LabTech Plugin: Disk Tree
Posted on October 6, 2015
This is the plugin most voted for in the poll (way too long ago). But it’s now here and available!
What is it?
Enter a folder to scan recursively and you’ll receive a tree style view of the files and folders for that folder. You can navigate through those folders to see what’s eating up space and take action directly. You can right-click a folder or file and delete it (works recursively for folders), copy the path to your clipboard, view file/folder properties, and export the tree to an HTML file for sharing or later reference.
On the right side is the top 100 files in the folder that you scanned. This allows you to see the biggest files taking up the most space. You can take the same actions as noted above – delete, copy path, file properties, as well as exporting the list.
How does it work?
This plugin uses a PowerShell script created by James Weakley. It’s been heavily modified to reduce scan time and output information, but the basic idea is still the same. Props for his work on that script and sharing it! Press the ‘Start Scan’ button and wait a bit. The script is downloaded to the agent, executed, and the results are parsed in a tree view so that you can use them. Larger folders will obviously take more time to complete.
Pretty picture:
Download and install using our plugin installer!
Great plugin! Is there a way to make it scan certain drives on a schedule? Or have it triggered via an alert template?
For example if a server alerts for < 10% diskspace have it run?
Christopher,
At this point, it’s an on-demand only scanner. It would be possible create a script to execute the PS script and store the results somewhere, but that’s out of the realm of this plugin. I will keep the idea on the list, but there’s no immediate plan to do so until I can do so in a way that flows properly with the current plugin.
Thanks!
Tim
Hello,
Great script! When I right click a file to delete, it always says “network path not found” When I look at the command it’s executing, it puts an extra \ in the path.. For example, c:\\users\username
Is this a bug?
Nick,
Well, that’s definitely not intended behavior. I’ll get that taken care of and an update released soon.
Thanks!
Tim
Similar to Tim, I’m seeing C:\\Users as the path in the audit logs. Unfortunately the delete function also truncated the path from C:\users\[user]\temp\[folder]\[subfolder] to C:\\Users. Despite the extra backslash, it successfully deleted c:\users (unintentionally). I don’t see a way to disable the delete function, so I’ve got to remove the plugin.
Too bad, because I use this all the time and it is otherwise great.
Scott,
Thanks for letting me know about that. I had experienced the double slash, but I was unaware that it was causing a problem or deleting the wrong folder. I use this feature regularly, but hadn’t noticed that. In any case, I’ll get that resolved – for real this time.
Thanks again!
Tim
Is anyone else seeing this time out pretty much all the time before it completes? LT keep changing the way commands run and changing the time they have to execute before the return an error, and this is suffering from it at our end.
When we have scripts, we’ve been adding a “wait” loop and monitoring the process, but I don’t have control of that for this plugin.
Or, is it just us?
Stuart,
Are you seeing this occur on relatively small hard drives/folders when scanning? I only ever see it fail on very large drives or where there is an excessive number of files. Curious to know the circumstances for these failures.
Thanks,
Tim
Seeing the same as Stuart. 120GB SSD drive. Scanning c:\. HTML file gets created and parsed relatively quick, but results never display in the plugin panel. Just sits at ‘parsing results’. LT 11.0.353.
Graham,
Would you mind sending me the html file that gets created so I can confirm it’s complete? I’ve not seen this issue personally, so I’ll need to gather a bit of information. Please send this to support@squattingdog.net.
Thanks!
Tim
I am experiencing the same results. I am in a hosted LT environment and have 2 factor auth enabled. I show the plugin is installed from the control center, but wondering if it is actually installed. Is there a manual installation?
Also, where would this html file be generated?
Scott,
No manual install is needed. Once installed, reload Control Center, open a computer, hit the Plugins section, and you should see Disk Tree listed there.
Thanks,
Tim
Hi,
Did anyone resolve the timeout issue?
We are having the same problem “Timeout reached or error received while trying to read the output file. Please try a smaller directory”. The drive is 126 GB.
Cheers,
Hey Adam,
If you will, shoot an email over to support@squattingdog.net and we can troubleshoot. I use this plug-in with several of my clients and it works in most circumstances.
Thanks,
Tim
Hi Tim,
Are there any specific permissions needed for techs to see this? One of them is claiming not to have access to the plugin?
Ryan,
As with most any plugin, you’ll need to grant the users access to the plugin via their user class. Any users that are able to access it already are likely super admin (Which I don’t recommend) and not limited from any permissions. To enable to plugin for other users, have a look at this video: https://youtu.be/YmY3feF8RQ0
Thanks
Tim
Sorry – yes of course – under the user management of the selected user class, select any plugins appropriate for the class! 🙂
I am about to install the plugin but the “delete bug” scare me, also I am very noob with labtech and usually install through Solution Center, would apreciate a detailled install guide !
Victor,
To install, simply run the plugin installer, login, select the desired plugin(s), and click install. The installer will add the plugin to the database and restart the database agent.
Thanks,
Tim
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Does this plugin or the plugin installer still work? I get a lot of object instance not set to an instance of an object errors
Will,
The plugin installer was recently updated to work…kind of. Have a look here: https://squattingdog.net/the-plugin-installer-works-again-kind-of/
Thanks,
Tim