3161
Device Management Apple	Update ABM Polling to loop through SOs	MSAD-3160
Device Management Apple	Update AAID generation to have SO ID	MSAD-3159
Device Management Apple	N-central – Provide client IDs in JWT	MSAD-3113
Ecosystem Framework	Update agent to use new GRPC library.	KUIP-2817

Known Limitations

These items for the current version of the N-able N-central software is composed of material issues significantly impacting performance whose cause has been replicated by N-able and where a fix has not yet been released. The list is not exclusive and does not contain items that are under investigation. Any known limitations set forth herein may not impact every customer environment. The N-able N-central software is being provided as it operates today. Any potential modifications, including a specific bug fix or any potential delivery of the same, are not considered part of the current N-able N-central software and are not guaranteed.

Agents and Probes

Description	Bug
Communication issues may be encountered for N-able N-central Probes installed on Windows servers that have multiple NICs. For more information, refer to “KBA20020: Configuring A Server With Multiple NICs” in the online Help.	67778
If you have multiple registry entries for older versions of the Windows agent, one entry will be cleaned up upon upgrade of the agent to 2023.9. If others remain, they will be cleaned up upon agent upgrade to a future version of N-central.	NCCF-163178

Automation Manager

Description	Bug
Running Automation Manager Policies created using Automation Manager 1.6 or earlier may result in Failed to create an EndDate … errors if the Policies are run on a computer using a different date format. This issue does not affect Policies created using Automation Manager 1.7 or later.	65712

Custom Services

Description	Bug
Custom services may appear as misconfigured when the system locale of the device is not set to English. For example, in Portuguese the default decimal in c#/.net is not a period, “.”, it is a comma, “,”. If you are having this issue, please contact N-able Technical Support.	65288

Core Functionality

Description	Bug
Installing N-able N-central on Servers that have an Nvidia Video Card Due to a bug in CentOS 7 with Nvidia’s “Nouveau” driver, installing N-able N-central on servers that have an Nvidia video card may result in the N-able N-central console showing a blank screen, or displaying an Anaconda Installer screen with an error message about the video card driver.	NCCF-11842
If you have the need to use Conditional Access Policies for your Azure AD/Entra ID linked users, there is a known issue that prevents your users from logging in. We have identified a workaround by using Custom (OpenID Connect) instead. To learn more, click HERE.	NCCF-31030
HDM doesn’t not work with the “Last 5 Tickets” widget.	NCCF-10855

Dashboards

Description	Bug
Modifying a Dashboard that is associated with a large number of services may cause performance issues when using the Firefox browser.	70326

PSA Integration

Description	Bug
In some instances, tickets closed in PSAs are not being cleared in N-able N-central. This is likely because the ticketing recipient profile in N-able N-central has Do not change the Ticket Status selected (in order to manually configure tickets). Then, when the ticket is removed in the PSA, N-able N-central will not be able to update/resolve the ticket’s status and new tickets cannot be created for the same issue. Until a solution is available through the UI for this situation, the work around is to set a Return to Normal status and set a non-used status in the ‘updatable statuses’ section or set the same status as the return to normal one. This will cause N-able N-central to add a note to the ticket on return to normal but will not alter the ticket’s status. This will allow the stale ticket check to remove the ticket from the system.	65620

Description

Bug

In some instances, tickets closed in PSAs are not being cleared in N-able N-central. This is likely because the ticketing recipient profile in N-able N-central has Do not change the Ticket Status selected (in order to manually configure tickets). Then, when the ticket is removed in the PSA, N-able N-central will not be able to update/resolve the ticket’s status and new tickets
cannot be created for the same issue. Until a solution is available through the UI for this situation, the work around is to set a Return to Normal status and set a non-used status in the ‘updatable statuses’ section or set the same status as the return to normal one. This will cause N-able N-central to add a note to the ticket on return to normal but will not alter the ticket’s
status. This will allow the stale ticket check to remove the ticket from the system.

65620

Description	Bug
When Cove Data Protection is installed on a device, the device details view will not light up the Cove icon in the features row correctly.	NCCF-162108
After re-naming, the Names of files or Registry entries may not be displayed properly in the File System window and the Registry window of the Tools tab when using Internet Explorer.	68149

User Access Management

Description	Bug
Login window reappears when new tab is loaded. When already logged into N-central and a user opens a new tab and browses to N-central from this new tab, the login screen reappears yet the user is already logged in. The left hand navigation is functional.	NCCF-29648

Available Ciphers for Non Agent/Probe Communication with N-central

View ciphers

TLSv1.3:

TLS_AKE_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

TLS_AKE_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

TLS 1.2:

TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

End of support

The following are being deprecated in a future release of N-able N-central:


Linux Agent Support	Due to declining usage in the field, the N-able N-central Linux agents will stop supporting CentOS 6, Ubuntu 14.04 and the 32- bit version of Ubuntu 16.04, in a future release.
Internet Explorer 11	Due to declining usage in the field, a future release of N-able Ncentral will drop support for the Internet Explorer 11 web browser.
AV Defender 5.x	As of next major release for those of you still utilizing the AV5 Bitdefender Antivirus be advised that monitoring from our AV5 agents will no longer continue. As a result this will leave your environments in a vulnerable state. We encourage you to review your agents to ensure you are now utilizing our latest AV6 agents. Reminder that our online help for Security Manager is available for your reference.
Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2012 R2	As older Windows Server and Desktop Operating Systems transition into Microsoft’s Extended Support Phase and beyond, they are no longer receiving OS level TLS version and cipher updates (SCHANNEL). As the .NET Framework relies on SCHANNEL for TLS based communications, and as newer vulnerabilities are discovered in the ciphers available to these older Operating Systems, the available Strong Cipher list for these devices continues to shrink. We continually review the ciphers used by N-central’s Modern Security Profile, to ensure we offer only secure ciphers. At this time, there are only two (2) secure RSA key based ciphers available to Windows Server 2012 R2/Windows 8.1 and older. N-central will endeavor to support these two ciphers in our Modern Security profile for as long as they remain secure, but there may come a time where we will need to drop Official support for these Windows versions before the end of their Extended Support Phase. If/when this does occur, they will still be able to connect if you switch to the Legacy Security Profile, but this will reduce the security of all devices connecting to your N-central server. If you monitor Windows Server 2003/2008/Windows XP/Vista devices, we would like to advise you that we will be dropping support for the “TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA” cipher in a future release. Coming changes to the web front end that will support TLS 1.3, have been identified as also disabling “TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA” due to the required version of OpenSSL. Fully patched Windows Server 2008/Vista devices should be able to connect to N-central on the Legacy Security profile, using one of the newer, but still weak ciphers. Windows Server 2003/XP will no longer be able to communicate over TLS/HTTPS at that time (using a site-to-site VPN between your firewall devices, and connecting over HTTP may still work).
32-bit versions of the Windows, Linux and macOS operating systems	The number of 32-bit Operating Systems monitored by Ncentral has continued to drop over the past few years. Windows Agents/Probes have historically been 32-bit, with some 64-bit specific components. In a future release, we intend to convert the Agent and Probe code base to be a native 64-bit application; this will mean a hard deprecation of support for 32-bit Windows versions. N-central’s Linux and macOS agents will follow a similar path.

N-able N-central System requirements

The following requirements are for typical usage patterns, acknowledging that some patterns may require greater system resources for a N-able N-central server than others.

If you have any questions about how your needs affect the system requirements of your N-able N-central server, contact your Channel Sales Specialist or email n-able-salesgroup@n-able.com.

Processor	Server class x86_64 CPUs manufactured by Intel or AMD (i.e. Xeon or EPYC). Please refer to the Red Hat Hardware Ecosystem for further details
Operating System	You do not need to install a separate Operating System to run N-able N-central. The N-able Ncentral ISO includes a modified version of CentOS 7, based on the upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
Physical Hardware	The physical server used to install N-able N-central in a bare metal environment must be certified to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 (x64) by Red Hat, or the hardware vendor, without any additional drivers. Please check the Red Hat Hardware Ecosystem for details. Server Grade hard drives connected to a RAID controller with a Battery/Capacitor Backed Cache are Required. Examples include 10K+ RPM SCSI or SAS drives, Enterprise Grade SSDs or NVMes for bare metal and virtualized hosts, or a Fibre Channel connected SAN with Enterprise Grade hard drives for virtualized hosts (Fibre Channel cards can be used for bare metal if they are configured in the pre-boot environment and do NOT require vendor-provided drivers). Although Desktop Hard Drives will work with the Operating System, they do not meet the minimum throughput required for the back-end Database of N-able N-central.

For more details, please refer to the Red Hat Hardware Ecosystem to see if your current hardware will work with our customized version of CentOS 7.

System requirements by number of devices managed

The table below lists the minimum specifications required to manage the number of devices indicated (based on average usage). Performance can be improved by exceeding these requirements. When determining your hardware requirements, consider any growth in managed device count that may occur over time.

Number of devices	CPU Cores	Memory	Storage
Up to 1,000	2	4 GB RAM	80 GB RAID
Up to 3,000	4	8 GB RAM	150 GB RAID
Up to 6,000	8	16 GB RAM	300 GB RAID
Up to 9,000	12	24 GB RAM	450 GB RAID
Up to 12,000	16	32 GB RAM	600 GB RAID
Up to 16,000	22	48 GB RAM	800 GB RAID
Up to 20,000	28	64 GB RAM	1 TB RAID
Up to 24,000	34	80 GB RAM	1.2 TB RAID

Notes

Server Grade hard drives connected to a RAID controller with a Battery/Capacitor Backed Cache, are required to ensure performance and unexpected power-loss data protection.
In a virtualized environment, hard drives for the N-able N-central server must not be shared with any other applications or VM guests that have significant I/O workloads. For example, Report Manager, SQL Databases, E-Mail Servers, Active Directory Domain Controllers, SharePoint, or similar should not be installed on the same physical hard drive as N-able N-central.
N-able recommends two or more hard drives be placed in a redundant RAID configuration. With two drives, RAID 1 must be used. With more than two drives, RAID 1+0 or RAID 5 are recommended. RAID 6 is an option on servers with less than 1,000 devices (the additional write latency of RAID 6 becomes an issue above 1,000 devices).
N-able recommends more, smaller disks in a RAID array, as opposed to fewer larger disks. Databasebacked applications, like N-able N-central, have better write performance with an increased number of parallel writes (hard drives).
If using Solid State Drives (SSDs), N-able requires Enterprise Grade, SLC based (or better) SSDs with a SAS interface, or Enterprise Grade NVMes. SSD and NVMe drives must have an endurance rating of at least 0.2 DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day), and at least 2 physical disks in a redundant RAID array. On Bare Metal servers, the RAID array must appear to the operating system as a single Block or NVMe Device. Currently, many PCIe and NVMe drives do not meet this last requirement and would only work in a virtualized environment.
Configure the RAID controller to use the default stripe size and a Read/Write cache of 50%/50%.

The underlying customized version of CentOS 7 has certain hardware limits that are consistent with the upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 distribution. Of note are the following:

Subsytem	Limit
Minimum disk space	80 GB
Maximum physical disk size (BIOS)	2 TB
Maximum physical disk size (UEFI)	50 TB
Required minimum memory	4GB for 4 or fewer logical CPUs 1GB per logical CPU for more than 4 logical CPUs
Maximum memory	12 TB
Maximum logical CPUs	768

Due to the ecosystem of different hardware, N-able does not certify specific hardware configurations. Instead we rely on the upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux and hardware vendor testing and certification.

Examples of servers that have been Red Hat certified include HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10 and Dell PowerEdge R620.

Please consult with your hardware vendor to ensure that any server to be used for a bare metal installation meets the above requirements, and is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 certified, without the need for additional
drivers.

N-able recommends that for any Bare Metal server, two or more SAS 10k or faster hard drives be placed in a RAID array to improve redundancy. RAID 1+0 or RAID 5 are supported (at the hardware RAID BIOS level). RAID 6 is an option on servers with less than 1,000 devices (the additional write latency of RAID 6 becomes an issue above 1,000 devices).

Support for virtualized environments

N-able supports VMware ESX Server 6.0 or newer and Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V or newer LTS versions. N-able recommends use of the latest stable versions of VMware or Hyper-V in order to ensure the best performance, feature set and compatibility with N-able N-central.

Hyper-V on Windows Desktop Operating Systems not Supported.

N-able N-central installed on a virtual machine running on a Desktop Operating System (such as HyperV on Windows 10, Virtual Box, Parallels, VMWare Fusion or similar) is not a supported configuration. If
you are using Windows Hyper-V, it must be installed on a supported server class Windows Operating
System.

Windows Server Semi-Annual Releases are not Supported.

Only Long-Term Support (LTS) versions of the Windows Server Operating System are supported as a
Hyper-V host for N-able N-central. Microsoft currently releases “Semi-Annual Release” versions of
Windows Server as a technology preview for the next LTS version. Due to their technology preview
status, these “Semi-Annual Release” versions of Windows Server are not supported as Hyper-V hosts
for N-able N-central.

About virtualization

Virtualization provides an abstraction layer between the hardware and the Operating System which permits the operation of multiple logical systems on one physical server unit. The table below includes considerations when using this deployment method.

System Performance	It is impossible to guarantee the scalability or performance of a N-able N-central server deployed on a Virtual Machine due to: 1. Variability in field environments resulting from host server configurations, 2. The number of virtual guests run on the host server, and 3. The performance of the underlying host hardware.
Supportability	N-able supports N-able N-central software deployed on VMWare ESX/ESXi 6.0 or newer, Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V or newer LTS releases, Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS EC2 in the same way that we support N-able N-central deployed on Bare Metal. This support is limited to the components (Software and Operating System) shipped with Nable N-central and does not include the troubleshooting of virtualization systems nor of performance issues related to environmental factors. N-able recommends reaching out to your hardware or virtualization vendor for support on the underlying virtualization and hardware components. Any assistance provided by Nable Support for virtualization or hardware issues is on a best-effort basis only. In the event of serious performance problems, we might ask you to migrate a virtualized N-able N-central system to a physical hardware deployment.
Virtual Hardware Support	In Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V or newer deployments, it is recommended to create a new Generation 2 VM. When configuring the VM virtual hardware, if you choose to enable Secure Boot, please select the Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority template. For VMWare ESX/ESXi deployments, it is recommended to select the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 guest OS template, then under the Boot Options, select the UEFI Firmware.
Network Adapters	N-able recommends using the VMXNET3 network card in VMWare. When the VM is configured as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, it will use VMXNET3 by default. Unless you are using Network Interface Bonding, N-able N-central requires only one (1) network adapter added to the VM configuration. Multiple network adapters that are not used in a bonding configuration can cause connectivity and licensing issues.
MAC Addresses	By default, most virtualization environments use a dynamically assigned MAC address for each virtual network card. As your N-able N-central license is generated in part by using the MAC address of its network card, it is required to use a statically assigned MAC address in order to avoid becoming de-licensed.

Recommended configuration for the virtualized server

Although provisioning virtual disks as “thin” or “thick” results in nearly-identical performance, thick
provisioning is recommended, particularly when more than 1,000 devices will be connected to your Nable N-central server.

Assign the highest resource access priority to N-able N-central, as compared to other guest VMs.
Do not over-provision resources (Memory, CPU, Disk) on the virtualization host. Over-provisioning these resources can causes memory swapping to disk, and other bottlenecks that can impact guest system performance.
Ensure that the system has enough RAM and hard drive space to provide permanently allocated resources to the N-able N-central guest.

Supported Software

Browsers

N-able N-central supports the latest versions of:

Microsoft Edge®
Mozilla Firefox®
Google Chrome®
Apple Safari®

Mobile phone browsers are not supported.

Remote Control

Remote control connections require the following software on the computers that initiate connections:

.NET Framework 4.5.2 on Windows devices
Oracle Java 1.8 versions that include Java Web Start

Report Manager

To use Report Manager with N-able N-central, ensure the you upgrade to the latest version of Report Manager.

Automation Manager

Automation Manager requires .NET Framework 4.5.2 and PowerShell 3.0 to run AMP-based services with N-able N-central.

SNMP Community String

On HPE ProLiant Generation 9 or older Physical Servers, when monitoring the N-able N-central server using SNMP, the community string used for SNMP queries to the server must use N-central_SNMP, not public. SNMP is only enabled on HPE ProLiant Generation 9 or older Physical Servers. All other installs do not enable SNMP on the N-able N-central server.

Supported Operating Systems

This section describes the supported operating systems for N-able N-central.

Windows Agents

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 (or later)

Windows Server 2022

Windows Server 2022 Standard
Windows Server 2022 Datacenter
Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure

Windows Server 2019

Windows Server 2019 Datacenter
Windows Server 2019 Standard

Windows Server 2016

Windows Server 2016 Datacenter
Windows Server 2016 Standard
Windows Server 2016 Essentials
Windows Storage Server 2016
Windows Server 2016 MultiPoint Premium Server
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016

Windows Server 2012

R2 Datacenter
R2 Essentials
R2 Foundation
R2 Standard
Datacenter 64-bit Edition
Essentials 64-bit Edition
Foundation 64-bit Edition
Standard 64-bit Edition
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 R2
Storage Server 2012 Enterprise 64-bit Edition
Storage Server 2012 Express 64-bit Edition
Storage Server 2012 Standard 64-bit Edition
Storage Server 2012 Workgroup 64-bit Edition

Windows 11

Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise & Professional
Microsoft Windows 11 Education editions
Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for Workstations

Windows 10

Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise & Professional
Microsoft Windows 10 Education editions
Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

Windows 8 and 8.1

8.1 Enterprise
8.1 Professional
8 Enterprise
8 Professional

Windows 7

Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise & Professional
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate

macOS Agents

12.0 (Monterey)
11.0 (Big Sur)
10.15 (Catalina)
10.14 (Mojave)
10.13 (High Sierra)
10.12 (Sierra)

Linux Agents

Independent Agents are required for 32-bit and 64-bit Linux OS installations.

The probe performs an SSH connection a Linux device. To discover a Ubuntu/Debian OS device, the
device must have openssh installed.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 8 (64-bit)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 7 (x86_64 and i686)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 6 (x86_64 and i686)
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (64-bit)
Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver” (x86_64)
Ubuntu 16.04 “Xenial Xerus” (x86_64 and i686)
Debian 8.7/Ubuntu 14.04 “Trusty Tahr” (x86_64 and i686)

AV Defender

Workstation Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows 11
Microsoft Windows 10
Microsoft Windows 8, 8.1

Tablet And Embedded Operating Systems

Windows 10 IoT Enterprise
Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry
Windows Embedded 8 Standard
Windows Embedded Enterprise 7
Windows Embedded POSReady 7
Windows Embedded Standard 7
Windows Embedded Compact 7
iOS 12.0 or later

Server Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows Server 2022
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Core
Microsoft Windows Server 2019
Microsoft Windows Server 2016
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Core
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
Microsoft Windows Server 2012

For Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 7, TCP/IP, Filter Manager, and Windows Installer must all be
enabled.

Patch Manager

Workstation Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows 11
Microsoft Windows 10 version 1607 and later
Microsoft Windows 8.1
Microsoft Windows 8
Microsoft Windows 7

Server Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows Server 2022
Microsoft Windows Server 2012
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
Microsoft Windows Server 2016
Microsoft Windows Server 2019

The following operating systems are not supported with N-able N-central patch manager:

Microsoft Windows XP
Microsoft Windows Vista
Microsoft Windows 10 Home Edition
Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Microsoft Windows Server 2008
Microsoft Windows 11 Home Edition (Monitoring status is supported)

Windows Update Agent

The minimum version of the Windows Update Agent (WUA) needs to be greater than 7.6.7600.320. The base NT build version of Windows should be 6.1 or later. Older versions of the base NT build cannot upgrade past version 7.6.7600.256 of the Windows Update Agent.

Automation Manager

Workstation Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows 11
Microsoft Windows 10 (32/64-bit)
Microsoft Windows 8.1 (32/64-bit)
Microsoft Windows 8 (32/64-bit)
Microsoft Windows 7 (32/64-bit)

Server Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows Server 2022
Microsoft Windows Server 2019
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (32/64-bit)
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (32/64-bit)
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (32/64-bit)

Disk Encryption Manager

Hyper-V Server 2012 R2	Hyper-V Server 2016
Windows 7 Enterprise	Windows 7 Home Premium
Windows 7 Professional	Windows 7 Ultimate
Windows 8 Enterprise	Windows 8 Pro
Windows 8 Pro with Media Center	Windows 8.1 Enterprise
Windows 8.1 Pro	Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
Windows 10 Education	Windows 10 Enterprise
Windows 10 Enterprise 2015 LTSB	Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB
Windows 10 Enterprise for Virtual Desktops	Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019
Windows 10 Pro	Windows 10 Pro Education
Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise	Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard	Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation
Windows Server 2012 Datacenter	Windows Server 2012 Essentials

Windows Server 2012 Foundation	Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter
Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials	Windows Server 2012 R2 Foundation
Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard	Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Evaluation
Windows Server 2012 Standard

Windows Server 2016 Datacenter	Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Evaluation
Windows Server 2016 Essentials	Windows Server 2016 Standard
Windows Server 2016 Standard Evaluation

Windows Server 2019 Datacenter	Windows Server 2019 Essentials
Windows Server 2019 Standard	Windows Server 2019 Standard Evaluation

Windows Server Datacenter
Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials	Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard

Port access requirement

N-central Server

Access must be permitted to the following ports:

Supported operating systems for remote control

The availability of remote control connections will vary depending on the operating systems of both the client and target devices. The table below outlines the operating systems and their compatibility with various remote control types.

Licensing and Customer Support

Agent/Probe Installation Software

N-able N-central 2023.9 uses the 7-Zip file archiver for installing agents and probes. 7-Zip is free software redistributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. For more information, see http://www.7-zip.org.

Customer Support

Contact N-able to activate your N-able N-central server.

Web Page:	http://www.n-able.com
Technical Support SelfService Portal:	https://success.n-able.com/
Phone:	Toll Free (U.S./CAN): 1-866-302-4689 International: +800-6225-3000 Local: (613) 592-6676, select option 2 for support

Download release notes

For a PDF version of the latest release notes, or to view historical release notes, please use the following link:

Click to access N-central_release_notes_summary.pdf

Announcing the GA of N-central 2023.9 HF1

What’s New in N-central 2023.9

Upgrade paths and notes

Fixed Issues in N-able N-central

Known Limitations

Available Ciphers for Non Agent/Probe Communication with N-central

End of support

N-able N-central System requirements