Remote Install

  • Thread starter Thread starter Adora Belle Dearheart
  • Start date Start date
A

Adora Belle Dearheart

At the moment I have a remote install solution set up using RBS, a small
XPe image applied via PXE and controlled with a selection of batch files.
I have been finding that occasionally the units will not be able to
boot. The RBS manager will indicate that all is well, but nothing's
happening. Rebooting the server usually sorts this out but doesn't
always do so.
Obviously this isn't good enough for a production environment where we
want to be producing a number of clients an hour, all the time. I don't
have any experience of using RIS or doing mass rollouts at all - that
sort of thing is usually techops problem - but I'm aware that RIS can't
be used to deploy XPe, except by booting to WinPE and having that do
much what my small image does.
What are the other options? Is there a proper heavy-duty
booting-lots-of-clients solution available?
 
Adora said:
Obviously this isn't good enough for a production environment where we
want to be producing a number of clients an hour, all the time.
Click to expand...
What are the other options? Is there a proper heavy-duty
booting-lots-of-clients solution available?
Click to expand...

Hi Heidi,

Are automated CD installs an option? Turn the machine on,
insert a CD and come back when it has automatically ejected
the CD.

-Mike
 
Mike said:
Hi Heidi,

Are automated CD installs an option? Turn the machine on,
insert a CD and come back when it has automatically ejected
the CD.

-Mike
Click to expand...
Nope, we're looking at a production line where you roll in a
blank-drived 'fruit machine', plug it into the network, and a while
later, roll away one which has all the right software on it.
The PXE solution is the only viable one. The idea is we roll in a number
of cabinets, PXE boot to RAM disk, partition up the disk and install
Maintenance Partition image, reboot to Maintenance Partition and either
select OS image from Server or hit a button on the touchscreen to select
the image on each client. Install it, shut down, roll it into the next
room for the engineers to use our config apps to finish setup.
RBS works fine, when it works. It just seems to have a tendency to fall
over for no readily apparent reason.
 
Sean said:
Sorry. Does Norton Ghost have a PXE Solution?
Click to expand...
Not that I know of. I can't say I know a lot about Ghost, as the whole
point of this project was to stop us having to use ghost/omniclone machines.
 
Do you see any error messages from the PXE clients? Also have you tried any
network sniffing to see where the PXE protocol is breaking down? I have
used RBS to boot systems with no secondary storage and I find it to be
horribly inefficient but fairly reliable.

For my own possible use, I am interested in knowing more about your batch
files. Can your method be used to install a system on CF? How can I find
out more about this?

Luke Alcatel
 
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