Hey all,
Here's a disk that I am hoping some of you might find useful. It is a hybrid that I made from a NT server Network Installation Startup Disk and one that I found on bootdisk.com. The company I work for currently uses it to image all the workstations we use (around 7000 machines.) It has been in production with very few changes for over 2 years. Right now, it has 4 different network drivers on the same disk that cover at least 12 different models of laptops and desktops, but it has enough room to add a lot more if needed. I found that autodetection wasn't very reliable, so this method provided the easiest alternative. It is pretty easy to add new drivers, and it should allow most places to use only one floppy disk for their imaging/installation needs. This is a basic template for the disk, I have modified it a number of times for different uses. The basic version lists the model numbers rather than the network cards in the config menu, and doesn't have the dos w/networking option or the dos.cab file at all. I have forgotten which version of DOS i used to make it, but it is at least OSR2 and does support FAT32. download the disk self extractor: http://www.mojogarage.com/stuff/unattended/TOTAL_BOOT4.3.exe I also used CabPack to make the cabs: http://www.mojogarage.com/stuff/unattended/cabpack.zip How it works(simple version): - drivers are compressed into a cab file(around 3 to 1 compression), along with a protocol.ini and system.ini associated with each driver. These two files were renamed to match the DOS driver name respectively. (e.g. E100B.DOS goes with E100B.ini(protocol.ini) and E100B.sni(system.ini).) - the config.sys menu gives you a choice of what network card to use, initializes the ramdisk, then turns control to autoexec.bat Autoexec.bat does the following steps: - prompts the user to enter an asset number - All of the machines have a 7 digit Identification tag that works great for this purpose. It doesn't really matter what you type in here, I got into the bad habit of just typing in random letters and typing enter. This part sets the computer name on the domain. - It copies some of the files to the ramdrive for faster loading - It takes the input given by the user in config menu and extracts the appropriate files from the driver.cab and net.cab to the ramdisk. - It then renames the <drivername>.ini and <drivername>.sni files back to protocol.ini and system.ini. - It then sets the computer name, gets an IP address and logs on to the domain. In this disk, it is a fictional domain named CORPORATE. Here's the key to logging on without saving a password: NET LOGON /savepw:no and to not prompt for a user name or password: NET LOGON user password /savepw:no Note that the password is written in cleartext on the disk. A simple way to protect this somewhat is to use this disk as the boot sector for a CD where it is more difficult to open it. I wouldn't recommend putting any passwords at all inside the autoexec.bat file, but depending on how you're using it, it may be ok. The current implementation I use prompts the user for their password, then connects to the resources needed. The resources that are mapped have read only access for anyone with a domain password. NOTES: In order for this disk to work you will have to set the domain in each of the .sni files in the driver.cab file. You can also hardcode the WINS server addresses in some of the .ini files if you need to. I left a sample WINS address in there, to illustrate the format - no dots in the ip address. You will need to change these in order to use this disk. I haven't used it with the unattended system yet, but I will be testing out soon as we are planning a rollout later this year. Thanks for the fine work, it is a great project! Pablo ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Etnus, makers of TotalView, The debugger for complex code. Debugging C/C++ programs can leave you feeling lost and disoriented. TotalView can help you find your way. Available on major UNIX and Linux platforms. Try it free. www.etnus.com _______________________________________________ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
