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User Guide for Cisco Security Manager 4.4
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Preparing Devices for Management
Before you start to manage a device using Security Manager, you should prepare the device with at least
a minimal configuration. The following sections describe the basic device configurations needed for
various transport protocols or device types. Before configuring transport protocols, determine the
requirements for your devices by reading Understanding Device Communication Requirements,
page 2-1.
•Understanding Device Communication Requirements, page 2-1
•Setting Up SSL (HTTPS), page 2-3
•Setting Up SSH, page 2-5
•Setting Up AUS or Configuration Engine, page2-7
•Configuring Licenses on Cisco ASA Devices, page 2-11
•Configuring Licenses on Cisco IOS Devices, page 2-12
•Initializing IPS Devices, page 2-12

Understanding Device Communication Requirements

Security Manager provides many different ways for you to manage devices. The easiest methods involve
Security Manager directly contacting the devices. Security Manager might access a device during
inventory or policy discovery, during configuration deployment, or in response to actions you take in
Security Manager that request device contact (such as testing connectivity).
Because you can use off-line methods to add devices to the Security Manager inventory or to deploy
configuration changes to the devices, configuring device communication settings for Security Manager’s
use is optional. However, you typically need to configure basic device communication settings on the
devices to implement your off-line or customized configuration deployment tools.
In Security Manager, you can configure which transport protocol to use as the default for a type of
device, and change it for specific devices that are configured to respond to a different protocol. Security
Manager is configured with default protocols that are the most commonly-used protocols for that type
of device. To change the default device communication setting for a type of device, select Tool s >
Security Manager Administration and select Device Communication from the table of contents (for
more information, see Device Communication Page, page 11-16). To change the transport setting for a
specific device, modify its device properties as described in Viewing or Changing Device Properties,
page 3-39.
Security Manager can use these transport protocols: