Patent ID: 7676565

Claim:
In a network computing environment including at least one client and at least one server, a method of inventorying software and/or hardware, the method comprising: requesting a first rule file from the server; receiving the first rule file from the server, wherein the first rule file comprises a set of inventory rules describing information desired by the server, wherein the first rule file is organized hierarchically and includes a plurality of class arguments including class arguments for both software and hardware classes indicating that the server desires information about particular classes, instance arguments below the class arguments, wherein each the instance arguments specify an occurrence of a class on a machine, property arguments below the instance arguments, the property arguments specifying a particular attributes of instances; gathering information about the software and/or hardware at the client based on rules in the first rule file; sending results of gathering information about the software and/or hardware at the client to the server; requesting a second rule file from the server; receiving the second rule file from the server; wherein receiving a rule file from the server comprises receiving a signed cabinet file, and further comprising verifying the signature of the cabinet file to determine if the signature is valid; determining that the second rule file comprises an invalid signature; and as a result of determining that the second rule file comprises the invalid signature, sending a message to the server indicating that the second rule file signature is invalid, whereafter the second rule file is destroyed or quarantined at the server.