A first managed machine of a plurality of managed machines arranged in a linear communication orbit based on a predefined order of respective machine identifiers of the managed machines scans for live unmanaged machines within a selected portion of the network that is associated with a first range of machine identifiers that includes identifiers between the respective identifiers of the first managed machine and a respective neighbor machine of the first managed machine, determines whether the remedial instruction specifies a respective remedial operation applicable to the one or more live unmanaged machines that have been detected within the selected portion of the network, and requests the one or more live unmanaged machines to execute the respective remedial operation specified by the remedial instruction.