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Help Kace Newbie Here

We have had Kace 1000 and 2000 for over 2 years.  We had someone who was in charge of it and honestly didn't use it very much and now he's no longer with the company.  I have been thrown into learning both 1000 and 2000.  I have had some experience with the 2000 doing a few images here and there but nothing substantial.  After watching some videos it looks like we have been doing imaging wrong anyways.    We are current a windows only shop.  Pretty much all I was shown to do was capture an image and then deploy it. I have done a little syspreping as well but it doesn't seem like it works correctly.  I am wondering if there is a best practice guide out there some where?  Usually our images are good for a month or two and then we build another image because the old one is out of date is there a better way to do this? Is there a way to update an image?  I have about a million and 1 questions and after spending half the day on itninja and watching videos I still don't feel like I have a clue.  Can anyone help?

Frustrated in Washington State!  

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  • All have been a great thanks! Anyone have any info on naming computers? I realize it's a post installation task but I have no idea how to set it. Thanks! - patw 9 years ago

Answers (3)

Posted by: cserrins 9 years ago
Red Belt
3
KACE system imaging best practices is posted here:
https://support.software.dell.com/k2000-systems-deployment-appliance/kb/121734

Corey
Product Support Principal Engineer, K2000
Posted by: Asevera 9 years ago
Blue Belt
2
Nearly everyone I've spoken with uses system images or K-Images, but we don't. I never liked the process of continually tweaking a master image so we decided to go the scripted install route. We have just one standard scripted install for every model, make and division, so there's really nothing to maintain. The K2000 simply runs through the "stock" OS install on a box, names it with the asset tag, loads the drivers for the specific model, pulls down WSUSoffline updates, loads the agent and a "new PC" flag for the K1000 to read, then forces a check-in. The K1000 then kicks in and handles the rest of the installs, joining the box to the domain, followup patching, etc. When one of our applications requires an update, I just make the change on the K1000 and the next time someone images it falls into place.

It's like having a robot sitting there loading a PC from scratch with a pile of install media every time.

Comments:
  • I would be very interested to learn how to do that. I hadn't even considered scripted installs before. - patw 9 years ago
    • Scripted installs are pretty straight forward to setup.
      Here’s some background on them to start:

      http://www.kace.com/support/training/kke/archive?id=3377e72b-4961-4189-be35-9c0f1c55d4c9

      And a guide I found here on ITNinja:

      http://www.itninja.com/blog/view/entire-scripted-installation-guide

      From the above guide, I skip the part about slip streaming the OS media and let a combination of WSUSoffline (loaded to the PETemp share of the K2 and called during the script) and my K1’s patching handle things
      Assuming you use Dell machines your first step is to subscribe to the driver feed for all of your models of hardware.
      Step two is to take your OS media and put it into the K2000 with the Media Manager software (detailed in your admin guide)
      There are two options here depending on your usage:
      1) upload your volume license copy of your OS of choice (providing you have a VLK. This is what the above guide details, and you can do all of this with the answers file wizard on the K2)
      2) upload an OEM copy of OS media that came with your devices (this is what we do, we re-use the OEM OS keys that come with our equipment). For this you will need to manually configure an answers file to look on the device for the OS key

      Then you just built out your tasks.
      Preinstall tasks are generally: Create partition, then format, then install MBR
      Post install (for me) are:
      Map drive to PETemp, run WSUSoffline
      Flag as new PC (batch file creates blank text file called “NewPC.txt” on the drive, K1000 has a custom inventory rule to look for this file and assign any PC with it to a smart label. Smart Label is tied to all of my installs that I want my new PC to have)
      Install K1000 agent - Asevera 9 years ago
      • we don't use dell machines. I know that will make things more difficult but not impossible. I am still researching. All of this is great info thank you! - patw 9 years ago
  • I do some of our images with the script but I would like to know the steps you are using to pull down the WSUSoffline updates.
    Also when you say the K1000 kicks in are you just setting up installs to go to the computers being imaged or is there some script you are using. - TimHR 9 years ago
    • For installs I have my K2 during the imaging process run a batch file that creates a blank text document (NewPC.txt) on the drive of the machine being imaged. The K1000 has a custom inventory rule setup to look for that text file, and assign any PC with it to a smart label (ostensibly called “New PCs”. I know, very original).
      Any installs I want my new PCs to have, I have them setup to deploy to that “New PCs” smart label (your install order is important here) Then you can have a script go out and delete the “NewPC.txt” file off the drive at a specified interval so that PCs drop out of the “new” smart label and can be deployed to users.

      For WSUSoffline, you get your repository setup on your PC like normal, but you dump the “client” folder (where all the updates it downloads are stored) to your K2000’s PETemp folder. Here’s the batch job I have that updates the K2 share:

      echo START VK2000 update
      echo mapping VK2000 PETemp Share
      net use T: \\vk2000\petemp insertk2000passwordhere /user:admin
      echo starting copy process
      robocopy C:\wsusoffline\client T:\wsusoffline /s /E /XO /LOG:VK2000.txt
      echo disconnecting VK2000 share
      net use T: /delete /yes

      Just punch in the name of your K2000 (or IP) and the samba share password into that. The copy script will only copy over new or changed updates when it’s ran.

      Within the scripted install, you then need a batch file to call the offline updates during the image:

      net use T: \\yourK2000IPaddress\petemp yourk2000password /user:admin
      T:\wsusoffline\cmd\doupdate.cmd - Asevera 9 years ago
      • Thank you, I will try this out... - TimHR 9 years ago
Posted by: SMal.tmcc 9 years ago
Red Belt
0
You want to create a master golden image and back that up prior to syspreping and capturing.  Then all you need to do is restore from the backup and update, make a new backup and replace the uploaded wim with the updated version.  I use a couple of physical machines to keep my masters on and use the system image method to make backups.  it takes minutes to backup and restore.  Mnay others use VM;s as the golden masters and take a snapshot prior to syspreping.





Comments:
  • you restore by booting to the windows install dvd and choosing restore - SMal.tmcc 9 years ago

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