Re: [Unattended] article in German c't magazine
Hi! I will ask Heise if we can get a pdf-Version for the website. I received the answer: it is no problem, but expensive. So everyone who wants to read that article - go an buy it. cu Niels --- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
Re: [Unattended] Re: Unattended
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What I've investigated yet: ANI uses DHCP to pass basic options, unattended doesn't. But I guess that's not all. Actually, you can use DHCP option 233 to pass configuration data to Unattended. This is mentioned very briefly in the FAQ (http://unattended.sourceforge.net/faq.html#linux). It is a simple string of options, like this: z_user=DOM\myuser z_pass=sekrit z_path=//server/install yes, that definetly needs to be explained somewhere, now that c't did an article about Unattended, we're getting also a lot more traffic from supposedly more people with your question and we will put the answer in a FAQ list. Our lists have received a flood of subscriptions from .de this week (Willkommen!). Has anybody actually tried both systems in production? I think that would provide the most useful comparison. - ANI supports user defined DHCP options to pass basic options (that results in a maintenance-free bootmedia) and DHCP-Userclasses, usefull to serve different client- or domain-types even in the same subnet. What do you mean by DHCP Userclasses? Our boot disk sends Unattended as the DHCP user class option (DHCP code 77, defined by http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3004.html), which allows the DHCP server to distinguish our boot disk's leases from other leases. - The linux-bootmedia can be PXE, CD-Rom or floppy disk. We put a lot of effort into getting samba and linux so small that it fits a floppy disk. Unattended has NO floppy disk support, because they use a normal sized linux as base. We need floppy disk support because of older hardware not having CD-Rom (deliberetly) and no PXE-capable-NIc. I have a plan for supporting floppy boot, although it would require multiple floppies. I am not sure I will ever implement it, though. The set of machines which lack support for CD-ROM, network, and USB boot is small and shrinking. And older hardware tends to work OK with our DOS boot disk. - ANI installs a so called hidden Maintenance- (with Windows installation files) and an installation media partition on the HD drive. Unattended has not. These partition allows us to trigger reinstallation of windows without access to the net and to do mass-reinstallation/upgrades of computers without having to download all files for each computer again, but instead only the few changed files are downloaded (important to reduce traffic). These partitions even allow us to reinstall/upgrade the OS remotely and centralised with scripts over night, as long as the computer's NIC supports Wake-On-Lan. Unattended needs the presence of a person at the computer to reinstall the OS. Some of our users have made fully unattended installations work. But you are correct that we do not contemplate it out of the box. - ANI provides integration abitlities of existing user and user group concepts (unattended?). I do not know what this means. Could you elaborate? - ANI has a nice UI in case of errors, warnings :-) Um, uh, we print a diagnostic and Abort/Retry/Ignore :-). - ANI considers some security aspects, wich are desirable especially in big networks: -- We have encrypted passwords for the account to mount the install share and join the domain with the computer. The password is NEVER stored on the client side, either in encrypted or decrypted form. Unattended stores the password on the client side. True, but we delete it when we are done. I have never understood encrypting a password such that it can be decrypted automatically. If the machine can decrypt it, so can the user; isn't that just giving a false sense of security? Either you make a technician type the password when it is needed, or the password is available anonymously over the network. In real security terms, there is nothing in between. -- We have the abbillity to lock CD-Rom and floppy disk access and other devices depending on the group the loged on user is part of. Unattended has not. Can you elaborate? Are you talking about after the machine is installed? I have not used ANI, so I am not sure what features (if any) Unattended has which ANI lacks. Since you managed to fit everything on a single floppy, I would suspect our hardware support is broader, especially for mass-storage controllers (S-ATA/SCSI/RAID). And I suspect we have better support for customized partitioning schemes. But really, the biggest difference is in philosophy. In some ways, Unattended is more like a framework for creating a deployment system than an actual deployment system. Our default configuration is extremely basic. But the potential is endless, since you can provide custom Perl code which runs before the installation even starts. So you could choose an OU based on the machine name, or you could set the host name by looking up its Dell service tag in a MySQL database. All it takes is the right code, and our community is experimenting with and sharing all sorts of ideas. ANI is a deployment system. It
Re: [Unattended] Re: Unattended
Patrick J. LoPresti [EMAIL PROTECTED] skriver: What do you mean by DHCP Userclasses? Our boot disk sends Unattended as the DHCP user class option (DHCP code 77, defined by http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3004.html), which allows the DHCP server to distinguish our boot disk's leases from other leases. Any example of how to use this? Could this be used to only send Z_* variables to clients when they are booting from the linuxdisk and not when WindowsXP boots and requests a new ip address? = Janåke Rönnblom SKERIA Utveckling AB (Teknous) Assistentgatan 23 931 77 Skelleftea (Sweden) - Phone : +46-910-58 54 24 Mobile : 070-397 07 43 Fax: +46-910-58 54 99 URL: http://skeria.skelleftea.se - Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit --- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
Re: [Unattended] Re: Unattended
Rönnblom Janåke /Teknous [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Any example of how to use this? It depends on your DHCP server. Maybe somebody here can provide an example. If not, maybe you can figure it out send us an example yourself. I have never used this feature; somebody requested it and it seemed like a good idea. It should be possible to conditionalize on the user class with either Windows DHCP or ISC DHCP version 3. For Windows DHCP, this article looks promising: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=240247 For ISC DHCP, you can find some ideas here: http://www.google.com/search?q=option+user-class+isc ...although there seems to be some confusion over whether the option is named user-class or dhcp-user-class. Could this be used to only send Z_* variables to clients when they are booting from the linuxdisk and not when WindowsXP boots and requests a new ip address? That is the idea, yes. - Pat --- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
Re: [Unattended] Re: Unattended
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Patrick J. LoPresti wrote: | [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: | | What I've investigated yet: ANI uses DHCP to pass basic | options, unattended doesn't. But I guess that's not all. | | | Actually, you can use DHCP option 233 to pass configuration data to | Unattended. This is mentioned very briefly in the FAQ | (http://unattended.sourceforge.net/faq.html#linux). It is a simple | string of options, like this: | | z_user=DOM\myuser z_pass=sekrit z_path=//server/install I didn't know it. Thanx for the correction. | | yes, that definetly needs to be explained somewhere, now that c't | did an article about Unattended, we're getting also a lot more | traffic from supposedly more people with your question and we | will put the answer in a FAQ list. | | | Our lists have received a flood of subscriptions from .de this week | (Willkommen!). great! my favorite dictionary (german/english) is http://dict.leo.org. what is yours? | | Has anybody actually tried both systems in production? I think | that would provide the most useful comparison. I guess Carsten has some experience with both systems (@carsten: ???). He has had a big part in ANI developpement. | upports user defined DHCP options to pass basic options (that | results in a maintenance-free bootmedia) and DHCP-Userclasses, | usefull to serve different client- or domain-types even in the | same subnet. | | | What do you mean by DHCP Userclasses? Our boot disk sends | Unattended as the DHCP user class option (DHCP code 77, defined | by http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3004.html), which allows the DHCP | server to distinguish our boot disk's leases from other leases. That is exact what I meant. We use DHCP user classes e.g to allow clients to join different domain types even in the same subnet. Hence we can use the same DHCP options for different client types. | - The linux-bootmedia can be PXE, CD-Rom or floppy disk. We put a | lot of effort into getting samba and linux so small that it fits | a floppy disk. Unattended has NO floppy disk support, because | they use a normal sized linux as base. We need floppy disk | support because of older hardware not having CD-Rom (deliberetly) | and no PXE-capable-NIc. | | | I have a plan for supporting floppy boot, although it would require | multiple floppies. I am not sure I will ever implement it, | though. The set of machines which lack support for CD-ROM, network, | and USB boot is small and shrinking. And older hardware tends to | work OK with our DOS boot disk. | You're right. In future the floppy disk support will play a vanishing role...(r.i.p) | - ANI installs a so called hidden Maintenance- (with Windows | installation files) and an installation media partition on the HD | drive. Unattended has not. These partition allows us to trigger | reinstallation of windows without access to the net and to do | mass-reinstallation/upgrades of computers without having to | download all files for each computer again, but instead only the | few changed files are downloaded (important to reduce traffic). | These partitions even allow us to reinstall/upgrade the OS | remotely and centralised with scripts over night, as long as the | computer's NIC supports Wake-On-Lan. Unattended needs the | presence of a person at the computer to reinstall the OS. | | | Some of our users have made fully unattended installations work. | But you are correct that we do not contemplate it out of the box. | | | - ANI provides integration abitlities of existing user and user | group concepts (unattended?). | | | I do not know what this means. Could you elaborate? It's no big fead: in the post windows installation of ANI you have the possibillity to add local users and groups and fill local groups with other users or domain groups after the join2domain procedure. It may be configured in a central configuration file (winset.tpl, have a look at http://ani.sourceforge.net/configuration.php?lang=en#PostWindows section c.1.12 and c.1.13). It's very simple, but you have nearly every freedom to integrate existing group concepts. | - ANI has a nice UI in case of errors, warnings :-) | | | Um, uh, we print a diagnostic and Abort/Retry/Ignore :-). :-) | - ANI considers some security aspects, wich are desirable | especially in big networks: -- We have encrypted passwords for | the account to mount the install share and join the domain with | the computer. The password is NEVER stored on the client side, | either in encrypted or decrypted form. Unattended stores the | password on the client side. | | | True, but we delete it when we are done. | | I have never understood encrypting a password such that it can be | decrypted automatically. If the machine can decrypt it, so can the | user; isn't that just giving a false sense of security? Either | you make a technician type the password when it is needed, or the | password is available anonymously over the network. In real | security terms, there is nothing in
[Unattended] RE: Serial ATA Experiences, Dell Optiplex GX280?
I have limited experience with sourceforge mailing lists, and I didn't have time to figure out how to reply to this properly, so I just sent a new message -- sorry about that. We got some GX280's with SATA drives a while back and it immediately made the autoinstall as we had it completely unusable, because MSDOS couldn't do anything with SATA. I upgraded to using the linux kernel instead and things have worked beautifully-- http://www.ubertechnique.com/unattended/faq I'm amazed what these guys have pulled off. James N Its time for me to order some new hardware, so I was wondering if anyone out there could share their recent experiences with SATA drives and Unattended? Also, Im specifically considering an Optiplex GX280 so if anyone has some of those Id like to hear about how Unattended has worked out for those as well. Otherwise, Ill share my experiences if/when I get them. :-) Thanks in advance, Matt Disney --- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
[Unattended] questions + extra scripts
few questions/comments first (setup is a linux server with 4.4; use software.csv/hardware.csv; test with xpsp1): * even with software.csv, unattended ask me for os, but get the rest through csv * after formatting, it asks for users to add to local Admin group: i didn't find a corresponding meta to auto answer on the advanced web page of the site. is there any ? * fixtz.pl: it seems to open properties for time but doesn't close it * to join to domain: which solution do you prefer to permit without putting main admin name/pass in unattend.txt ? (and this user must be admin, right ? a way to defined a user only for joining domain ?) * will be cool to add mute.exe from Adam Peart [EMAIL PROTECTED] in bin and at the beginning of base.bat (and unmute at the end [eventually]) * is there a way to impose classic theme to xp ??? it seems the following key doesn't work (even after new session or reboot) [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Plus!\Themes\Current] ; = %SystemRoot%\resources\Themes\Windows Classic.theme @=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\ 00,5c,00,72,00,65,00,73,00,6f,00,75,00,72,00,63,00,65,00,73,00,5c,00,54,00,\ 68,00,65,00,6d,00,65,00,73,00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,\ 00,20,00,43,00,6c,00,61,00,73,00,73,00,69,00,63,00,2e,00,74,00,68,00,65,00,\ 6d,00,65,00,00,00 * to impose status bar and some list display by type ? * to impose classical display on control panel ? * one log i would find useful will be the timing hour when begin install, end and timing for each script * for fra lang, office2k has no Olk901 and kb830347 (not exist/no fetch by prepare) * else (it asked before but ...) is there any solution to let software.csv handles serial for other software than windows (office not corporate or others) or to give it the value of top and middle meta ? next some script or cmdline to add to default scripts :) * pdfcreator (autoit joined) * tomcat win jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27.exe /S * eclipse3 (just copy) xcopy /e /v /c /q /h /I %SRC% %DST% echo y| cacls %DST% /E /G BUILTIN\Administrateurs:F BUILTIN\Utilisateurs:R * autoitv2 (msi by extracting setup) * flash (autoit) * quicktime from http://appdeploy.com/packages/detail.asp?id=123 i joined a pl, ini and preferences file Regards Julien note: it seems msg was dropped/blocked for attachements. i put script/aut/ini/pl on http://tjn0.free.fr/unattended/ --- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
