Re: [Unattended] Package management, bigger idea

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Interesting!  I missed it the first time around, but I still have it
saved so I will take a look.  Thanks for the reminder.

I am bit of a Perl bigot, and I have not yet shaken the tendency to
rewrite everything in sight...  But I will certainly take a peek to look
for ideas to steal.

 - Pat

P.S.  In case it is not obvious, I have taken a renewed interest in
this project.  Russell's volunteering to help with development is a
big part of that, and Rosario's PowerPoint slides really pushed it
over the edge :-).  I hope to make some good progress over the next
couple of weeks.


[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> This is very much like I have already implemented, the 'synchronisation'
> takes place in the machine logoff script, but could be called from anywhere,
> and a separate log of files that should be present is kept on the local
> machine - only 'atoms' - to use your terminology - that have not already
> been called are installed at next boot up.
> 
> There is a full explanation of what I have done under a previous thread - it
> got a bit off topic so it is called 'Requesting "mapdrive.pl" from Scott
> Card' - there are some limitations, uninstall is not supported unless you
> script it like a new install, and there is not enough recovery from faults,
> if a script fails or is terminated the auto logon stays in place, but it
> does handle multiple setup profiles by using different definition files, &
> supports a crude type of versioning.  Take a look & see if it going in the
> direction you are thinking of
> 
> Regards
> 
> Kevin Lawry


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[Unattended] Query? What do you run you unattended server on?

[Russell Smith]

Given currently I am focusing my development on people running servers on 
linux, I have interested in what you are running your server on.

If people could reply to me personally, I will post a summary of the results 
to the list in a week or so.  Depending on the amount of responses I get :)

It is also of interest to me what version of windows, or distro of linux you 
are running..

eg, I run my servers on 
1, Gentoo Linux
2, Redhat Linux

Thanks in advance for the demographic information :)

Russell Smith


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[Unattended] boot cds/floppies

[Fidel Gutierrez]

Just an idea. When it comes to booting why not cooperate with
http://nu2.nu/ 

It is modular and it works like a charm both for static and DHCP.

You can create profiles, support several NICs in one floppy and when it
comes to bootable cd's options are unlimited.

Just a thought.




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RE: [Unattended] Package management, bigger idea

[kevin]

This is very much like I have already implemented, the 'synchronisation'
takes place in the machine logoff script, but could be called from anywhere,
and a separate log of files that should be present is kept on the local
machine - only 'atoms' - to use your terminology - that have not already
been called are installed at next boot up.

There is a full explanation of what I have done under a previous thread - it
got a bit off topic so it is called 'Requesting "mapdrive.pl" from Scott
Card' - there are some limitations, uninstall is not supported unless you
script it like a new install, and there is not enough recovery from faults,
if a script fails or is terminated the auto logon stays in place, but it
does handle multiple setup profiles by using different definition files, &
supports a crude type of versioning.  Take a look & see if it going in the
direction you are thinking of

Regards

Kevin Lawry

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Patrick
J. LoPresti
Sent: 14 June 2003 17:42
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Unattended] Package management, bigger idea


"Patrick J. LoPresti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Modify install.pl to list all of the files under z:\bundles, and let
> you select any number of them to install.

The problem with letting you select multiple bundles is that they can
overlap; for example, both bundles might include the basic hotfixes or
core applications.  Those hotfixes/applications would be installed
twice.

There is more than one way to handle this.

One idea would be to display only atoms, not bundles, in the selection
list given by install.pl.  (I believe this is roughly what Nils had in
mind.)  This would be very simple, although it would require that the
atoms be pretty "fat", since you would not want too many of them.

A more radical idea is to have todo.pl remember which atoms it has
already installed to avoid ever installing them again.  This would
allow an interesting, but fundamental, redesign of todo.pl.

Instead of maintaining an ever-changing stack of directives, todo.pl
could read a FIXED list of atoms.  The todo.txt file would simply
designate all of the atoms which "should" be installed on the machine.
The todo.pl script would compare that list to the atoms which were
already installed, and it would launch the installation script for
anything missing.

This is interesting because it would allow the use of todo.pl for
future maintenance as well as initial installation.  All you would
have to do is modify the list of atoms in todo.txt and arrange for
todo.pl to run.  You could even run todo.pl regularly to keep the
machine in sync with its desired configuration.  (Hm, OpenSMS?)

I would envision allowing bundles to be named in todo.txt as well.  By
updating the contents of the bundle (which lives on the network), you
would automatically update the machines when they next ran todo.pl.

This is such a different design that "todo.pl" would become a bad name
for it...  This is starting to look like a package management system.
How about "Poor Man's Package Management" (pmpm.pl)?  Or should that
be "Poor Person's Package Management"?  Or maybe "Trivial Package
Management"?

I have other ideas for ensuring the atoms get installed in the right
order, and letting "bundles" be programs (e.g., to pick the right
hotfixes for the operating system), but this message is already long
enough.

What do you folks think?

 - Pat


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Re: [Unattended] Unattended and Vmware workstation v.4

[Wolfgang Borst]

On Mon, 2003-06-16 at 21:37, Teresa Jeremy wrote:
> Wolfgang, this sounds cool!  I'm very familiar with diskless RH/Mandake Linux 
> network booting having worked with the Linux Terminal Server Project 
> (http://www.ltsp.org) for a  few months now.  However, I have never tried the Debian 
> distro.
> 
> I would be very interested in seeing your cron scripts so that I can try this method 
> using Red Hat 9.0.
> 
> Thanx
> TJ

here you go ..
i attached the cron-script. 

but be warned .. it won't run because it uses some modules i wrote and
as i said before i don't know if i will be able to release them.
the modules do some magic with time/date/logging/mysql-db etc. but this
is not needed to see how parted and friends is used to prepare a client
for the installation of windows xp. you should have a look at the gogogo
sub, which does all the magic. i'm sorry, the comments are all german.

wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> GPG/PGP key 4107B17B
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

#
# vorbereiter.pl - bereitet einen rechner fuer die installation vor.
#
# $Id: vorbereiter.pl,v 1.5 2003/06/16 10:42:57 wb Exp $
# $Date: 2003/06/16 10:42:57 $
# $Author: wb $
# $Revision: 1.5 $
#
###

use strict;
use warnings;


# VORBEREITUNGEN : BEGINN.

use lib "/mnt/samba/wmagie/lib/libschatten", "/mnt/samba/wmagie/lib/";
$main::version="vorbereiter.pl";
$main::Description ="Bereitet einen Rechner auf die Installation von WinXP vor. ";
$main::Description.="Partitionierung, Formatierung und Kopieren der Quellen";
$main::configfile  = sprintf("%s/%s", $wlbscripts::si{'confs'}, "common.conf");
use sCF qw(getconfig quitter);
getconfig();
$sCF::config{'LOGFILE'} = sprintf("%s/%s-%s.log", $wlbscripts::si{'logs'}, 
  $main::version, 
  $wlbscripts::si{'hostname'});
use wlbscripts qw(init execute_command mangle_dir clone_dir get_mac get_ip %si set_si);
init($main::configfile, $main::version, $sCF::config{'LOGFILE'});

# VORBEREITUNGEN : ENDE.

use wm_mysql qw(to_be_doomed_or_not_to_be_doomed get_name_by_mac promote_mac);
use Sys::Syslog;

openlog($main::version, 'cons,pid', 'user');

my ($parted, $sys, $tar, $umount, $mount, $reboot);
my $WMAGIE  = "/mnt/samba/wmagie";
my $force_reboot= 0;
my $root_dev= "/dev/hda";
my $boot_dev= "/dev/hda1";
my $main_partition  = $boot_dev;
my $install_package = "$WMAGIE/xp/I386/";
my $c_dir   = "$WMAGIE/var/c_drive/";
my $disksize= getdisksize();
my $disksize_min= 4000;
my $disksize_thres  = 1000;
my $main_mountpoint = "/mnt/c/";
my $wlb_basedir = $main_mountpoint."wlb/";
my $mac = get_mac();
my $ip  = get_ip();
my $prepare_script  = "$WMAGIE/sbin/prepare_unattended.pl";
my $die_file= "$WMAGIE/var/lock/".$si{'hostname'};
my $partition_info  = $wlb_basedir."etc/partition.info";
my @to_unmount =();
$sCF::config{'LOGSDTERROUT'}=0;

sub logfacility
{
 my $what=$_[0];
 my $level=$_[1];

 sCF::logfacility($what, $level);
 syslog('info', $what);
}

sub rip
{
 my $message=shift;
 if( !defined($message) )
 {
  $message="(nomessage)";
 }
 if($force_reboot==1)
 {
  logfacility $message;
  closelog();
  execute_command("$reboot");
  quitter("*reboot*");
 }
 else
 {
  syslog('info', $message);
  closelog();
  quitter($message);
 }
 exit;
}

sub disklabel
{
 logfacility "Disklabel auf $root_dev.", 5;
 execute_command($parted, "-s $root_dev mklabel msdos");
}

sub labelcheck
{
 $parted=`which parted` 
  or rip "parted fehlt";
 $parted=~s/\n//;
 my $cmd="$parted -s $root_dev print";
 my $needlabel=0;
 open(OUTPUT, "$cmd|")
  or rip "getdisksize [$cmd] : $!\n";
 while()
 {
  if(/unrecognised disk label\.$/)
  {
   $needlabel=1;
   last;
  }
 }
 close(OUTPUT);
 if($needlabel)
 {
  logfacility "Disk ohne label ??";
  disklabel();
 }
}

sub getdisksize
{
 labelcheck();
 my $cmd="$parted -s $root_dev print";
 my $end=-1;
 open(OUTPUT, "$cmd|")
  or rip "getdisksize [$cmd] : $!\n";
 while()
 {
  if(/^Disk geometry for (.+?)\: ([\d\.]+)\-([\d\.]+) megabytes/)
  {
#   print "match .. $1 : $2 -> $3\n";
   $end=$3;
  }
 }
 close(OUTPUT);
 if($end==-1)
 {
  rip "getdisksize failed.";
 }
 else
 {
  return $end;
 }
}

sub pandora
{
 my @new_pcontent = ();
 my $pandora_in   = $WMAGIE."/wlb-scripts/pandora.bat"; 
 my $pandora_out  = $wlb_basedir."bin/pandora.bat";
 
 logfacility "vorbereiter.pl::pandora", 5;
 
 open(PANDORA, $pandora_in)
  or quitter("pandora oeffnen von '$pandora_in' : $!")

Re: [Unattended] Booting the unattended CD on a diskless laptop

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Soeren Kuklau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Hi,
> 
> we've received a set of 16 new (equally set-up) laptops which have
> more modern interfaces like USB 2 and FireWire; at the same time, they
> no longer have a disk drive.
> 
> I've tried to boot the unattended ISO image from their built-in CD
> drive. I get to the disk image selection point without trouble;
> after selecting one, it is loaded and the typical debug info is
> shown. However, it doesn't reach beyond the "Loading boot sector"
> point: a typical "Please insert a bootable disk" message from the
> BIOS appears when trying to boot off the image.

Interestingly, I had exactly the same problem yesterday on an Inspiron
8500.  Only I WAS booting from the network.

> I figure this is because the laptop contains no disk drives (thus,
> the BIOS probably contains no drivers for them either). However, I
> can boot off the Windows 98 Second Edition CD (which I believe also
> does floppy emulation) just fine, so is this possibly an ISOLINUX
> bug which might be fixed by now?

It is actually a memdisk issue, and it persists even in the latest
prerelease (2.05-pre2); I checked.

> If not, I can only get around it by booting off the network, right?
> :-/

Unfortunately, the network boots also use memdisk :-(.  I got around
this by removing the DVD-ROM from the laptop's bay and putting in a
floppy drive instead.  Then I was able to boot from the network just
fine.

My guess is the same as yours: That the BIOS does not enable its
floppy support unless it notices that a floppy drive is actually
present.

This is more an issue for the SYSLINUX mailing list, and I will
probably bring it up there.  But meanwhile...

Do you have a floppy drive which you can insert temporarily?

If not, do you have a USB floppy drive which you can connect?  (If you
try this, be sure to flash your BIOS to the latest release first.  I
do not know whether this will work.)

Solving this long-term may require more drastic measures.  memdisk can
emulate a hard drive instead of a floppy, and I suspect that would
work here.  The only problem is that it will take up a drive letter
(presumably C:), meaning that the hard drive will be disk 2 (D:).
This will require changes to autoexec.bat, the way we invoke fdisk,
and probably a few other things.  It is starting to look like it will
be necessary, however.  I will try to find time to whip something
together this weekend, but my plate is already pretty full so I cannot
make any promises.

 - Pat



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[Unattended] Installing Printers

[Byron Clark]

What's the best way any of you have found for adding a printer during
the unattended install?

+-+-+
| Byron Clark | GnuPG Fingerprint: 0365 6979 6C3E BC0C 56C0 |
| |FB7F 12B3 75DD 042B EA68 |
+-+-+



pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature

[Unattended] Bug with unattend.txt parser script

[Teresa Jeremy]

The OemPnpDriverPath variable is added to the unattend.txt file even when you select 
not to use any of the drivers that unattend script finds.
This causes the Win2k/XP installation to fail because OemPnpDriverPath value is empty


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Re: [Unattended] SCSI Drives

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Andrew Clark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Has anyone had any luck with installing to scsi drives, that need
> drivers added to $oem$\textmode?
> 
> If so what did you do to get it to work?

The unattend.txt parser in the current release is too stupid to
let you do this, I am afraid:

  https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=2604960&forum_id=12696
There is no workaround except to edit unattend.txt by hand just before
launching the installation.

I am working on fixing this, but my "real job" keeps interfering.  But
I just need a few more hours, which I will try to scrounge together
this weekend.

 - Pat


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Re: [Unattended] Quicktime Install - any clues

[Andrew Clark]

http://www.appdeploy.com/packages/detail.asp?id=123



[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I am trying to build a package for quicktime, has anyone succeded in doing this other than with an autoit type script?

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[Unattended] Small contribution - printers

[Rosario Esposito]

It's still me :-)

This is how to install network printers using local drivers:
(Example for a HP LaserJet 8150 Series PS)
start /wait rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /if /b "MYPRINTER" /f 
"%windir%\inf\ntprint.inf" /r "\\printmsa1\dds24" /m "HP LaserJet 8150 
Series PS"

To install a printer using customized settings, proceed as following:

- install your printer locally
- customize the printer settings (for example you may want to duplex 
unit to be installed, or set up a different page size...)
- save settings in a .dat file:

 rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Ss /n "PRINTERNAME" /a 
"z:\packages\printers\settings.dat"

- to apply the same settings to another printer (from an unattended 
installation script):

   start /wait  rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Sr /n "PRINTERNAME" 
/a "z:\packages\printers\settings.dat" d f



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[Unattended] Unattended Office 2k deployment

[Teresa Jeremy]

I want to initiate an MS Office 2000 installation immediately after installing Win2k 
Pro.  Unfortunately, the present documentation does not provide must detail.

Can anyone provide the instruction to pull this off?

Thanx.
TJ



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[Unattended] network drivers

[Brad Erdman]

Hi,
Today I decided to update my install server to the latest version of
unattended.  I was very happy to see that support for the Mass storage stuff
was included.  Good job.

Now on to why I am writing.  I use the universal network card driver for my
installs because I support so many different models of PC's.  However, on
some systems the network seems to hang, while at other times it does not.  I
took a look at the dates on the drivers and see that some have been updated
while others have not.

Where can I get download the undis3c driver from?  I would like to see if
has been updated at all.

Thanks
Brad


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Re: [Unattended] Unattended 2.6 released

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Russell Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Thankfully they are only commented out at this point in time.  The
> mac address is one of the most helpful peices of information
> available when doing network installs.  It allows automation of
> everything :)

Well, that was the idea, but I did not realize anybody was actually
using it :-).

> I'm not sure I understand the exact problem it causes.  I see that
> it would be a problem with cd boot images when a: may not exist.

The A: drive always exists, either as a real floppy or as a virtual
one (courtesy of memdisk).

> So just wondering what about having the mac address is "create more
> problems than they solve". :)

Different PXE stacks appear to consume different amounts of
conventional memory.  While Perl/DJGPP is running, even less
conventional memory is available...  So when we shell out from Perl,
ipconfig.exe and/or net.exe can bomb out completely.

Any of the DOS programs, including fdisk.exe or choice.exe, could have
this problem in theory; thankfully, nobody has reported such issues so
far.

Since the method for obtaining the MAC and IP addresses does not work
for everybody, and I was not aware of anybody using it :-), I decided
to comment it out.

> What sort of solution are we looking for to get this write?  Am I
> writing a little dos app the get the mac address that doesn't break?

No need.  Now that I know somebody relies on this, I will fix it.
There should be no problem running net.exe and ipconfig.exe from
autoexec.bat; we can just dump the results to two files and parse them
from Perl.

On the other hand, if you are super motivated to figure out how to
extract just the data we want from the MSCLIENT stack, that would be
faster, especially for people using real floppies.

Improving the documentation is probably more important, though :-).

 - Pat


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[Unattended] Some scripts

[Remko Scheers]

Hi there,

I would like to share my additional scripts with you.
There are more to follow, like F-Secure, Trados, Adobe Acrobat 5.0... Please
let me know if you would appreciate this.

Gr,

Remko


scripts.rar
Description: Binary data

RE: [Unattended] Perl installation

[Antony Simmonds]

> Try adding "REMOVE=DOCUMENTATION" to the msiexec invocation.  I have
> not tested this, but I got the idea from:
>
>
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/msi/setup/feature_installa
> tion_options_properties.asp

> You could also try running msiexec with the "l*v " option.
> Then read through the log and see if you can figure out other
> properties to try.

There is a MSI editor available in the Windows Installer SDK called Orca,
which allows you to view and edit the tables inside a .msi file.

ActiveState Perl 5.8 install notes mention that the DOCUMENTATION feature is
valid, but I can't see it in the ActivePerl-5.8.0.806-MSWin32-x86.msi
Feature table.

Try this using Orca on a copy of the ActivePerl-5.8.0.806-MSWin32-x86.msi
file:

In the InstallExecuteSequence table, there is a GenerateHTML action, with
the condition of &PERL_FEATURE=3. Change this to:
&PERL_FEATURE=3 And GENHTML<>"No"
then save and close the file.

Then run your install as
msiexec /qb /i x:\packages\ActivePerl-5.8.0.806-MSWin32-x86.msi
PERL_PATH=Yes PERL_EXT=Yes ADDLOCAL="PERL_FEATURE" GENHTML=No

This saves the 14Mb as the generated html docs are not created.


To fix it properly, you could go a bit further and add the DOCUMENTATION
feature, then change the GenerateHTML action condition to &DOCUMENTATION=3.
I haven't tested this feature addition but it should work.




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Re: [Unattended] Drivers, drivers and even more drivers.......

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

"Norström, Daniel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Couldn't it be possible to only add the Graphic and network driver
> to the \$oem$\$1 Path and try to add the rest when the network
> connectivity is available?  Would it be possible to have a
> Environment variable or PATH to point to a server with drivers
> rather than the local HD? Or even better a DFS share that is already
> shared in the company?

You are basically asking if we can do "Add New Hardware" from a
script.  I do not know, but I like the idea!  I have always hated the
$oem$ mechanism...  This way, we could use $oem$ for network drivers
and nothing else.

Even display drivers could be installed from the network later.  And
any driver could be updated on a running system.

I really like this idea.  If only I knew how to add hardware in
unattended mode...  I will do some research this weekend.  (Unless
someone already knows and would like to share?)

 - Pat


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[Unattended] Logging in automatically from bootdisk...

[Curtis V. Schleich]

Brilliant work in this project, thanks much!

I was attempting to bypass the request for username and password from
the bootdisk, and was fighting with the "net logon" vs. "net start
basic" memory issues.  Finally worked around it by setting
PREFERREDREDIR in a:/net/system.in_ to BASIC, rather than FULL.  Then
you can login automatically with no memory penalty.

Hope that helps someone!


Curtis V. Schleich
CCA, Inc. and CCAonline, Inc.
217-735-2677
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 



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Re: [Unattended] Perl installation

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Try adding "REMOVE=DOCUMENTATION" to the msiexec invocation.  I have
not tested this, but I got the idea from:

  
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/msi/setup/feature_installation_options_properties.asp

You could also try running msiexec with the "l*v " option.
Then read through the log and see if you can figure out other
properties to try.

 - Pat

"Gowans Robert M" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to do a minimal install of ActiveState Perl on Windows 2000 by
> using the ADD_LOCAL=PERL_FEATURE msiexec command line switch (see
> http://aspn.activestate.com//ASPN/Products/ActivePerl/install.html#windows%2
> 0installers).  However, I still get all the html documentation (14MB of it).
> This my command line:
> 
> msiexec /qb /i x:\packages\ActivePerl-5.8.0.806-MSWin32-x86.msi
> PERL_PATH=Yes PERL_EXT=Yes ADDLOCAL="PERL_FEATURE"
> 
> Any ideas on how I can trim down the install?
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Rob


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[Unattended] Re:

[Russell Smith]

On Wed, 11 Jun 2003 12:39 am, Michelangelo Bottura wrote:
> Hi all.
> I'm getting some problems in the unattended system, maybe some of you did
> resolve them in the past. I did not find trace of them in the mailing list
> recent archives.
> - after first reboot the command todo.pl --go is not executed - i.e. all
> goes on ok as it should if i type it in by hand at the command prompt. The
> same is true for each and every subsequent reboot until the task list si
> empty. I'm using v 2.5b and xpsp1, both cd rom and floppy boot.

Are these machines joining a domain?
Does the postinst.bat run?

I recently discovered that my domain policy didn't allow runonce, which means 
that postinst.bat would not run.

If you are on a domain, check the computer policy to ensure run and runonce 
are allowed :)

If they are indepenant machines, it's debug time :(  fire up the registry 
editor and see if you can find todo.pl in the Run Section.  if not, we are in 
problems.  If so.  you need to find out why it's not running the things in 
the run sections.

Hope this helps
Russell Smith

>
>
> And also an annoyance
> - modifiyng by hand with pico the file postinstall.bat to provide the net
> use command with username & password for reconnecting the network share
> breaks the script: it seems to me the cause is the unix end of line (f.i.
> todo.pl, upon execution, does not recognize .reboot directive) but i'm not
> so confident. Modifiyng that file during installation is often very useful.
> I was wondering if someone else is experiencing the same behavior
>
> I must admit that my perl knowledge is nigh zero, so any help would be
> appreciated
> TIA fyh
>
> Michelangelo Bottura
> Sistemi Informatici
> Dip. di Psicologia
> Univ. di Bologna



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Re: [Unattended] Unattended and Vmware workstation v.4

[Wolfgang Borst]

hello everyone ..

i use a diskless debian linux to do the unattended installations here.
setting up such a system is not complicated but you will need a few
daemons to be installed on your server(s).

how it works

linux is booted via etherboot [http://www.etherboot.org/] and runs
completely off the network. after system bootup a cron job is started
every minute to get the current machine ready to install windows xp. i
use a cron job because the script checks if it is allowed to install
etc.
if the script is permitted to install, it will do the following things:

- partition the hardisk [parted
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/parted.html]
- creating fat32 fileystems [parted]
- make the machine bootable (using w98/command.com)[ms-sys
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/ms-sys.html]
- copy the files
- customize unattend.txt

after that the machine is rebootet, starts the w98/command.com and
starts the windows xp setup.

tech

on a server the following daemons are needed:

- dhcpd for the ip addresses
- tftpd for booting via network (fetching the kernel)
- nfsd provides the client with nfs-root-fs etc.
- mysqld stores informations about the clients (mac-address, is the
machine to be installed ..), about the software(which installscript is
used for software xyz, which software is part of the group 'base
installation' ).

the kernel for the clients is fetched via tftp then the root-fileystem
is mounted via nfs. instead of being limited to a 1.44m floppy this
diskless linux is a full blown linux with all the nice tools (like a
sshd server running on it). currently the installation is 190M + 2M per
diskless client (so for a whole subnet one would need ~700M).

maybe i'm allowed to release this project in the near future.

wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> GPG/PGP key 4107B17B


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

RE: [Unattended] IRC channel born... You may or may not want to use it, but it's there.

["Norström, Daniel"]

Great Idea Russel...

For all of you sitting behind the FW on your work, remember to find the open
ports and use them instead of the standard blocked ones ;)

/Daniel

-Original Message-
From: Russell Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: den 3 juli 2003 02:51
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Unattended] IRC channel born... You may or may not want to use it,
but it's there.


It's Me Again!

I have created this channel as sometimes solving problems and nutting out 
ideas is best done in real time. (But most of you are sleeping while I'm up 
:)

but that doesn't matter..

server: irc.freenode.net
channel: #unattended



Russell Smith.


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Re: [Unattended] boot cds/floppies

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

One of our users (Edward Tak) has already done the legwork to get this
going.  See:

http://www.meanpenguin.com/ws-spi/unattend/

I have no objections to this approach, but it needs to be integrated
properly.  That means preserving the "single source" for producing the
floppies, ISO images, and netboot image.  And I am working on other
things right now, like automating the TXTSETUP.OEM stuff.

I do wonder if this approach would solve the "floppyless laptop"
problem.  Hm.

New release this weekend, probably.

 - Pat

Fidel Gutierrez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Just an idea. When it comes to booting why not cooperate with
> http://nu2.nu/ 
> 
> It is modular and it works like a charm both for static and DHCP.
> 
> You can create profiles, support several NICs in one floppy and when it
> comes to bootable cd's options are unlimited.
> 
> Just a thought.


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Re: [Unattended] Wireless LAN drivers?

[Teresa Jeremy]

I have a few laptops that I wanted to use with Unattended and RIS. Unfortunately, 
these laptops were not capable of PXE network boot.  Luckily, I came across a PXE on 
Disk for USB adapters sold by Argon Technology (http://www.argontechnology.com).  PXE 
on Disk is similar to RIS RBFG boot floppy which intimates the behavior of PXE Boot 
ROM. 

To make a long story short, I purchased the PXE on Disk/USB adapter/RIS Menu Editor 
from Argon Technology for $99.  Now I can perform PXE-based Windows 2K/XP OS 
deployment using my USB adapter.  Works well with both RIS and Unattend/Linux. One 
caveat though, you won't get more than 11Mbs throughput because of the limitation of 
the USB 1.1 design. On the upside, the small form factor and portability of the USB 
NIC and PXE on Floppy allows me to easily start an Unattended installation on any 
desktop or laptop.  As long as there's a USB port available I'm good to go!

You find out more at the URL below
http://www.argontechnology.com/news/080403.shtml



--

- Original Message -

DATE: Sat, 5 Jul 2003 14:21:48 
From: Soeren Kuklau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: 

>Hi again,
>
>those 16 laptops we've received have both 10/100 ethernet as well as 
>wireless LAN (802.11b). Unfortunately, their documentation does not 
>make it clear what kind of chips are being used. None of the currently 
>available drivers on the unattended CD work for either chip.
>
>( The ethernet chip appears to be an SiS 900; untested driver available 
>here:  )
>
>All I could find out about the WLAN chip was that its apparent vendor 
>"Broadcom". Neither does Broadcom offer drivers for their WLAN chips 
>(only for ethernet NICs), nor do they list MAXDATA (the laptop vendor; 
>or any other German company, for that matter) as one of their OEMs.
>
>I've also tried to find similar WLAN chip DOS drivers. All I found was 
>an MS-DOS exe program which, according to its readme, would contact an 
>access point to test the connection. Do such drivers exist at all, or 
>are we limited to ethernet?
>
>-- 
>Sören 'Chucker' Kuklau
>
>
>
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RE: RE: [Unattended] Acrobat Reader 6.0

["Norström, Daniel"]

Thanx alot!

You got me on the right track, version 6.0 have changed but I found where I
(and you all) can do the changes

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\6.0\Updater]

"iUpdateFrequency"=dword:<- NO Update
Default is 
"iUpdateFrequency"=dword:0001

And you are soo right about that it will save the settings on exit.

Thanx alot!

/Daniel

-Original Message-
From: Adam Ackermann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: den 2 juni 2003 14:46
To: =?UNKNOWN?Q?Norstr=F6m=2C?= Daniel
Cc: 'Nils Østbjerg'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: RE: [Unattended] Acrobat Reader 6.0


I haven't installed version 6, but in version 5.1, the auto update value is 
stored at HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\5.1
\AdobeViewer\UpdateFrequency If version 6 is similar, you should be able to
modify the default user 
settings and current user settings, but would have to do it with Acrobat 
Reader closed as it seems to save all it's reg settings on exit.

BTW, the EULA setting is in the same neighborhood...

Adam Ackermann
MCDBA, MCSE, CCNA, LCP
Information Systems, Advocate Medical Group


- Original Message -
From: "Norström, Daniel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, June 2, 2003 2:10 am
Subject: RE: [Unattended] Acrobat Reader 6.0

> Have anyonw found out how to disable the Auto Update, a registry
> hack would
> be perfect!!!
> 
> /D
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Nils Østbjerg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: den 28 maj 2003 12:24
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [Unattended] Acrobat Reader 6.0
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Acrobat Reader 6.0 is distributed in a new format (at least I
> haven't 
> encountered it before) called Netopsystems FEAD Optimizer. I have 
> tried to 
> finde info on how to pass commandline arguments to the underlaying 
> Installshield but have so far not been successfull in doing so. 
> 
> However I found that if you start the installation and then copy
> the 
> "BIGENU" directory in "c:\windows\cache\Acrobat Reader 6.0\" you 
> will have 
> access to setup.exe, and even better to the MSI package. So you 
> can just 
> 
> msiexec /qb /l* c:\netinst\logs\acrobat6.log /i "Acrobat Reader
> 6.0" 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Nils
> 
> -- 
> Nils Østbjerg  mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 
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[Unattended] Automatic Cleaning up

["Norström, Daniel"]

Hi

Since I'm syspreping my machines after I've done the unattended installation
I want to get rid of the ActivePerl and the folders used when building the
image. 

I have some problems through...

In some script (I don't know what one) the autolog.pl is adding it self to
the todo list. And that will make the Aut file to hang...

And I'm currently using Autoit to uninstall ActivePerl and delete the
folders but I get some minor errors because the whole todo list is built
with the perl.

Any suggestions of how to clean up by automatic scripting?? How are you
other guys doing??

/Daniel


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Re: [Unattended] Bug with unattend.txt parser script

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

"Teresa Jeremy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> The OemPnpDriverPath variable is added to the unattend.txt file even
> when you select not to use any of the drivers that unattend script
> finds.  This causes the Win2k/XP installation to fail because
> OemPnpDriverPath value is empty

Fixed in next release; thanks.  Patch appended.

 - Pat

--- install.pl.~1.40.~  2003-03-24 09:22:35.0 -0500
+++ install.pl  2003-06-19 15:27:18.0 -0400
@@ -349,7 +349,11 @@
 }
 }
 
-return join ';', sort keys %dirs;
+my $ret = join ';', sort keys %dirs;
+# Setup does not like empty OemPnPDriversPath
+$ret =~ /\S/
+or undef $ret;
+return $ret;
 }
 
 # Create the "postinst.bat" script and return its full path.  Do


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RE: [Unattended] TXTSETUP.OEM, MassStorageDrivers, etc.

[Scott Card]

Great story.  I enjoyed it thoroughly :).

Cheers,
Scott

(Still fearful of the 2.6 upgrade)

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Patrick J. LoPresti
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 10:47 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Unattended] TXTSETUP.OEM, MassStorageDrivers, etc.


Let me tell you a story.

Today I found myself tasked with installing Windows XP on a shiny new
piece of hardware: A Dell Precision 450 with an Ultra320 SCSI card and a
fast SCSI drive.

The only problem is that this SCSI card is new, so XP lacks built-in
support for it.  And Windows has trouble installing itself on a hard
drive which it cannot see.

Microsoft has a mechanism for dealing with this, of course.  It is
called "TXTSETUP.OEM".  You can learn more than you want to know at
,
but the theory is simple.  Your SCSI hardware vendor (in my case,
Dell) gives you a "driver disk" with a txtsetup.oem file at the top.
Shortly after you start an installation, Windows Setup says "Press F6 if
you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver".  Then you press
F6, insert your driver disk, and everything works fine.

...If you are installing from CD-ROM, that is.  If instead you are
installing from DOS as part of (say) a network install, things are a tad
trickier.

Installing Windows from DOS goes roughly as follows.  You run the DOS
program winnt.exe.  It creates something on your C: drive very much like
a Windows installation CD and then reboots.  Then everything proceeds
much as if you had booted from the Windows CD, right down to the "Press
F6 if you need to install..." prompt.

As a quick and dirty hack, I launched a network installation, waited for
winnt.exe to populate the C: drive, waited for the "Press F6..." prompt
after the reboot, pressed F6, and fed in the Dell driver disk. Oops, no
good.  Setup complained about being unable to find various .sys, .inf
and .cat files.

Well, no matter.  Who wants to sit around every time you install
Windows, anyway?  And "Unattended" is practically my middle name. Surely
I can automate it.

Heck, Microsoft makes it plain as day in a KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=288344

Note step 5 in particular, which suggests that different installation
methods require slightly different txtsetup.oem files.

Let me share with you the relevant lines from the original txtsetup.oem
on the driver disk.  (For clarity, I am omitting the non-relevant lines
of the file, which is to say most of them.)

[Disks]
d3 = "LSI Logic Ultra320 1020/1030 Driver", \symmpi.tag, \WinXP

[scsi]
SYMMPI_XP32 = "LSI Logic Ultra320 1020/1030 Driver (XP
32-bit)",symmpi

[Files.scsi.SYMMPI_XP32]
driver = d3,symmpi.sys,SYMMPI
inf= d3,symmpi.inf
catalog = d3,mpixp32.cat

Here is what this means.

First, the [Disks] section declares a disk named "d3", with a
human-readable description of "LSI Logic Ultra320 1020/1030 Driver", a
tag file of "\symmpi.tag", and a directory of "\WinXP".  That is, this
disk can be recognized by the existence of the file \symmpi.tag, and the
driver files it includes all reside within the \WinXP directory.

Second, the [scsi] section declares a driver ID of "SYMMPI_XP32", which
is the identifier the rest of the file uses to name the driver. It has a
description of "LSI Logic Ultra320 1020/1030 Driver (XP 32-bit)".  It
also has magic registry key of "symmpi", but that is not relevant here.

Finally, the [Files.scsi.SYMMPI_XP32] section defines the files which
comprise the SYMMPI_XP32 driver.  This section says that the driver
proper is on disk d3 in the file symmpi.sys, the inf file is on d3 in
symmpi.inf, and the catalog file is on d3 in mpixp32.cat.  (The extra
SYMMPI at the end of the "driver" line is another registry-related key.
It is also not relevant here.)

Right.  So, following the KB article's instructions, I edited the d3
line of txtsetup.oem like so:

d3 = "LSI Logic Ultra320 1020/1030 Driver", \symmpi.tag, .

That is, I replaced \WinXP with a dot.

Then I copied all of the driver files, plus txtsetup.oem itself, to
Z:\winxpoem\I386\$oem$\TEXTMODE.  I edited z:\site\unattend.txt to add
these lines:

[MassStorageDrivers]
"LSI Logic Ultra320 1020/1030 Driver (XP 32-bit)" = "OEM"

[OEMBootFiles]
TXTSETUP.OEM
SYMMPI.TAG
MPIXP32.CAT
SYMMPI.INF
SYMMPI.SYS

The [MassStorageDrivers] section says that I want to add a mass storage
driver during text mode setup.  It says to look for the key "LSI Logic
Ultra320 1020/1030 Driver (XP 32-bit)" in the [scsi] section of
txtsetup.oem and to load that driver.

The [OEMBootFiles] section tells winnt.exe to copy TXTSETUP.OEM,
SYMMPI.TAG, MPIXP32.CAT, SYMMPI.INF, and SYMMPI.SYS from $OEM$\TEXTMODE
to the C: drive before rebooting.

This is what the KB article said to do, so I did it.  And it worked
great.

Just kidding!  Actually,

Re: [Unattended] partitioning disk

[Intrepid One]

Here is a LAZY and backwards way to avoid entering information twice but, as
Pat said, he does not know an effictive way to get things to work in DOS.

This works since all of my systems are partitioned the same.
I just make an additional diskette with a simple batch that wipes & prepares the drive.
When it is done I put the Unattended disk in and begin my work.
Now with the code Pat supplied I can tell it not to ask me about the partitioning.  
Yes I know this is the wrong way to do it, but it saves me time until we can find a 
better method.

Just make sure to label the diskette (or add prompts in the batch). "I think this is 
my recovery disk"... "Oh * wrong disk"

--
Sean


- Original Message -
From: "Patrick J. LoPresti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 03 Jun 2003 10:31:31 -0400 
To: Rosario Esposito <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Unattended] partitioning disk

> Rosario Esposito <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > Hello,
> 
> > I'm trying to modify the install.pl script (in \dosbin directory)
> > because I would like to get only one question during the
> > installation: "which percentage of disk space do you want for
> > Windows ?".
> 
> If you create z:\site\config.pl and put calls to set_value() in it,
> they will override the defaults in install.pl.  This way, you can
> avoid editing install.pl itself, which will make it easier to upgrade
> to future releases of Unattended.  (Never mind that I have no idea
> when I will find time to MAKE another release...)
> 
> > I added, in "ask_fdisk_cmds", something like:
> > 
> > print "Choose percentage of disk space for Windows\n";
> > my $perc = ;
> > chomp($perc);
> 
> You could use simple_q() instead:
> 
>   my $perc = simple_q ("Choose percentage of disk space for Windows\n");
> 
> > $ret='fdisk /pri:'.$perc.',100';
> 
> Looks fine.
> 
> > It works fine but it is not an "elegant" solution because:
> > - when installation starts it asks me for the percentage of disk space
> > for Windows
> > - then  the disk is partitioned and the system reboots
> > - when installation restarts it asks me AGAIN for the percentage of
> > disk space for Windows
> > - then disk is partitioned but no changing in partition table are
> > detected, so the installation goes on
> 
> This is an artifact of using DOS to perform the installation.  DOS
> requires a reboot to recognize the partition table change, but
> rebooting erases our memory and makes us start over.
> 
> Fixing this is not easy.  We cannot store anything in the file system
> until after the partition table has been updated; Catch-22.
> 
> There are 64 one-bit "flags" in the MBR we could use; they can be
> manipulated with the /SETFLAG, /TESTFLAG, and /CLEARFLAG switches to
> fdisk.  But making this work reliably is tricky, because we have no
> guarantee about the values of those flags when the installation
> starts.  We would have to use multiple bits as a "signature", which
> would be clunky because fdisk only allows us to set/test/clear one bit
> at a time.
> 
> My only suggestion is to change your $ret assignment like this:
> 
>   $ret = (defined $perc
>   ? 'fdisk /pri:'.$perc.',100'
>   : undef);
> 
> Combined with using simple_q() to set $perc, this will let you press
> Enter to skip the partitioning step completely.  (I know, this is not
> much better.)
> 
> In the long run, I would like to move away from DOS, because real
> operating systems let you modify the partition table without
> rebooting.  But this requires a new design and new implementation,
> both of which require time.
> 
>  - Pat

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Re: [Unattended] Books on Perl

[Intrepid One]

I just started studying/learning PERL and I am more of a Network guy
than a programmer.

I am a few chapters into 'Elements of Programming with Perl' by
Andrew L. Johnson.  I read thru' the beginning of some others
('Learning Perl'), but IMHO 'Elements...' is the best starter.
http://www.manning.com/Johnson/
After I am done with it I will move onto 'Learning Perl'.

Some random reviews I read:
http://www.perl.org/books/elements.html
http://london.pm.org/reviews/elements_of_prog_perl.html

http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/01/24/1156247&mode=thread
 (yes I know slashdot sucks)

The book was published in 1999, but that shouldn't affect anything. 
Again I am a beginner so don't take my opinion as fact.
--
trep

- Original Message -
From: "Teresa Jeremy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 18:42:21 -0700 
To: "Unattended List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Subject: [Unattended] Books on Perl

> Can anyone suggest any good books on Perl?
> Suggestions on other Perl resources are also welcomed?
> 
> Thx
> TJ
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[Unattended] NTFS conversion and cluster size

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Read this:

  http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/tech/storage/ntfs-preinstall.mspx

(If you are lazy, read the sections on "Cluster Alignment for NTFS
vs. FAT" and "OFORMAT".)

In short, converting from FAT to NTFS results in a cluster size of 512
bytes, and the claim is that Windows performs better with a cluster
size of 4K or so.

For Windows 2000, there is nothing we can do about this unless we can
find a way to install to NTFS natively.  This will be hard; neither
DOS nor Linux supports writing to an NTFS volume.

For Windows XP, however, all we need to do is use the OFORMAT utility,
or something like it, to align the data clusters on a 4K boundary.
The FAT-to-NTFS conversion in XP will then by smart enough to use a 4K
cluster size after the conversion.

But there are a couple of problems.  First, OFORMAT is a Microsoft
tool, and I would like to move away from Microsoft tools since I
technically cannot distribute them.  Second, OFORMAT does not run on
DOS 6 (or so I read somewhere; I have not actually tried it yet).

In principle, there is no reason that the FreeDOS format.exe could not
support the "/A" flag just like OFORMAT does.  In practice, it does
not.

However, the Linux tool mkdosfs supports an interesting "-R" option:

  http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/mkdosfs.8.html

This option sets the number of "reserved" sectors.  In theory, by
choosing different values, we should be able to affect the alignment
of the data clusters.  I think.

There is just one problem, which I discovered while playing with this
stuff today.  If you format a FAT partition using mkdosfs, with or
without the -R flag, you cannot install Windows on it.  The winnt.exe
installer successfully copies the files over and sets up the boot
sector, but when the machine reboots, it immediately halts saying:

  Disk error
  Press any key to restart

Using "dd if=/dev/hda | less", I determined that this message is
coming from the boot sector on the FAT partition, not from the BIOS or
MBR.  So mkdosfs is doing SOMETHING which makes the NT boot sector
code unhappy.  I don't suppose there any any boot sector or x86
assembly wizards on this list?

Oh, well.  I have sent Email to the FreeDOS format.exe maintainer (to
ask about adding a /A flag) and to the mkdosfs maintainer (to ask
about fixing whatever it is doing wrong).  No replies yet.

Would anyone care to dig up a copy of OFORMAT, experiment with it, and
post the results?

 - Pat


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Re: [Unattended] Customize the boot image file

[Russell Smith]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 07:42 am, Teresa Jeremy wrote:
> How can I customize/modify the undis3c.img boot image file used during a
> PXE boot?  I want to change the default username and password plus the
> servername.

mount the disk image.

mount undis3c.img /mnt/floppy

make changes like you would on the floppy, edit autoexec.bat and the like.

umount /mnt/floppy

you altered disk is ready.

Russell Smith



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[Unattended] Say hello to Russell Smith

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Russell Smith
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) as our first developer who is not me.

Russell has been an active participant on this mailing list.  He has
also sent me several good patches, some of which I have still been too
lazy/busy to apply.  That will no longer be a problem.  :-)

Russell's particular interests are in complete hands-free automation,
and in making the system (and its documentation) more accessible to
novice users.

I have given him access to everything in the SourceForge project, save
top-level administration and release creation.  He is fully empowered
to modify the CVS repository, Web pages, and project pages.  With any
luck, this will help get the project moving again.

Congratulations, Russell, and thank you!

 - Pat


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Re: [Unattended] Customize the boot image file

[Teresa Jeremy]

That option did cross my mind. However, I was concerned about the carriage 
return/linefeed  compatility issue between DOS and Linux.
I normally use mc (Midnight Commander) to  view and modify ASCII text files.
How do I preserve the DOS format for text files when modifying the contents of 
undis3c.img.


Thanx
TJ

--

- Original Message -

DATE: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 10:18:30
From: Russell Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: 

>On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 07:42 am, Teresa Jeremy wrote:
>> How can I customize/modify the undis3c.img boot image file used during a
>> PXE boot?  I want to change the default username and password plus the
>> servername.
>
>mount the disk image.
>
>mount undis3c.img /mnt/floppy
>
>make changes like you would on the floppy, edit autoexec.bat and the like.
>
>umount /mnt/floppy
>
>you altered disk is ready.
>
>Russell Smith
>
>
>
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[Unattended] Re: Development Plan comments

[Russell Smith]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

>
> All of this is the "easy" part :-).  The hard part is finding an
> extensible, well-maintained diskless Linux distro with a rich set of
> drivers.  I do not have the luxury of just supporting the hardware
> which I personally happen to have.
>
> This is the big advantage of the DOS boot disk combined with PXE
> booting:  No drivers.

And as we move forward in time, just about every network card supports pxe2.x  
Which has nice boot functionality.  I'm not sure about the wisdom in moving 
away from this for network installs.  It's easy and fast :)

>
> > DOS is far too limited to fully automate a Windows OS deployment.
> > For instance, it would be nice to partition the drive then proceed
> > to formatting it without having to reboot. Linux does this quite
> > well.
>
> Absolutely.  That is the Plan.
>

On network installs, a reboot doesn't cost anything... :)  I have a successful 
automation of build scripts.  This is a problem with floppy and cdrom 
installs.  I think in the short term, package management is potentially the 
bigger fish to fry here.  And especially adding applications after the 
initial system install...

(I want to and will be working on this as time goes on, makes my life even 
easier, don't have to wait so long for machines to totally rebuild)

>
> > I'm presently looking at Windows PE as alternative to DOS; however,
> > using Linux to script a Windows OS installation would be awesome.
>
> Windows PE is certainly the most "Microsofty" approach.  And it has
> the advantage of creating and writing NTFS partitions directly.  But
> WinPE also costs money, which is somewhat contrary to the spirit of
> this project.
>
Much Badness :)

> ---
>
> Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > if the script is permitted to install, it will do the following things:
> >
> > - partition the hardisk [parted
> > http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/parted.html]
> > - creating fat32 fileystems [parted]
>
> Parted is awesome.  And the maintainer (Andrew Clausen) is very smart
> and very responsive.
>
> > - make the machine bootable (using w98/command.com)[ms-sys
> > http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/ms-sys.html]
>
> Aren't there licensing issues with w98/command.com?
>
> I would really, really like to use FreeDOS instead.  Too bad winnt.exe
> doesn't like it.  (By the way, would anybody like to volunteer to help
> me fix this?  Requirements are that you know how to compile things,
> that you know or can learn how to use CVS, and that you are willing to
> go through a tedious cycle searching for the FreeDOS kernel patch
> which broke things.)

Maybe, I'll look into it, to see if I want to take it further.

>
> > - copy the files
> > - customize unattend.txt
> >
> > after that the machine is rebootet, starts the w98/command.com and
> > starts the windows xp setup.
>
> I am planning to run winnt.exe under dosemu instead, to avoid the
> extra file copy and to avoid ever actually booting into DOS.  Other
> than that, however, my approach will be similar.
>
> > - mysqld stores informations about the clients (mac-address, is the
> > machine to be installed ..), about the software(which installscript is
> > used for software xyz, which software is part of the group 'base
> > installation' ).
>
> I hope to make the system extensible enough to permit this, but I
> doubt I will include it by default.  We want people to be able to
> start using the system as quickly as possible.
>

I have plans here, just need to get my perl and modules up to script, and you 
can plug into anything you like :) as long as you have a network, hope you 
do, that's the whole plan :)

Russell Smith
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[Unattended] Small conribution - applications

[Rosario Esposito]

Hello everybody,
I've beeing using unattended for 2 weeks and it seems to work very well.
I wrote some scripts to install few applications. Maybe they can be 
useful to somebody:



Installing Netscape 7.02

Complete installation:
ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape7/english/7.02/windows/win32/sea/NSSetupB.exe
Base installation:
ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape7/english/7.02/windows/win32/sea/NS702base.exe
For unattended/silent install run:
start /wait  z:\packages\netscape\NS702base.exe -ms -ira -ispf


Installing Ghostscript/Ghostview

Download Ghostscript 8.0/Ghostview 4.4 from:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
For unattended/silent install run:

mkdir %PROGRAMFILES%\ghostscript
mkdir %PROGRAMFILES%\ghostview
start /Dz:\packages\ghostview\gs /wait 
z:\packages\ghostview\gs\gs800w32.exe %PROGRAMFILES%\ghostscript
start /Dz:\packages\ghostview\gv /wait 
z:\packages\ghostview\gv\gsv44w32.exe  %PROGRAMFILES%\ghostview



Installing Winzip (Commercial)
Download  Winzip from http://www.winzip.com
Extract files to:  z:\packages\winzip\

For unattended/silent install run:

mkdir %PROGRAMFILES%\winzip
xcopy z:\packages\winzip\*.* %PROGRAMFILES%\winzip /s
start /wait %PROGRAMFILES%\winzip\winzip32.exe /autoinstall


Installing Winscp 2.3 (Free Secure Copy client)
Download it from http://winscp.vse.cz/eng/
For unattended/silent install run:

start /wait z:\packages\winscp2\winscp230setup.exe /silent



Installing Putty (Free Telnet/SSH Client)
Download it from: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
For unattended/silent install run:

z:\bin\AutoIt.exe z:\scripts\putty.aut

Where putty.aut contain:

Run, z:\\packages\\putty\\putty-installer.exe /silent
WinWait, Setup, This will install PuTTY. Do you wish to continue?
Send, {ENTER}


Installing Java Runtime Environment
Download it from: http://java.sun.com
For unattended/silent install run:

start /wait z:\packages\jre\jre.exe /a /s /sms 
/f1z:\packages\jre\jre.iss /f2c:\netinst\logs\jre.txt



Installing Windows Messenger 4.7
Download it from http://download.microsoft.com
For unattended/silent install run:

start /wait z:\packages\messenger\messenger.exe /q



Installing Windows Mediaplayer 9
Download it from http://download.microsoft.com
For unattended/silent install run:
start /wait z:\packages\mediaplayer\mediaplayer.exe /q






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Re: [Unattended] Forgotten command in Auto IT

[Wolfgang Borst]

On Wed, 2003-07-02 at 16:55, "Norström, Daniel" wrote:
> Please, do anyone know the command I'm searching for?

the autoit help is always a good starting point concerning autoit
commands.

WinWaitClose,  [, [,]]

Stops script execution until the specified window ceases to exist.

If specified the "Timeout" is in seconds.  After the line has executed
the Env variable %ERRORLEVEL% will be set to 0 if the function completed
normally, or 1 if the wait timed out.

e.g.
WinWaitClose, Untitled - Notepad

w!
-- 
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Description: This is a digitally signed message part

RE: [Unattended] Requesting "mapdrive.pl" from Scott Card

[kevin]

As promised, here is the VB program that I use for installing programs after
the machine has been  built.  It is designed for W2K since that is what we
use - I assume that it will work with XP but  I have not tried it.

The source is included, and you will note that some of the code in some of
the modules are  written by other people, it has all been released for free
use - & I think that the copyright  notices left in the code fulfil their
requirements for acknowledgment - if not, I am more than  happy to change
them to suit.

Some notes on the usage, and the assumptions that I have made are required
before it makes sense.   Please also read the comments in the source code
because I have not repeated any of those here.

The main program - install.exe - needs to be in an area that can be read by
machines during  logon/logoff.  It is called as a machine logoff script set
in group policy, although it should  work being run any way you like.  It
takes the following command line parameters.

 -M: Url of master file (more about this later)
 -U: privileged account user name (a domain user with admin rights on the
workstation but only std  user rights on the domain - use the full form
[EMAIL PROTECTED])
 -P: privileged account password (password for the above account)

So, a fully formed command line would look like this

install.exe -M:\\path\to\file\install.ini -U:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-P:secretpassword

Any missing parameters will be set to defaults, but these will be
meaningless since they are  specific to my site, you can of course set them
to something useful in the source code

Running the program does the following - checks to see if an installation is
already in progress  (checks for the presence of the todo.txt file in the
standard c:\netinst\todo.txt position)  if it is then exit.

If not then check the master data file against the local data file.  If
there is a program  section in the master that is not in the local then set
it up for installation, if there is a  section already present but with a
higher version number then set that up as well for upgrading.

If there are files to install, build the todo.txt & set the registry for an
autologon and set the  run once registry setting to launch todo.txt

Format of install.ini (The master database)

The master file is formatted as a standard ini file with the sections
formatted like this

[Start Default Sophos Install]
Command=sophos.cmd
Version=2

The section name is arbitrary - make it meaningful to you but keep it unique
within the file
Command is the name of the script to run from the unattended scripts folder
Version is just that, a version number - incrementing it will cause the
section to be  re-installed - which I thought might be handy.  The words
Command and Version are case sensitive,  you can choose your own reason for
that, but I deny whole heartedly the claim that it is down to  lazy
programming :-)

Other Things To Note

You need the script no-logon.pl in your scripts folder to turn off the auto
logon feature - it is  only a hacked version of the existing script, but I
was having trouble passing parameters so I  cheated - it is in the zip file.

This is not bullet proof - if the process dies you are left with a machine
that will continue to  auto logon until you intervene - suggestions on
getting past this are welcome.

The account used for the scripting is the one used to run the installations,
it needs local admin  rights, & in my domain it has its home drive set to Z:
and pointing at the unattended install  share.

There is a web page included in the zip file, it is an example of how to use
a web page to select  & trigger the installation of packages - you need
local admin rights to use it properly, & you  need to accept the running of
an active x script (check the source first, but it is just a  command line
calling the install.exe)  The format is a little strange because it is
pulled from  my working page and our intranet pages are generated by script.

Most of this stuff only works in the context of a machine that was built
using the unattended  process because it expects scripts & folders to be in
the places that result from such an  install.  hopefully that will make
sense to this audience.  However, if anything seems odd or if  you have
suggestions for improvements, then please let me know.  I will always listen

Regards

Kevin Lawry
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<>

[Unattended] FYI: Long filenames under $OEM$

[Stephan Borg]

Hello people,

This is just a FYI post.

I've been hammering away for the last 3 hours, because my drivers under
$1\Drivers\Network,etc work being completely copied over. Subdirectories
and files were missing during install.

Whenever the unattend process hit a file with more than 8 characters, it
aborted the rest of the directory and its subdirectories.

Removing files with long filenames has resolved the issue.

I'm sharing my files from a Linux samba server (which might be to blame)
and using an MS Network client (Basic redirector). Haven't tried a full
redirector which might help too.


-- 

Stephan Borg
LinuxSOE Pty Ltd
Phone/Fax: (02) 4754 5036
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://www.linuxsoe.com



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RE: [Unattended] Installing Printers

[Mark]

I use a batch file with rundll32 commands to install network printers. The only 
problem is that it only installs it for the current user. So I also run a Perl script 
to add that batch file to the Default User's RunOnce key in the registry. 
Alternatively, you could copy the current user's profile to the Default User's 
profile. 
Or go the "Real Men Don't Click" route and have a Default User profile on the Netlogon 
share.
I forget the actual rundll32 command to add a printer, but you can Google for it or I 
can get it for you next week when I'm at the office.

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

-Original Message-
From:   Byron Clark [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Wed 4/30/2003 4:27 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: 
Subject:[Unattended] Installing Printers

What's the best way any of you have found for adding a printer during
the unattended install




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Re: [Unattended] Disable Keyboard & Mouse

[Wolfgang Borst]

On Thu, 2003-07-03 at 15:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Does anyone have a good way to disable the keyboard & mouse whilst an installation 
> is underway, I need to stop my users interferring whilst their machine is building.
> 
> I have tried with an autoit script that uses the internal command to lock out the 
> keyboard etc, but it 'pinches' the odd keystroke being sent by other scripts causing 
> them to fail.
> 
> Any ideas most welcome
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/services/Kbdclass/
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/services/Mouclass/

are the keys for enabling and disabling the keyboard and mouse. set the
value to REG_DWORD 4 to disable keyboard/mouse support and REG_DWORD 1
to enable ..

after setting the values you have to reboot the machine in order to
achieve the desired behaviour.
see attached part of a perl script.

wolfgang

-- 
Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> GPG/PGP key 4107B17B
sub km_support
{
 my $enable = shift;
 my $rc=1;
 my %reg;
 use Win32::TieRegistry (Delimiter => '/', TiedHash => \%reg);

 my $k_key =
'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/services/Kbdclass/';

 my $m_key =
'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/services/Mouclass/';
 
 my $val;
 
 if($enable)
 {
  $val="0x0001";
 }
 else
 {
  $val="0x0004";
 }
 if ( ! ($reg{$k_key}->{'Start'} = [  $val , "REG_DWORD"] ) )
 {
  logfacility "Unable to set $k_key/Start to $val: $^E";
  $rc-=1;
 }
 if ( ! ($reg{$m_key}->{'Start'} = [ $val , "REG_DWORD"] ) )
 {
  logfacility "Unable to set $m_key/Start to $val: $^E";
  $rc-=1;
 }
 return $rc;
}


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

R: [Unattended] Automatic Cleaning up

[Michelangelo Bottura]

Generally speaking, most security hazards do not come from inside users
(please do not flame after this statement :)) - as you said "most users are
not skilled enough to even know what 'perl' is.". Imho it could be dangerous
to have a perl interpreter inside a nt-like machine since you are offering a
development platform to an intruder - which an inexeperienced user is more
likely to "let in". Moreover, I think as a rule of thumb that development
tools go on developers machines and so on as to reduce the "enthropy" which
characterizes windows machines

-Messaggio originale-
Da: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Per conto di Wolfgang
Borst
Inviato: mercoledì 4 giugno 2003 13.13
A: Norström, Daniel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Oggetto: RE: [Unattended] Automatic Cleaning up


On Wed, 2003-06-04 at 12:56, "Norström, Daniel" wrote:
> Why is quite simple, the company I work for believes that it is a 
> security risk to have the Perl left in the "image".
most users are not skilled enough to even know what 'perl' is. so this
security hazard is minimal. and the ones skilled enough to do 'bad things'
with perl will be able to use batch files or .. download perl, install it in
their home-directories/tempdir/.. and run their evil code ;>

maybe you should talk to some people and convince them that leaving perl
installed is worth the enormous 'danger' :)

> But this is not the nice looking feature as it should be..
not at all.
wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> GPG/PGP key 4107B17B




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Re: [Unattended] Small conribution - applications

[Nils Østbjerg]

On Wed, May 28, 2003 at 10:14:57, P. Benie wrote:

> On Wed, 28 May 2003, Nils [iso-8859-1] Østbjerg wrote:
> 
> > > Run, z:\\packages\\putty\\putty-installer.exe /silent
> > > WinWait, Setup, This will install PuTTY. Do you wish to continue?
> > > Send, {ENTER}
> >
> > Why install putty ? Why not just copy it over where you want it ?
> 
> I do it so that that it appears in the list of installed applications in
> the registry.
> 
> As it happens, I resently asked how to make the PuTTY installer properly
> silent. Try this instead of AutoIT:
>   putty-0.53b-installer.exe /sp- /silent

That was going to be my next question, if it used the inno installere. But 
it appears it does, cool. 

> I also append the PuTTY directory to %PATH% so that you can use putty
> and pscp from the cmd prompt:

Again I used the lazy approcs, just install putty in the %SYSTEMROOT% ;)

> use Win32::TieRegistry ( Delimiter=>"/", ArrayValues=>1 );
> my $envkey=$Registry->{"LMachine/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/".
>"Session Manager/Environment/"};
> die unless defined($envkey);
> my $pathval=$envkey->{"/Path"};
> my @path=split(";", ${$pathval}[0]);
> push(@path, "C:\\Program Files\\Putty");
> ${$pathval}[0]=join(";", @path);
> $envkey->{"/Path"}=$pathval;
Neat.


Nils

-- 
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Re: [Unattended] Customize the boot image file

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

"Teresa Jeremy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> That option did cross my mind. However, I was concerned about the
> carriage return/linefeed compatility issue between DOS and Linux.  I
> normally use mc (Midnight Commander) to view and modify ASCII text
> files.  How do I preserve the DOS format for text files when
> modifying the contents of undis3c.img.

That is a valid concern.  But I wrote all of the scripts using Linux,
so that concern can be addressed :-).

I use Emacs, which automatically detects DOS-style line endings and
compensates.  (When in Rome...)  I believe vi does the same.

I do not know about other editors, but it would not surprise me if
they had a similar feature.

RedHat also ships with "dos2unix" and "unix2dos" utilities which will
convert the line endings in each direction.  You just have to remember
to run them before and after editing each file.

However...  Those utilities stink in a variety of ways; e.g., they are
not idempotent.  I am attaching two (trivial) Perl scripts which work
much better.

 - Pat

#!/usr/bin/perl -pi
# Usage: unixify [file1] [file2]...
# Maps \r\n -> \n in a list of files, modifying them in place.
# If no files are specified, uses stdin and stdout.
s/\r\n/\n/
#!/usr/bin/perl -w -pi
# Usage: dosify [file1] [file2]...
# Maps \n -> \r\n in a list of files, modifying them in place.
# If no files are specified, uses stdin and stdout.

use strict;

s/(?

[Unattended] custom installations for each PC

[Nils Østbjerg]

Hi,

In our organisations we often have to custom setup PC for each 
user, so I was trying to think up a plan for making unatteded 
better at this. 

Here is my thoughts so far: 

1) For every application, or group of applications that is always 
   installed together, you want to be able to install you write a small 
   installation.bat script. You also maintain a list of what 
   installiton.bat scripts you have. Perhaps in this format:

   --- List Start --- 
   "Windows Update", "%winver%-updates.bat"
   "MS Office", "MSoffice.bat"
   "Some Application", "someinstaller.bat"
    List End   
  
   This list should be sorted in the order you want the installations to 
   happen. 

2) Instead of running base.bat, sales.bat ect from the Z: drive you create 
   a script file on the C: drive which contains the todo.pl commands to 
   install everything you want to. 

3) When you select which software package that should be install after 
   the windows installation, what you really is doing is a select a 
   template which will configure the defaulf settings of the new 
   script mention below in 4). The list could look like this: 

   --- List Start ---
   "Windows Update", yes
   "Some Application", yes
    List End 
  
4) A new menu item is added to the very last menu of install.pl 
   This is a small program/script reads the list mention in 1) 
   and the list from 3). From list 1) it figures out which 
   installations is possible and from list 3) it figures out which ones 
   it to be set to  initially. It then pops up a screen that looks 
   something like this:

   --- Screen Start --- 
   Key  Name   Install
A   Windows Updates
B   MS Office   
C   Some Application   

X   Exit.
    Screen End   
 
   If you hit A,B or C then you toggle between yes and not.
   
   When you are done, and hit X you return to the last menu in Unattended 
   and when you hit "go" Unattended, along with all the other stuff that 
   happens, starts to pass the list generated from the bottom of the list 
   and addes a "todo.pl" line for each application marked as , 
   alternativily it could pass the list from the top down and just add it 
   to one long todo.pl line, but I dont know if there is a maximum lenght 
   on those lines. 

   I dont know if the script being written to drive C: should be a new 
   file or it just should be added to postinst.bat file. 
   

Comments and ideas are welcome but keep them on-list, cause that way 
others can participate as well. 

If someone who is a perl wiz can code it I'll be happy, cause Im not a 
hardcore perl man, thou I guess I could learn it if noone else got the 
time for this/feel like it. 

Regards,

Nils

-- 
Nils Østbjerg  mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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[Unattended] IRC channel born... You may or may not want to use it, but it's there.

[Russell Smith]

It's Me Again!

I have created this channel as sometimes solving problems and nutting out 
ideas is best done in real time. (But most of you are sleeping while I'm up 
:)

but that doesn't matter..

server: irc.freenode.net
channel: #unattended



Russell Smith.


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Re: [Unattended] Unattended and Vmware workstation v.4

[Teresa Jeremy]

I can personally vouche for LTSP.  LTSP has been around for over 3 years now.  I tried 
it during the early years and I must say it has come along way. It's certainly more 
refined than any of the other diskless Linux projects out there today.
Installation is a breeze compared to other similar projects.  Although Etherboot is 
the default method for network booting, PXE is also supported. Simply download the 
pxestuff tarball and read the README file.

The default LTSP PXE kernel supports most, if not all, the NICs offers by the 
supported Linux distros including RH, Suse, Debian, and Mandrake.
Auto hardware detection is used to detect your video if you wish to run X-Windows 
mode.  You can run in text mode by changing the RUNLEVEL value for your client in the 
lts.conf file.
LTSP is very customizable and extensible. Users and developers are encouraged to 
contribute to the project.
Some members are using LTSP with RDESKTOP as launching pad to connect to Citrix or 
Windows 2000 Terminal sessions.
You can download the source files and build your own LTS distribution.  This is 
exactly what K12LTSP (http://www.k12ltsp.org) did.

 
I don't think it would be a leap to merge UNATTENDED with LTSP to develop a robust, 
DOS-free deployment solution.  However, I'm not a PERL or Linux shell scripting expert.

--

- Original Message -

DATE: 17 Jun 2003 11:26:28 -040
From: "Patrick J. LoPresti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: "Stephan Borg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"Scott Card" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,[EMAIL 
PROTECTED]

>"Teresa Jeremy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> I have played around with diskless Linux, the Linux Terminal Server
>> Project (www.ltsp.org) and RH Kickstart.
>
>LTSP looks promising; thank you for the pointer.
>
>> I wish that I knew enough about the linuxrc - the Linux equivalent
>> the autoexec.bat to script Windows based OS deployment.
>
>I have actually created a diskless Linux system from scratch.  As I
>recall, the kernel runs /linuxrc if it exists, otherwise it just fires
>up /sbin/init.  The /linuxrc script is primarily used by ramdisks.
>The linuxrc script typically locates, mounts, or creates the root file
>system, then invokes pivot_root to mount it on /, then fires off the
>next stage in whatever they are doing.
>
>All of this is the "easy" part :-).  The hard part is finding an
>extensible, well-maintained diskless Linux distro with a rich set of
>drivers.  I do not have the luxury of just supporting the hardware
>which I personally happen to have.
>
>This is the big advantage of the DOS boot disk combined with PXE
>booting:  No drivers.
>
>> DOS is far too limited to fully automate a Windows OS deployment.
>> For instance, it would be nice to partition the drive then proceed
>> to formatting it without having to reboot. Linux does this quite
>> well.
>
>Absolutely.  That is the Plan.
>
>> I'm presently looking at Windows PE as alternative to DOS; however,
>> using Linux to script a Windows OS installation would be awesome.
>
>Windows PE is certainly the most "Microsofty" approach.  And it has
>the advantage of creating and writing NTFS partitions directly.  But
>WinPE also costs money, which is somewhat contrary to the spirit of
>this project.
>
>---
>
>Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> if the script is permitted to install, it will do the following things:
>> 
>> - partition the hardisk [parted
>> http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/parted.html]
>> - creating fat32 fileystems [parted]
>
>Parted is awesome.  And the maintainer (Andrew Clausen) is very smart
>and very responsive.
>
>> - make the machine bootable (using w98/command.com)[ms-sys
>> http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/ms-sys.html]
>
>Aren't there licensing issues with w98/command.com?
>
>I would really, really like to use FreeDOS instead.  Too bad winnt.exe
>doesn't like it.  (By the way, would anybody like to volunteer to help
>me fix this?  Requirements are that you know how to compile things,
>that you know or can learn how to use CVS, and that you are willing to
>go through a tedious cycle searching for the FreeDOS kernel patch
>which broke things.)
>
>> - copy the files
>> - customize unattend.txt
>> 
>> after that the machine is rebootet, starts the w98/command.com and
>> starts the windows xp setup.
>
>I am planning to run winnt.exe under dosemu instead, to avoid the
>extra file copy and to avoid ever actually booting into DOS.  Other
>than that, however, my approach will be similar.
>
>> - mysqld stores informations about the clients (mac-address, is the
>> machine to be installed ..), about the software(which installscript is
>> used for software xyz, which software is part of the group 'base
>> installation' ).
>
>I hope to make the system extensible enough to permit this, but I
>doubt I will include it by default.  We want people to be able to
>start using the system as quickly as possible.
>
>> the kernel for the clients is fetched via tftp then the
>> root-filey

Re: [Unattended] Perl installation

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Antony Simmonds <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> There is a MSI editor available in the Windows Installer SDK called
> Orca, which allows you to view and edit the tables inside a .msi
> file.

Thanks for the tip; I had not heard of Orca.

There is also , which sounds similar
(but using the command line).

> ActiveState Perl 5.8 install notes mention that the DOCUMENTATION
> feature is valid, but I can't see it in the
> ActivePerl-5.8.0.806-MSWin32-x86.msi Feature table.

Then that is a bug, either in the .msi file or in the install notes,
depending on how you look at it :-).

I would suggest opening a bug report on this one at
.  They really ought to provide a way to
install the package without the docs.

 - Pat


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[Unattended] Printers

[Nils Østbjerg]

Hi, 

do anyone know how to script adding of printers on a non trusted computer ? 

I mean how do I shut up this message :

"You are about to connect to a printer on $server, which will automatically 
install a printer driver on your machine. Printer driver may contain viruses or 
scripts that can be harmful to your computer. It is important to be certain 
that the computer sharing this printer is trustworthy. Would you like to 
continue ?" "YES" / "NO" 


Regards, 

Nils


-- 
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Re: [Unattended] Booting the unattended CD on a diskless laptop

[Soeren Kuklau]

On Freitag, Juli 4, 2003, at 06:19  Uhr, Patrick J. LoPresti wrote:

If your BIOS can boot from the USB floppy, [..]
I had a chance yesterday to try. I turned the test laptop off, 
connected a USB floppy drive, turned it back on and tried to boot off 
the unattended CD: this time, it mounted the floppy image just fine. No 
BIOS upgrade, no changing any settings :-)

Thus, I guess that the BIOS does have (generic) floppy drivers, but 
only enables them when a floppy drive - internal or external - is 
actually present. I couldn't find an option to force-load those drivers.

Just plugging the floppy in to each of those laptops would work for me, 
though.

Thanks for your help.

--
Sören 'Chucker' Kuklau

[Unattended] Unattended 2.6 released

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

I am pleased to announce the (long overdue) release of Unattended
version 2.6.  The NEWS.txt entry is appended to this message.

This release includes a complete rewrite of the unattend.txt
parser/generator into the generic Unattend::IniFile module.  Aside
from fixing the long-standing bug in handling MassStorageDrivers, this
sets the stage for more interesting things.

For example, I am tired of dealing with every random type of Windows
media (retail, OEM, volume, etc.) as a special case.  By parsing the
SETUPP.INI and LAYOUT.INF files on the media themselves, I believe we
can auto-detect the exact version of Windows and the media type fairly
easily.

Anyway, this is a very large re-write of the guts of the code, so I
would appeciate it if you could try it out and let me know what I
broke.  Thanks!

 - Pat

==
** Changes in version 2.6 (2003-Jun-29)

NOTE: There are many changes in this release.  You will need to
refresh your install share (Z: drive) and your boot disk.

Replace unattend.txt parser/generator with generic .ini file
parser/generator.  Create modules Unattend::IniFile,
Unattend::FoldHash, and Unattend::Promise; bundle them in install/lib.
This is a complete overhaul of this critical substrate, although the
only visible effect should be fixing the long-standing bug for people
needing third-party SCSI drivers (see
).  Mostly, these new
modules make all sorts of interesting things possible in future
releases.

Fix bug in install.pl which could result in an empty
OemPnPDriversPath, which makes Windows Setup croak.  Thanks to Teresa
Jeremy.

Deprecate install/doslib in favor of install/lib.

Add support for Intel Pro/1000 adapter family.

Add section on Nullsoft Installer System (NSIS) to installers.html.
Thanks to David Nuttall.

Rewrite instsrv.pl to use WMI instead of instsrv.exe.  This eliminates
a dependency on the Windows Resource Kit, which Microsoft is no longer
maintaining.

Fix longstanding todo.pl bug which caused "undefined variable"
warnings with Perl 5.8.

Eliminate [_meta]/ipaddr and [_meta]/macaddr, since they seem to
create more problems than they solve.

Do not pass /o ("overwrite OEM files") flag to hotfix installers,
since it probably does more harm than good.

New scripts install/bin/shortcut.pl, install/scripts/adobe-reader.bat,
install/scripts/vsnet.{bat,aut}.

Update various installation scripts.

Sync with SYSLINUX 2.02.

Sync with FreeDOS fdisk 1.2.1.


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Re: [Unattended] Re: Development Plan comments

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Russell Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> And as we move forward in time, just about every network card
> supports pxe2.x Which has nice boot functionality.  I'm not sure
> about the wisdom in moving away from this for network installs.
> It's easy and fast :)

True.  The trouble is that those PXE stacks are mostly buggy in
various ways.  And more importantly, each steals a different amount of
conventional memory, which has caused at least one user some grief.

Combine this with the other problems we have seen, like buggy SCSI
BIOSes and MSCLIENT hanging with certain gigabit cards, and you have a
pretty strong argument for finding another way.

But you do have a good point.  I am now convinced that we need to
retain support for the existing DOS-based approach, and just add Linux
as an option.  I believe we can do this by writing the Perl code
carefully to keep it portable between DJGPP and Linux.  This will
require platform-dependent code for things like disk partitioning, but
for the most part everything should "just work".

> I think in the short term, package management is potentially the
> bigger fish to fry here.  And especially adding applications after
> the initial system install...

I agree.  I plan to attack package management before the Linux
conversion.

My basic plan goes like this:

  Rewrite .ini parser, use it to fix "mass storage" bug (minor release)

  Rework package management (major release)

  Add support for using Linux (minor or major release; not sure yet)

Other tasks which I want to do, but would really appreciate some help
from others:

  Explore FAT cluster alignment stuff (OFORMAT); patch FreeDOS and/or
  Linux format utilities to support it

  Switch to FreeDOS; debug FreeDOS kernel as necessary

  Completely redesign documentation; rewrite as necessary

Volunteers would be gratefully accepted :-).

 - Pat


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[Unattended] Package management

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Nils Østbjerg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Hi,
> 
> In our organisations we often have to custom setup PC for each 
> user, so I was trying to think up a plan for making unatteded 
> better at this. 

We definitely need a more flexible mechanism than the current "pick
one script".  (In my case, I need to be able to pick whether to
install Office 2000 or Office XP, leaving everything else constant.)

Your ideas are similar to my own, although somewhat less radical :-).

Here is my current proposal.

Some made-up terminology: An "atom" is something installed by a single
.bat script; typically, a single application or hotfix.  A "bundle" is
a set of atoms, defined as a simple list of atomic scripts and other
bundles.

Create a z:\bundles directory.  Populate it with .txt files, each of
which is just a list of atomic scripts and other bundles.  At my site,
we might have:

  base.txt
  developer.txt
  sales.txt
  office2k.txt
  officexp.txt

Modify install.pl to list all of the files under z:\bundles, and let
you select any number of them to install.

(Optional?) Allow you to select any number of atomic scripts as well.

Add all of these to the to-do list (todo.txt), and modify todo.pl to
understand that .txt files are just bundles.

This would be pretty easy to implement, and by itself would be an
improvement, I think.  My next ideas are more radical, so I will put
them in a separate message.

 - Pat


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[Unattended] Acrobat Installers

[Intrepid One]

FYI: This is for those wanting a little more control over the install of Acrobat 
Products (Acrobat, Reader, Distiller, PDFWriter, 'Umbrella' Installer, Business Basics 
Installer).

Use an Acrobat Tool (or manually*1*) to edit 'abcpy.ini' (Adobe's install ini).

This may be useless information for some of you, but I (young, learning on my own 
SysAdmin) found it helpful.

required:
AEIT (Acrobat Enterprise Installation Tool)
  [http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/deployment.html]
  Free 'Adobe ID' Registration Required
Acrobat Reader Installation Package (ie. 'acroreader51_enu_full.exe')
  [http://adobe.com]


howto:

1. Install the AEIT
2. Extract the contents of 'acroreader51_enu_full.exe' to 
'z:\packages\acroreader51_enu_full\' (or any other functional name)
3. Open AEIT
4. Select the folder you just extracted the acrobatreader files to.
5. Customize to your hearts content

Whenever setup is ran the setup will follow the rules found in Abcpy.ini which AEIT 
just modified for you.
If you select it in AEIT the installation will run nice and silent, except for the 
short InstallShield screen that loads the setup.  That can probably be hidden with an 
InstallShield switch.

I was upset that this "Enterprise Tool" couldn't customize more.  It does not give you 
the large list of options that you find in the Acrobat Reader preferences screen.  I 
wanted to turn off Internet Updates, and this was the best route I could find.  I 
would have liked to be able to edit preferences and get more detailed on how updates 
are handled, but I may have to go the profile route to handle it.  

*1* You could manually edit 'abcpy.ini', it doesn't look to complicated.
While typing this post I found an EXTREMELY detailed document 
[http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/acrosdk/docs/abcpydoc.pdf] relating to the 
Acrobat Installers & 'abcpy.ini'.
If you are doing mass installs of any Acrobat Product, this is definetly worth a look.

--
Sean
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Re: [Unattended] partitioning disk

[Russell Smith]

On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 11:46 pm, Rosario Esposito wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm trying to modify the install.pl script (in \dosbin directory)
> because I would like
> to get only one question during the installation: "which percentage of
> disk space
> do you want for Windows ?".
> I added, in "ask_fdisk_cmds", something like:
>
> print "Choose percentage of disk space for Windows\n";
> my $perc = ;
> chomp($perc);
> $ret='fdisk /pri:'.$perc.',100';
>
Fdisk commands is not the way to go.  If you want windows to take up a certain 
percentage of the disk, change you config.pl to create a very small parition 
for windows installation.  Say 600-700meg.  As far as I'm aware, 2G is still 
the limit for the dos partition size.  

Somehow you need to get the size of the disk, could probably do that with some 
handy work in perl.  I wouldn't know off hand, but could be done. Then set 
ExtendOEMPartition in unattend to 
(diskpercent/100*DiskSize)-fdiskpartitionsize

> It works fine but it is not an "elegant" solution because:
> - when installation starts it asks me for the percentage of disk space
> for Windows
> - then  the disk is partitioned and the system reboots
> - when installation restarts it asks me AGAIN for the percentage of disk
> space for Windows
> - then disk is partitioned but no changing in partition table are
> detected, so the installation goes on
Above will make this problem go away, as until the disk is partitioned you 
will not be asked for the size you want windows to take up.
>
> Unfortuately I'm not a good perl programmer so, any "fast" solution to
> specify the percentage only
> ONCE during the installation would be very appriciated.

Hope this helps a little.

Russell Smith


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RE: [Unattended] Customize the boot image file

[kevin]

Wow!

It's that sort of simplicity that makes me envy you guys who already
understand Linux!

I'm stuck with windows at the moment (I'm learning honest) and I was going
to suggest write the image to a floppy, make the changes, re-image the
floppy with rawwrite or winrawrite.

Your answer just feels so much more right though

Regards

Kevin Lawry

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Russell
Smith
Sent: 10 June 2003 01:19
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Unattended] Customize the boot image file


On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 07:42 am, Teresa Jeremy wrote:
> How can I customize/modify the undis3c.img boot image file used during a
> PXE boot?  I want to change the default username and password plus the
> servername.

mount the disk image.

mount undis3c.img /mnt/floppy

make changes like you would on the floppy, edit autoexec.bat and the like.

umount /mnt/floppy

you altered disk is ready.

Russell Smith



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Re: [Unattended] Unattended and Vmware workstation v.4

[Stephan Borg]

On Sun, 2003-06-15 at 07:54, Patrick J. LoPresti wrote:
> "Scott Card" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > Pat, Have you thought any more about re-architecting using a linux
> > base?  I sure haven't had any time to look into it.  That might be a
> > fun project during a well deserved vacation :).
> 
> I have thought about it a little.  What I need most is an existing
> (minimal) diskless Linux system which I can steal and modify.

Sorry, I think I missed the original email of this thread. Are we
talking  about trying to implement a Linux desktop Unattend build?

-- 

Stephan Borg
LinuxSOE Pty Ltd - Linux System Integration
Phone/Fax: (02) 4754 5036
Mobile: 0402 789 788
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://www.linuxsoe.com

Re: [Unattended] Unattended and Vmware workstation v.4

[Rosario Esposito]

Patrick J. LoPresti wrote

I have thought about it a little.  What I need most is an existing
(minimal) diskless Linux system which I can steal and modify.
Desiderata include:
 1) Open source (obviously)

 2) Actively maintained

 3) Support for booting from floppy, CD, and network

 4) Lots of network and disk drivers, with automatic hardware
detection
 5) Easy to glom my own stuff onto; i.e., allowing customization with
minimal changes to the files as shipped
Actually, RedHat's installation disks fit the bill except for that
last item.  Still, I will examine them sometime to see how hard they
would be to customize.
Does anyone know of a system which has most or all of these features?
I most especially want somebody else to worry about the drivers.
- Pat

Hi,
have a look at:
http://lwn.net/Distributions/
There are listed all the existing minimalistic/diskless Linux distributions.
Hope it helps...

Ciao,

Rosario





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Re: [Unattended] boot cds/floppies

[Edward Tak]

Well... netboot is my next step.   I do not see any problem
getting that to work.  

Currently the the floppy and the .iso build is a "single source"
I just separated it out to make it easier to work with.
In fact, just expand the two build environment to a single 
directory and you can build the floppy and the .iso from the 
same directory.

edward


On 04 Jul 2003 00:08:22 -0400, "Patrick J. LoPresti" wrote:

> 
> One of our users (Edward Tak) has already done the legwork to get this
> going.  See:
> 
> http://www.meanpenguin.com/ws-spi/unattend/
> 
> I have no objections to this approach, but it needs to be integrated
> properly.  That means preserving the "single source" for producing the
> floppies, ISO images, and netboot image.  And I am working on other
> things right now, like automating the TXTSETUP.OEM stuff.
> 
> I do wonder if this approach would solve the "floppyless laptop"
> problem.  Hm.
> 
> New release this weekend, probably.
> 
>  - Pat
> 
> Fidel Gutierrez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > Just an idea. When it comes to booting why not cooperate with
> > http://nu2.nu/ 
> > 
> > It is modular and it works like a charm both for static and DHCP.
> > 
> > You can create profiles, support several NICs in one floppy and when it
> > comes to bootable cd's options are unlimited.
> > 
> > Just a thought.
> 
> 
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[Unattended] Quicktime Install - any clues

[Administrator]

I am trying to build a package for quicktime, has anyone succeded in doing this other 
than with an autoit type script?


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[Unattended] Booting the unattended CD on a diskless laptop

[Soeren Kuklau]

Hi,

we've received a set of 16 new (equally set-up) laptops which have more 
modern interfaces like USB 2 and FireWire; at the same time, they no 
longer have a disk drive.

I've tried to boot the unattended ISO image from their built-in CD 
drive. I get to the disk image selection point without trouble; after 
selecting one, it is loaded and the typical debug info is shown. 
However, it doesn't reach beyond the "Loading boot sector" point: a 
typical "Please insert a bootable disk" message from the BIOS appears 
when trying to boot off the image. I figure this is because the laptop 
contains no disk drives (thus, the BIOS probably contains no drivers 
for them either). However, I can boot off the Windows 98 Second Edition 
CD (which I believe also does floppy emulation) just fine, so is this 
possibly an ISOLINUX bug which might be fixed by now?

If not, I can only get around it by booting off the network, right? :-/

--
Sören 'Chucker' Kuklau

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[Unattended] Disable Keyboard & Mouse

[Administrator]

Does anyone have a good way to disable the keyboard & mouse whilst an installation is 
underway, I need to stop my users interferring whilst their machine is building.

I have tried with an autoit script that uses the internal command to lock out the 
keyboard etc, but it 'pinches' the odd keystroke being sent by other scripts causing 
them to fail.

Any ideas most welcome

Kevin Lawry


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Re: [Unattended] Unattended 2.6 released

[Russell Smith]

Hi All,

> Eliminate [_meta]/ipaddr and [_meta]/macaddr, since they seem to
> create more problems than they solve.

Thankfully they are only commented out at this point in time.  The mac address 
is one of the most helpful peices of information available when doing network 
installs.  It allows automation of everything :)

I'm not sure I understand the exact problem it causes.  I see that it would be 
a problem with cd boot images when a: may not exist.

So just wondering what about having the mac address is "create more problems 
than they solve". :)

What sort of solution are we looking for to get this write?  Am I writing a 
little dos app the get the mac address that doesn't break?


Russell

PS.  Sorry for my long absence.  Busy, busy.  Hopefully I'll actually get to 
doing something now. :)



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RE: [Unattended] Using unattend for Windows 2000 Server

[James Barlow]

Someone with a bit of perl knowledge pointed me toward the correct
place:

We've added a directory in the Z: drive called "2ksvrsp3", and modified
the 
sub full_os_name ($) function in install.pl to include an extra elsif
case.

elsif ($stem eq '2ksvr') {
$ret = 'Windows 2000 Server';
}

James Barlow

-Original Message-
From: James Barlow 

We're using unattend for installing Windows XP on our internal systems
(very successfully I might add). I've also been experimenting with using
it for Windows 2000 Server installs - I've knocked something together,
but there are a few fiddly bits which are causing me problems.
 
We are using separate server shares for the Internal Windows XP install
set Windows 2000 Server install set, and use the pxeboot menu to launch
a different boot image hardcoded with the Z: drive mapping depending on
whether we're doing an XP build or a server build. I've been mucking
about with the full_os_name() function to try and get it to output
"Windows 2000 Server" in the list of available systems if it sees a
directory called "2ksvrsp3" in the Z: drive, but I'm not having much
luck (primarily because what I know about Perl could be written on the
back of a matchbox).

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Re: [Unattended] network drivers

[Teresa Jeremy]

I've have found that if you are using a client PC with PXE  code V2.0 or earlier, the 
3Com universal NDIS driver might lock-up.  According to the folks at Argon Technolgy ( 
formerly Lanworks) http:/www.argontechnology.com, if you encounter this problem you 
any of the following:

1. Update your PXE code to the latest version - 2.01 or higher

OR

2. Try using the Intel universal NDIS driver instead.

There is no update to 3Com universal NDIS at the present time.

--

- Original Message -

DATE: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 19:49:20 
From: Brad Erdman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: 

>Hi,
>Today I decided to update my install server to the latest version of
>unattended.  I was very happy to see that support for the Mass storage stuff
>was included.  Good job.
>
>Now on to why I am writing.  I use the universal network card driver for my
>installs because I support so many different models of PC's.  However, on
>some systems the network seems to hang, while at other times it does not.  I
>took a look at the dates on the drivers and see that some have been updated
>while others have not.
>
>Where can I get download the undis3c driver from?  I would like to see if
>has been updated at all.
>
>Thanks
>Brad
>
>
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[Unattended] Hiding passwords

[Dag Nummedal]

Rosario Esposito writes:
> Hello,
> when the install.pl script prompts for admin passwords they are 
> displayed on the screen.
> How could I mask/hide the password on the screen with "*" charecter ?
> If the script would be running under Unix I would write something like:
> 
> system("sty -echo");
> 
> system("stty echo");
> 
> But unfortunately install.pl is running under DOS :-(

If you have a compiler for DOS you could write a small program that reads the
password, and writes it to a file where perl can get it.

Personally I use floppies for install, and set a variable in autoexec.bat.
This means I have to guard the floppies more.

If you join the computer to a domain, you could simply disable the local admin
account as the last step of the install.  That way the password could only be
abused during the install.  If you do that, you might also let install.pl
generate a random password, instead of entering it at the console.

-- 
Dag Nummedal ([EMAIL PROTECTED])


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[Unattended] Package management, bigger idea

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

"Patrick J. LoPresti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Modify install.pl to list all of the files under z:\bundles, and let
> you select any number of them to install.

The problem with letting you select multiple bundles is that they can
overlap; for example, both bundles might include the basic hotfixes or
core applications.  Those hotfixes/applications would be installed
twice.

There is more than one way to handle this.

One idea would be to display only atoms, not bundles, in the selection
list given by install.pl.  (I believe this is roughly what Nils had in
mind.)  This would be very simple, although it would require that the
atoms be pretty "fat", since you would not want too many of them.

A more radical idea is to have todo.pl remember which atoms it has
already installed to avoid ever installing them again.  This would
allow an interesting, but fundamental, redesign of todo.pl.

Instead of maintaining an ever-changing stack of directives, todo.pl
could read a FIXED list of atoms.  The todo.txt file would simply
designate all of the atoms which "should" be installed on the machine.
The todo.pl script would compare that list to the atoms which were
already installed, and it would launch the installation script for
anything missing.

This is interesting because it would allow the use of todo.pl for
future maintenance as well as initial installation.  All you would
have to do is modify the list of atoms in todo.txt and arrange for
todo.pl to run.  You could even run todo.pl regularly to keep the
machine in sync with its desired configuration.  (Hm, OpenSMS?)

I would envision allowing bundles to be named in todo.txt as well.  By
updating the contents of the bundle (which lives on the network), you
would automatically update the machines when they next ran todo.pl.

This is such a different design that "todo.pl" would become a bad name
for it...  This is starting to look like a package management system.
How about "Poor Man's Package Management" (pmpm.pl)?  Or should that
be "Poor Person's Package Management"?  Or maybe "Trivial Package
Management"?

I have other ideas for ensuring the atoms get installed in the right
order, and letting "bundles" be programs (e.g., to pick the right
hotfixes for the operating system), but this message is already long
enough.

What do you folks think?

 - Pat


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Re: [Unattended] Unattended and Vmware workstation v.4

[Teresa Jeremy]

I have played around with diskless Linux, the Linux Terminal Server Project 
(www.ltsp.org) and RH Kickstart.
I wish that I knew enough about the linuxrc - the Linux equivalent the autoexec.bat to 
script Windows based OS deployment.

DOS is far too limited to fully automate a Windows OS deployment.For instance, it 
would be nice to partition the drive then proceed to formatting it without having to 
reboot. Linux does this quite well.  I'm presently looking at Windows PE as 
alternative to DOS; however, using Linux to script a Windows OS installation would be 
awesome.



 
--

- Original Message -

DATE: 14 Jun 2003 19:45:22 -040
From: "Patrick J. LoPresti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Stephan Borg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Scott Card <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,[EMAIL PROTECTED]

>Stephan Borg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> Sorry, I think I missed the original email of this thread.  Are we
>> talking about trying to implement a Linux desktop Unattend build?
>
>For that I use RedHat's kickstart mechanism.  It has fairly
>easy-to-use support for post-installation scripts, which you can use
>to customize it to your heart's content.
>
>We are talking here about using a diskless Linux system, instead of
>DOS, to initiate the Windows installation.  Our current DOS-based boot
>disk has problems with some BIOSes, network cards (especially gigabit
>ethernet), and VMware.
>
> - Pat
>
>
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R: [Unattended] (no subject)

[Michelangelo Bottura]

I'm modifiyng postinst.bat in the boot phase with the pico editor :

Net use z: \\firelight\install2 /user:Guest "password" /persistent:yes

This maps seamlessy my network drive but introduces problem in executing
todo.pl as stated in my first post. (i.e. .reboot directive not undestood --
i do not have errror statement ready, anyway it complins about leading dot.
Not modifying hte scripts does not introduce the error.)
I tried working without password but the problem still remains : network
drive not mapped (asks for manual input of password then goes on but todo.pl
does not get into run section)

Do you use 2.5b, with cdrom boot and latest modified files from soundforge
archives?

Thanls again for your help

-Messaggio originale-
Da: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Per conto di Adam
Ackermann
Inviato: mercoledì 11 giugno 2003 3.59
A: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Oggetto: Fwd: [Unattended] (no subject)


If you are using a password on the account used to map to the 
sharepoint, you need to modify the Perl program that generates the 
postinst.bat to include that information.  Not doing that will produce your 
other symptoms of not executing after reboots since the z: drive is 
mapped, but not authenticated.

I have modified my setup to also generate a "restart.bat" file in the 
c:\netinst directory that re-established the z: drive mapping with a proper 
password and then kicks off todo.pl again.  If you want to keep a 
password on the account, you have some limited options in this 
department.

Adam Ackermann
MCDBA, MCSE, CCNA, LCP
Information Systems, Advocate Medical Group


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[Unattended] Perl installation

[Gowans Robert M]

Hi,

I'm trying to do a minimal install of ActiveState Perl on Windows 2000 by
using the ADD_LOCAL=PERL_FEATURE msiexec command line switch (see
http://aspn.activestate.com//ASPN/Products/ActivePerl/install.html#windows%2
0installers).  However, I still get all the html documentation (14MB of it).
This my command line:

msiexec /qb /i x:\packages\ActivePerl-5.8.0.806-MSWin32-x86.msi
PERL_PATH=Yes PERL_EXT=Yes ADDLOCAL="PERL_FEATURE"

Any ideas on how I can trim down the install?

Cheers

Rob



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[Unattended] Error checking in todo.pl

[Dag Nummedal]

Mark writes:
> Just a few suggestions/comments
> 
> How about todo.pl logging errors instead of bailing on unexpected error
> conditions (unless it's fatal, of course). Maybe a switch to set it?

I prefer the default of halting.  This allows me to fix the problem, and
manually restart todo, to install the rest of the programs.  If the problem is
with the installation files, I can fix the installation, so it won't happen
again.  If it's just a network glitch I can get the installation going again.

If the installation just continues, and you install a lot of programs, there's
a good chance of dependency failures, meaning a total reinstall is necessary.
Also you HAVE to check the log after an install, or risk giving one of your
users an unworkable machine.


> Do we really need the Z:\ drive at all? Is there any reason we can't use
> a UNC path for everything?

Yes. There are programs that won't install from UNC drives.  Also
using z: allows you to have several different install servers, mapping to the
one with least load at boot time, or using a subst and installing off a DVD
drive instead.

Also, some of the install programs need to be told where you're installing
from.  This will also give you problems.


> What do you think about todo.pl being set up to take 2 additional
> variables (Package_Name, Package_Ver) and then adding those to a CSV
> file so we know what's on each PC? It could also be a first step towards
> a "post setup" program to parse and compare to a master CSV or database
> for automatic installs or upgrades (similar to the INI approach used by
> someone else earlier on the list). I'm currently doing it thru the
> install batch files, but it would probably be cleaner if it was done
> thru todo.pl.

Just having a log of all executed commands on the disk would be a good step
forwards.  What I'd really like is to generate a MD5sum of all files on the
local harddrive after the install.  I could then use this database to find
what applications were installed, wether any files were corrupt and also be
able to estimate the 'drift' of each PC as they are used, by regularly
recomputing the checksums.

-- 
Dag Nummedal ([EMAIL PROTECTED])


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RE: [Unattended] double messages

[kevin]

Not here

Kevin
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Fidel
Gutierrez
Sent: 02 July 2003 21:49
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Unattended] double messages


I am getting duplicate e-mails every message that goes to the list.  Is
anyone else experiencing that?



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RE: [Unattended] Books on Perl

[Michael Kahle]

Here is a generic answer, but I love the book Programming Perl.  Written by
Wall, it is the best source for Perl programming.  I also own Learning Perl
(also O'Reilly) which is a good place to start.

I think the best way to learn any language is to just figure out something
to do and the discover how to do it.  Just get your hands dirty.  I program
Perl and Java proficiently, and I have written hacks in C & C++.  In all of
the cases when I came in contact with the language I had a specific goal in
mind and set out to discover what modules or libraries or objects (whatever)
that I needed to do the job.

Write some code, write some more code, fix the code, break the code, fix
again, etc.  I have always hated the "Tutorial" style books that try and
teach you to be a master coder in 30 minutes, etc.  These always fall short
in my opinion.

Hope that helps.

Michael

-Original Message-
From: Teresa Jeremy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 8:42 PM
To: Unattended List
Subject: [Unattended] Books on Perl


Can anyone suggest any good books on Perl?
Suggestions on other Perl resources are also welcomed?

Thx
TJ



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[Unattended] Using unattend for Windows 2000 Server

[James Barlow]

We're using unattend for installing Windows XP on our internal systems
(very successfully I might add). I've also been experimenting with using
it for Windows 2000 Server installs - I've knocked something together,
but there are a few fiddly bits which are causing me problems.
 
We are using separate server shares for the Internal Windows XP install
set Windows 2000 Server install set, and use the pxeboot menu to launch
a different boot image hardcoded with the Z: drive mapping depending on
whether we're doing an XP build or a server build. I've been mucking
about with the full_os_name() function to try and get it to output
"Windows 2000 Server" in the list of available systems if it sees a
directory called "2ksvrsp3" in the Z: drive, but I'm not having much
luck (primarily because what I know about Perl could be written on the
back of a matchbox).
 
Anyone got any ideas on how to do this?
 
 
James Barlow
TRL  [Electronics, not MTV]
 

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Re: R: [Unattended] Automatic Cleaning up

[Wolfgang Borst]

On Wed, 2003-06-04 at 13:55, Michelangelo Bottura wrote:
> Generally speaking, most security hazards do not come from inside users
> (please do not flame after this statement :)) - as you said "most users are
> not skilled enough to even know what 'perl' is.". Imho it could be dangerous
> to have a perl interpreter inside a nt-like machine since you are offering a
> development platform to an intruder - which an inexeperienced user is more
> likely to "let in". Moreover, I think as a rule of thumb that development
> tools go on developers machines and so on as to reduce the "enthropy" which
> characterizes windows machines

for people like me even notepad is a development platform ;) so this
should be restricted too. oh yes .. and remove internet explorer as it
is an even nicer development platform ;> not to forget word with its
wordbasic (no .. what's it called ? visual basic for word or something
like that?) .. uhm .. WindowsScriptingHost is dangerous too ..
i could go on like that endlessly :)

wolfgang
-- 
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[Unattended] partitioning disk

[Rosario Esposito]

Hello,
I'm trying to modify the install.pl script (in \dosbin directory) 
because I would like
to get only one question during the installation: "which percentage of 
disk space
do you want for Windows ?".
I added, in "ask_fdisk_cmds", something like:

print "Choose percentage of disk space for Windows\n";
my $perc = ;
chomp($perc);
$ret='fdisk /pri:'.$perc.',100';
It works fine but it is not an "elegant" solution because:
- when installation starts it asks me for the percentage of disk space 
for Windows
- then  the disk is partitioned and the system reboots
- when installation restarts it asks me AGAIN for the percentage of disk 
space for Windows
- then disk is partitioned but no changing in partition table are 
detected, so the installation goes on

Unfortuately I'm not a good perl programmer so, any "fast" solution to 
specify the percentage only
ONCE during the installation would be very appriciated.

Regards,
Rosario Esposito


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[Unattended] Customize the boot image file

[Teresa Jeremy]

How can I customize/modify the undis3c.img boot image file used during a PXE boot?  I 
want to change the default username and password plus the servername.

Thanks,
Teresa



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[Unattended] (no subject)

[Michelangelo Bottura]

Hi all.
I'm getting some problems in the unattended system, maybe some of you did
resolve them in the past. I did not find trace of them in the mailing list
recent archives.
- after first reboot the command todo.pl --go is not executed - i.e. all
goes on ok as it should if i type it in by hand at the command prompt. The
same is true for each and every subsequent reboot until the task list si
empty. I'm using v 2.5b and xpsp1, both cd rom and floppy boot.


And also an annoyance
- modifiyng by hand with pico the file postinstall.bat to provide the net
use command with username & password for reconnecting the network share
breaks the script: it seems to me the cause is the unix end of line (f.i.
todo.pl, upon execution, does not recognize .reboot directive) but i'm not
so confident. Modifiyng that file during installation is often very useful.
I was wondering if someone else is experiencing the same behavior

I must admit that my perl knowledge is nigh zero, so any help would be
appreciated
TIA fyh

Michelangelo Bottura
Sistemi Informatici
Dip. di Psicologia
Univ. di Bologna




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R: [Unattended] Re:

[Michelangelo Bottura]

-Messaggio originale-
Da: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Per conto di Russell
Smith
Inviato: mercoledì 11 giugno 2003 1.38
A: Michelangelo Bottura; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Oggetto: [Unattended] Re:


>Are these machines joining a domain?
>Does the postinst.bat run?
Yep they are joining a domain, but also tried standalone machines. 

>I recently discovered that my domain policy didn't allow runonce, which
means 
>that postinst.bat would not run.
>If you are on a domain, check the computer policy to ensure run and runonce

>are allowed :)
No domain policy at all
>If they are indepenant machines, it's debug time :(  fire up the registry 
>editor and see if you can find todo.pl in the Run Section.  if not, we are
in 
>problems.  If so.  you need to find out why it's not running the things in 
>the run sections.
Yes this is the problem (launching todo.pl --go by hand does the job), and
i'm investigating  But i'm wandering, a *.bat file with unix endofline
executed under nt-like machines runs correctly (see rest of my precedent
post)... 
Thank for your help
Michelangelo





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Re: [Unattended] Unattended and Vmware workstation v.4

[Teresa Jeremy]

Wolfgang, this sounds cool!  I'm very familiar with diskless RH/Mandake Linux network 
booting having worked with the Linux Terminal Server Project (http://www.ltsp.org) for 
a  few months now.  However, I have never tried the Debian distro.

I would be very interested in seeing your cron scripts so that I can try this method 
using Red Hat 9.0.

Thanx
TJ




--

- Original Message -

DATE: 16 Jun 2003 14:18:00 +020
From: Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: 

>hello everyone ..
>
>i use a diskless debian linux to do the unattended installations here.
>setting up such a system is not complicated but you will need a few
>daemons to be installed on your server(s).
>
>how it works
>
>linux is booted via etherboot [http://www.etherboot.org/] and runs
>completely off the network. after system bootup a cron job is started
>every minute to get the current machine ready to install windows xp. i
>use a cron job because the script checks if it is allowed to install
>etc.
>if the script is permitted to install, it will do the following things:
>
>- partition the hardisk [parted
>http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/parted.html]
>- creating fat32 fileystems [parted]
>- make the machine bootable (using w98/command.com)[ms-sys
>http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/ms-sys.html]
>- copy the files
>- customize unattend.txt
>
>after that the machine is rebootet, starts the w98/command.com and
>starts the windows xp setup.
>
>tech
>
>on a server the following daemons are needed:
>
>- dhcpd for the ip addresses
>- tftpd for booting via network (fetching the kernel)
>- nfsd provides the client with nfs-root-fs etc.
>- mysqld stores informations about the clients (mac-address, is the
>machine to be installed ..), about the software(which installscript is
>used for software xyz, which software is part of the group 'base
>installation' ).
>
>the kernel for the clients is fetched via tftp then the root-fileystem
>is mounted via nfs. instead of being limited to a 1.44m floppy this
>diskless linux is a full blown linux with all the nice tools (like a
>sshd server running on it). currently the installation is 190M + 2M per
>diskless client (so for a whole subnet one would need ~700M).
>
>maybe i'm allowed to release this project in the near future.
>
>wolfgang
>-- 
>Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> GPG/PGP key 4107B17B
>



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[Unattended] Patch32 (Old patch/update project written in Perl)

[Intrepid One]

Gerald Carter (Member of the Samba Team, technical author, Admin for Auburn University 
- College of Engineering, etc...) wrote a little bit of code named Patch32.  He wrote 
it back in the Windows 95 and NT days.  It is simply used to deploy patches/updates, 
and to verify those patches/updates.  I thought it may be of some interest to people 
on this list and those working on 'unattended'.

"
Patch32 is a system for deploying OS updates to client machines from a central 
location without human intervention.  The system allows for updates to be placed on a 
central SMB file server which clients will check upon the execution of the patch32 
script.   The patch32 script is written in Perl which is available for Win32 platforms 
from ActiveState Technologies.
"

Author's Page:
http://www.plainjoe.org/patch32/

USENIX - LISA-NT98 Conference (contains link to PDF version of article):
http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/lisa-nt98/carter.html
*LISA-NT = Large Installation System Administration of Windows NT/2000

Remember this is an old application so there may be some dead links on those pages.

--
Sean
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[Unattended] Making AutoIt Simple

[Russell Smith]

reat Place to find yourself AutoIt tools to make live with autoit a lot easier 
:)

AutoItScriptWriter Saves me a lot of time.  I just press buttons, and it works 
out what's going on

But find it and other nice tools at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AutoItList/files/

Mean I don't have to remember ...

> the autoit help is always a good starting point concerning autoit
> commands.
>
> WinWaitClose,  [, [,]]
>

Well most of the time anyway. :)

Russell Smith



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RE: [Unattended] Requesting "mapdrive.pl" from Scott Card

[kevin]

I have now had a couple of requests for the code I use, so I will pull it
all together into something that makes a little more sense and get it posted
here (or a link to wherever I manage to post it) - I have also written a web
page that lets you select packages to install & then kicks off the
installation - that is VERY rough at the moment, but works, I will try &
post them all together.  Unfortunately though it will have to wait until
after the long weekend - most of the code is on my office machine

Regards

Kevin
<>

[Unattended] Wireless LAN drivers?

[Soeren Kuklau]

Hi again,

those 16 laptops we've received have both 10/100 ethernet as well as 
wireless LAN (802.11b). Unfortunately, their documentation does not 
make it clear what kind of chips are being used. None of the currently 
available drivers on the unattended CD work for either chip.

( The ethernet chip appears to be an SiS 900; untested driver available 
here:  )

All I could find out about the WLAN chip was that its apparent vendor 
"Broadcom". Neither does Broadcom offer drivers for their WLAN chips 
(only for ethernet NICs), nor do they list MAXDATA (the laptop vendor; 
or any other German company, for that matter) as one of their OEMs.

I've also tried to find similar WLAN chip DOS drivers. All I found was 
an MS-DOS exe program which, according to its readme, would contact an 
access point to test the connection. Do such drivers exist at all, or 
are we limited to ethernet?

--
Sören 'Chucker' Kuklau

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[Unattended] small contribution

[Rosario Esposito]

Hi,
I've written a powerpoint presentation about unattended.sf.net (in 
Italian !) as I had
to show this installation system to some collegues during a conference.
Maybe it can be useful to the community :-)

http://www.na.infn.it/ccr2003/talks/unattended-esposito.ppt

Regards

Rosario Esposito





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Re: [Unattended] Books on Perl

[Wolfgang Borst]

On Thu, 2003-06-19 at 03:42, Teresa Jeremy wrote:
> Can anyone suggest any good books on Perl?
> Suggestions on other Perl resources are also welcomed?
programming perl - http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/ ; 
perl cookbook- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlckbk2/
w!
-- 
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[Unattended] Perl Package Installs

[Adam Ackermann]

Has anyone had any luck getting Perl 5.8 packages to install as part of 
the unattended build?  I've tried it and PPM just doesn't seem to want to 
play nice.  It tends to either do nothing at all or leave a child window open 
freezing the whole build.  The exact same commands work just fine after 
the build when logged in as the local administrator.

Adam Ackermann
MCDBA, MCSE, CCNA, LCP
Information Systems, Advocate Medical Group



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e-mail (or the person responsible for delivering this document to the 
intended recipient), you are hereby notified that any dissemination, 
distribution, printing or copying of this e-mail, and any attachments 
thereto, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in 
error, please respond to the individual sending the message and notify 
our office at 630-990-5655, and permanently delete the original and any 
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RE: [Unattended] Quicktime Install - any clues

[Administrator]

Thanks,
I looked here & failed to find this.  Many thanks for your hawk like eyes

Regards

Kevin Lawry

-Original Message-
From: Andrew Clark [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 19 June 2003 15:20
To: Administrator
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Unattended] Quicktime Install - any clues


http://www.appdeploy.com/packages/detail.asp?id=123



[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> I am trying to build a package for quicktime, has anyone succeded in doing this 
> other than with an autoit type script?
> 
> 
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Re: [Unattended] Small conribution - applications

[P. Benie]

On Wed, 28 May 2003, Nils [iso-8859-1] Østbjerg wrote:

> > Run, z:\\packages\\putty\\putty-installer.exe /silent
> > WinWait, Setup, This will install PuTTY. Do you wish to continue?
> > Send, {ENTER}
>
> Why install putty ? Why not just copy it over where you want it ?

I do it so that that it appears in the list of installed applications in
the registry.

As it happens, I resently asked how to make the PuTTY installer properly
silent. Try this instead of AutoIT:
  putty-0.53b-installer.exe /sp- /silent

I also append the PuTTY directory to %PATH% so that you can use putty
and pscp from the cmd prompt:

use Win32::TieRegistry ( Delimiter=>"/", ArrayValues=>1 );
my $envkey=$Registry->{"LMachine/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/".
   "Session Manager/Environment/"};
die unless defined($envkey);
my $pathval=$envkey->{"/Path"};
my @path=split(";", ${$pathval}[0]);
push(@path, "C:\\Program Files\\Putty");
${$pathval}[0]=join(";", @path);
$envkey->{"/Path"}=$pathval;

Peter



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RE: [Unattended] .ini file syntax?

[Scott Card]

There are a bunch of good Perl modules for dealing with ini files.  You
might look at them (CPAN), not that you have to actually use them, but
their source might help.  Too bad that you have to write an ini parser
when so many already exist in perl.

Cheers,
Scott

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Patrick J. LoPresti
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 3:51 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Unattended] .ini file syntax?


While it is fresh on my mind...

Does anybody know the precise syntax of .ini files?  I mean files which
look like this:

  [Section1]
  key1 = value1 ; comment1
  key2 = value2

  [Section2]
  key3  ; no value
  key4 = "some value"
  ...


(Case in point: unattend.txt)

A formal grammar would be ideal.  I know, keep dreaming.

Meanwhile, I would like to find out:

  - Which characters are legal in section names, keys, and values?

  - When and where are quotation marks required?

  - Can you embed a quotation mark inside a key or value?  How?

  - Can you embed a close-bracket inside a section name?  What about a
semicolon?

  - Can individual key=value settings span multiple lines?  How?

I believe Windows has an API for manipulating .ini files.  It should be
straightforward to experiment by manually editing a file and then
calling the API on it.  I may do this when I find the time, but it would
be great if someone already knows the answers or could do the
experiments for me :-).

 - Pat

RE: [Unattended] Package management, bigger idea

[kevin]

Thats OK, I'm no zealot - I write stuff in VB because I can, although I am
trying to learn a bit of PHP at the moment my PERL is very weak.  I look
forward to some alternate views on my attempts

Regards

Kevin

-Original Message-
From: Patrick J. LoPresti [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 14 June 2003 22:43
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Unattended] Package management, bigger idea


Interesting!  I missed it the first time around, but I still have it
saved so I will take a look.  Thanks for the reminder.

I am bit of a Perl bigot, and I have not yet shaken the tendency to
rewrite everything in sight...  But I will certainly take a peek to look
for ideas to steal.

 - Pat

P.S.  In case it is not obvious, I have taken a renewed interest in
this project.  Russell's volunteering to help with development is a
big part of that, and Rosario's PowerPoint slides really pushed it
over the edge :-).  I hope to make some good progress over the next
couple of weeks.


[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> This is very much like I have already implemented, the 'synchronisation'
> takes place in the machine logoff script, but could be called from
anywhere,
> and a separate log of files that should be present is kept on the local
> machine - only 'atoms' - to use your terminology - that have not already
> been called are installed at next boot up.
>
> There is a full explanation of what I have done under a previous thread -
it
> got a bit off topic so it is called 'Requesting "mapdrive.pl" from Scott
> Card' - there are some limitations, uninstall is not supported unless you
> script it like a new install, and there is not enough recovery from
faults,
> if a script fails or is terminated the auto logon stays in place, but it
> does handle multiple setup profiles by using different definition files, &
> supports a crude type of versioning.  Take a look & see if it going in the
> direction you are thinking of
>
> Regards
>
> Kevin Lawry



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[Unattended] Error checking in todo.pl

[Mark]

Just a few suggestions/comments

How about todo.pl logging errors instead of bailing on unexpected error
conditions (unless it's fatal, of course). Maybe a switch to set it?

Do we really need the Z:\ drive at all? Is there any reason we can't use
a UNC path for everything?

What do you think about todo.pl being set up to take 2 additional
variables (Package_Name, Package_Ver) and then adding those to a CSV
file so we know what's on each PC? It could also be a first step towards
a "post setup" program to parse and compare to a master CSV or database
for automatic installs or upgrades (similar to the INI approach used by
someone else earlier on the list). I'm currently doing it thru the
install batch files, but it would probably be cleaner if it was done
thru todo.pl.

Let me know what you guys think on these ideas.

[EMAIL PROTECTED]










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Re: [Unattended] Unattended and Vmware workstation v.4

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

"Teresa Jeremy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> I have played around with diskless Linux, the Linux Terminal Server
> Project (www.ltsp.org) and RH Kickstart.

LTSP looks promising; thank you for the pointer.

> I wish that I knew enough about the linuxrc - the Linux equivalent
> the autoexec.bat to script Windows based OS deployment.

I have actually created a diskless Linux system from scratch.  As I
recall, the kernel runs /linuxrc if it exists, otherwise it just fires
up /sbin/init.  The /linuxrc script is primarily used by ramdisks.
The linuxrc script typically locates, mounts, or creates the root file
system, then invokes pivot_root to mount it on /, then fires off the
next stage in whatever they are doing.

All of this is the "easy" part :-).  The hard part is finding an
extensible, well-maintained diskless Linux distro with a rich set of
drivers.  I do not have the luxury of just supporting the hardware
which I personally happen to have.

This is the big advantage of the DOS boot disk combined with PXE
booting:  No drivers.

> DOS is far too limited to fully automate a Windows OS deployment.
> For instance, it would be nice to partition the drive then proceed
> to formatting it without having to reboot. Linux does this quite
> well.

Absolutely.  That is the Plan.

> I'm presently looking at Windows PE as alternative to DOS; however,
> using Linux to script a Windows OS installation would be awesome.

Windows PE is certainly the most "Microsofty" approach.  And it has
the advantage of creating and writing NTFS partitions directly.  But
WinPE also costs money, which is somewhat contrary to the spirit of
this project.

---

Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> if the script is permitted to install, it will do the following things:
> 
> - partition the hardisk [parted
> http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/parted.html]
> - creating fat32 fileystems [parted]

Parted is awesome.  And the maintainer (Andrew Clausen) is very smart
and very responsive.

> - make the machine bootable (using w98/command.com)[ms-sys
> http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/ms-sys.html]

Aren't there licensing issues with w98/command.com?

I would really, really like to use FreeDOS instead.  Too bad winnt.exe
doesn't like it.  (By the way, would anybody like to volunteer to help
me fix this?  Requirements are that you know how to compile things,
that you know or can learn how to use CVS, and that you are willing to
go through a tedious cycle searching for the FreeDOS kernel patch
which broke things.)

> - copy the files
> - customize unattend.txt
> 
> after that the machine is rebootet, starts the w98/command.com and
> starts the windows xp setup.

I am planning to run winnt.exe under dosemu instead, to avoid the
extra file copy and to avoid ever actually booting into DOS.  Other
than that, however, my approach will be similar.

> - mysqld stores informations about the clients (mac-address, is the
> machine to be installed ..), about the software(which installscript is
> used for software xyz, which software is part of the group 'base
> installation' ).

I hope to make the system extensible enough to permit this, but I
doubt I will include it by default.  We want people to be able to
start using the system as quickly as possible.

> the kernel for the clients is fetched via tftp then the
> root-fileystem is mounted via nfs.

I plan to allow either SMB or NFS (or HTTP?), defaulting to SMB.
Windows users do not want to set up an NFS server.

> maybe i'm allowed to release this project in the near future.

Thank you for sending the master script.

Italian PowerPoint slides, German Perl scripts, Australian
co-developers...  The Internet sure is cool.

 - Pat


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RE: [Unattended] Trying to skip questions

[Jason Brady]

I wasn't requesting help, just trying to report a bug. However, how did you
fix it? Did you edit install.pl? or did you find an entry that works?

Jason

 -Original Message-
From:   Norström, Daniel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Friday, April 11, 2003 12:41 AM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject:RE: [Unattended] Trying to skip questions

Have you got some help with this yet? I have been througt the same thing, I
think I can help you easily

/D

-Original Message-
From: Jason Brady [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 2. huhtikuuta 2003 22:28
To: 'Patrick J. LoPresti'
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Unattended] Trying to skip questions


Patrick,

I was trying to use the unattend.txt in the site directory to skip the
question about local_admins by adding local_admins="" to the meta section.
Install.pl accepts this just fine, but it writes local_admins= , without the
empty string, to the final unattend.txt. Winnt.exe complains that this is a
bad format. If you manually add the empty string back, it works. Might want
to get this fixed.

Jason

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]  On Behalf Of Patrick
J. LoPresti
Sent:   Sunday, March 09, 2003 2:33 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[Unattended] Unattended 2.5 released

The big new feature in this release is the automatic construction of
[Unattended]/OemPnPDriversPath.  The install.pl script now recursively
grovels the directories under win/i386/$oem$/$1 looking for anything
which looks like a driver directory, and offers to add it to
OemPnPDriversPath.  I decided to implement this because I have been
switching between Win2k and WinXP installs a lot lately.  To see this
feature in action, simply remove OemPnPDriversPath entirely from your
site/unattend.txt file.

I wrote the new code using Perl's File::Spec module, which means it is
pretty much portable between DJGPP and Unix Perl.  This is just in case I
ever get sufficiently tired of banging my head against DOS that I try to
port this thing to a Linux boot disk.  (Just today, I lost most of the
afternoon futzing around with DOS memory issues...  More on that in another
message.)

This release also adds the oft-requested support for the RealTek RTL8139
chipset.  I do not have one of these gadgets, so if you do, please test it
out and let me know how it goes.

Finally, I switched from FreeDOS edit.exe to DJGPP Pico as the default
editor.  That means you will need to download Pico along with the other
DJGPP packages; see the DJGPP section in os.html for the relevant link.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this release is the stuff which it does
NOT have, including some bugs which I promised to fix.  Sorry about that;
they will have to wait for next time.

 - Pat

*** Changes in version 2.5 (2003-Mar-09)

Use DJGPP Pico instead of FreeDOS edit.exe to edit files.  Document this new
requirement.

Automatically scan i386/$oem$/$1 looking for driver directories. Offer to
add any such directories to OemPnPDriversPath.

Always use upper-case for driver name in system.ini, since PCNet driver
requires it.

Add support for RealTek RTL8139 cards (untested).  Thanks to Eugene
Kotlyarov for the pointer.

Deal with annoying ipconfig.exe behavior, where it exits with various
statuses from 10 to 16.

When fdisk is run by hand, do not clobber partition table first and do not
replace first partition with 2G FAT partition afterwards.  In other words,
assume anybody running fdisk manually knows exactly what they are doing.

Do not create postinst.bat unless it has something to do, and do not set
AutoLogon nor [GuiRunOnce]/Command0 unless we create postinst.bat.

Clean up various documentation.

Sync with SYSLINUX 2.02.

Sync with FreeDOS fdisk 1.1.4 beta.


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Re: [Unattended] Booting the unattended CD on a diskless laptop

[Soeren Kuklau]

On Donnerstag, Juli 3, 2003, at 09:22  Uhr, Patrick J. LoPresti wrote:

[Is] this possibly an ISOLINUX
bug which might be fixed by now?

It is actually a memdisk issue, and it persists even in the latest
prerelease (2.05-pre2); I checked.
memdisk is a tool that loads images into memory and emulates them as 
volumes, I presume?

If not, I can only get around it by booting off the network, right?
:-/

Unfortunately, the network boots also use memdisk :-(.  I got around
this by removing the DVD-ROM from the laptop's bay and putting in a
floppy drive instead.  Then I was able to boot from the network just
fine.
Well, these models don't have a bay - the optical drive is fixed.

If not, do you have a USB floppy drive which you can connect?
We have one of those "SuperDisk" USB drives which also mount floppies 
(I never worked with them though). Whether the BIOS accepts those as 
floppy, though, is another question.

Solving this long-term may require more drastic measures.  memdisk can
emulate a hard drive instead of a floppy, and I suspect that would
work here.  The only problem is that it will take up a drive letter
(presumably C:),
Is memdisk an open-source project, or is it an old tool from Microsoft? 
If the former, surely there's a way to use Y: or something instead?

Or maybe it could emulate another CD?

--
Sören 'Chucker' Kuklau

RE: [Unattended] Automatic Cleaning up

["Norström, Daniel"]

Why is quite simple, the company I work for believes that it is a security
risk to have the Perl left in the "image".

The field support will add all the other applications to the initial release
if needed...

I'm personally against this but... What could you do, I'm just a machine for
them...

I love the tool and all the possibilities and it would be such a time saver
for me just to leave it as it is.

What I think I have to do until I'll find something out is to in the end
copy a shortcut to a Auto It file to the desktop, make that one to uninstall
and delete what is needed and make that one to delete the shortcut it self
and start sysprep.

But this is not the nice looking feature as it should be..
/D


-Original Message-
From: Wolfgang Borst [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: den 4 juni 2003 13:42
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Unattended] Automatic Cleaning up


On Wed, 2003-06-04 at 12:20, "Norström, Daniel" wrote:
> Since I'm syspreping my machines after I've done the unattended 
> installation I want to get rid of the ActivePerl and the folders used 
> when building the image.

> Any suggestions of how to clean up by automatic scripting?? How are 
> you other guys doing??
now this is a weird idea - why would one want to uninstall this great tool
?! 
anyway .. if you used the msi-installer for perl you may use it to uninstall
it by running 'msiexec /x perl-xxx.msi /qb-'.

on the other hand you might use a batch to do 'rm -r c:/perldir/' and later
removing the related registry-keys etc. 

wolfgang
-- 
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RE: [Unattended] Automatic Cleaning up

[Wolfgang Borst]

On Wed, 2003-06-04 at 12:56, "Norström, Daniel" wrote:
> Why is quite simple, the company I work for believes that it is a security
> risk to have the Perl left in the "image".
most users are not skilled enough to even know what 'perl' is. so this
security hazard is minimal. and the ones skilled enough to do 'bad
things' with perl will be able to use batch files or .. download perl,
install it in their home-directories/tempdir/.. and run their evil code
;>

maybe you should talk to some people and convince them that leaving perl
installed is worth the enormous 'danger' :)

> But this is not the nice looking feature as it should be..
not at all.
wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang Borst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> GPG/PGP key 4107B17B


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[Unattended] Re: Error when to many INF files found in selection mode

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

"Norström, Daniel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Hi Pat
> 
> I get error when I have to many inf files in the $OEM$\$1 folder,
> what is the current maximum allowed? Can you or I change this value?

The limit you are seeing is in the menu presenting the choices.  It is
probably 12 or 13 .inf files, since the menu itself is limited to 15
options (1-9, A-F).

I suppose I should rewrite the code to support sub-menus when there
are lots of .inf files.  But for now, your best bet is just to
override my code.

The easy way to do this is to edit z:\site\unattend.txt and give a
fixed value for [Unattended]/OemPnPDriversPath.

The hard way is to edit z:\site\config.pl and call

  set_value ('Unattended', 'OemPnPDriversPath', \&my_proc);

...where my_proc is a function which you define earlier in config.pl.
It should take no arguments, and it should return the value for
OemPnPDriversPath.  (If you read install.pl, you will see a similar
call to set_value which registers MY function for computing
OemPnPDriversPath.  By calling set_value in z:\site\config.pl, you
will override my version with your own.)

Note that the length of OemPnPDriversPath is limited by Windows, but
it is a little hard to say what that limit is.  Depending on which
version of Windows you are using, and which reference you believe, it
might be 99, 255, 256, 1023...

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=276278
http://www.ntfaq.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=25092

In general, you want to keep it short :-).

 - Pat


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RE: [Unattended] boot cds/floppies

[Brad Erdman]

I was also thinking this was a good idea.

However, This needs to be compared to the idea of moving to a Linux install
image.

just my 2 cents

Brad

> -Original Message-
> From: Fidel Gutierrez [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 4:01 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [Unattended] boot cds/floppies
> 
> 
> Just an idea. When it comes to booting why not cooperate with
> http://nu2.nu/ 
> 
> It is modular and it works like a charm both for static and DHCP.
> 
> You can create profiles, support several NICs in one floppy 
> and when it
> comes to bootable cd's options are unlimited.
> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Unattended] Unattended and Vmware workstation v.4

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

"Scott Card" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Pat, Have you thought any more about re-architecting using a linux
> base?  I sure haven't had any time to look into it.  That might be a
> fun project during a well deserved vacation :).

I have thought about it a little.  What I need most is an existing
(minimal) diskless Linux system which I can steal and modify.
Desiderata include:

  1) Open source (obviously)

  2) Actively maintained

  3) Support for booting from floppy, CD, and network

  4) Lots of network and disk drivers, with automatic hardware
 detection

  5) Easy to glom my own stuff onto; i.e., allowing customization with
 minimal changes to the files as shipped

Actually, RedHat's installation disks fit the bill except for that
last item.  Still, I will examine them sometime to see how hard they
would be to customize.

Does anyone know of a system which has most or all of these features?
I most especially want somebody else to worry about the drivers.

 - Pat


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