Using Account Keys, Organization Keys, and Agent Tags

Team: Huntress EDR
Product: Account keys, Organization Keys, Agent Tags
Environment: Huntress.IO management portal
Summary: The Huntress.IO portal allows you to organize your protected machines by account or organization using account keys, organization keys and names, as well as agent tags.

The Huntress Service uses two "keys" to associate agents with the appropriate Account and Organization. We refer to these as your Account Key and Organization Keys. You can also use Agent Tags to help identify and group your Agents within Organizations. To learn more, check out the following sections:

In this article

1Account Key

2Organization Keys

3Organization Names

4Agent Tags

Account Key

In order to determine which Huntress Account an Agent should be associated with, we use a unique secret called an Account Key. This key is used during the Huntress Agent installation process (GUI and Silent) and should only be disclosed to those that are installing Huntress Agents. Your account is billed for each agent using this key, so it's important to treat it with caution and care. You can find this key by performing the following steps:

NOTE: Only account-level users have access to the account key which is needed to install the agent (and therefore the installer download is also restricted to account-level users). This was done to prevent unauthorized agent installs since the account is responsible for billing.

1. Login to the Huntress Web Interface.

   

2. Hover over the Huntress options menu in the upper-right corner of the dashboard.

   

3. Select the "Download Agent" option from the menu.

   

4. On the Installer page you can retrieve your Account Key (and download the Huntress Agent installer while you are here).

    

Organization Keys

Organization Keys are used to associate a Huntress Agent into a grouping we call Huntress Organizations. The Organization Key is typically a short, user-defined identifier that is required during Agent installation.

For RMM users, LabTech's ClientName, Continuum's SiteName, and Kaseya's MachineGroup are ideal examples as they'll automatically group your managed hosts into your pre-organized formats.

Note: If you're using a form of our PowerShell script to deploy the Huntress Agent, spaces in the "Organization Key" will be removed and the key will become one long string. If you are using the Huntress installer (either manually, through a script, or RMM such as ConnectWise Automate), any spaces in the Organization key will be turned into Dashes

We're big fans of automating mundane tasks and manually organizing agents is right next to watching paint dry. To help with this, the Huntress Web Interface will automatically create an Organization for you when a new agent registers with an Organization Key that doesn't already exist.

Organization Names

Since Organization Keys aren't always the prettiest names, we've also added the ability customize an Organization's display name from the Huntress Account's Organization Management page. Just take care and don't accidentally change the Organization Key or future agent installations may end up in a duplicate organization.

1. Navigate to your Account Dashboard by hovering over your account name in the upper-left corner and selecting the first option in the drop-down menu.

   

2. Select the "Organizations" option from the top navigation bar.

   

3. Click the pencil icon to edit the desired Organization.

   

4. Within the "Organization Name" field, change it to something more friendly. These display names will be used in the Huntress generated reports and throughout the Huntress Web Interface.

   

5. Voila! Pretty organization names are happy organization names ;)

   

Agent Tags

We've received a fair amount of feedback from our partners requesting the ability to freely group Huntress Agents within an Organization. Our Team also saw the value, so we've provided a way to add simple, descriptive words or phrases to each installed agent. We call these Agent Tags and they can be added during installation (manually or via a deployment script) or after installation (within the Huntress Web Interface). With that said, we're still exploring the best way to implement the user experience for this feature:

• A list of tags that renders a list of hosts?
• A universal search bar?
• How about automatic tagging (such as OS version, architecture, etc.)?

Regardless of the final implementation, you can start tagging immediately. As soon as our solution is live, you'll be able to enjoy it without lifting a finger :)Tags allow you to group agents within your Organizations. For example, you might tag all your servers with a "server" tag, or if you are an MSP you might use a tag to indicate the customer's location. An agent can have multiple tags.

Tags can be set when installing the Huntress Agent and in the Huntress Management Console. 

 

Editing tags in the Huntress Management Console

To change a tag in the Huntress Management Console, click on the "Agents" view and then click the pencil icon next to the tag:

The tags are comma-separated names. Press "enter" when done making the changes.