Any LanDesk Client issues?

[#1]

I'm pretty new to Casper, and just starting to explore policies, so I may be making a newbie mistake, here.

We're pushing out LanDesk Client in order to have a single point for inventory and the like.

Using Casper Remote the police (Casper's original installer PKG) the application gets install and the landesk adminstrator can see the client "phone home". Same result when you push out the installer with ARD.

But when I use a policy, the software seems to get installed (for example I can see LaunchDaemons installed) but machines aren't showing in the central LanDesk inventory.

Anyone have any experience with LanDesk, or general suggestions?

Thanks for any help,

Rick Horlick

[#2]

I guess the question this brings to mind is why are you using two inventory
solutions? Casper is a single point of inventory, plus all the management
capabilities (plus some)..

-- Jason Weber
Technology Support Cluster Specialist
Independent School District 196
jason.weber at district196.org

[#3]

inventory solutions? Casper is a single point of inventory, plus all the
management >capabilities (plus some)..

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

If it's a LanDesk controls the PC's but the powers that be want all
inventory info in one Dbase regardless of platform then I guess I get it
but a better way IMO would be to populate the LanDesk Dbase with the
Apple info directly from Caspers Dbase. A good SQL person or someone
with lots of time should be able to accommodate this.

Or, use Casper to inventory all stations and don't use the inventory
part of LanDesk at all.

My two cents.

- JD

[#4]

We did the same here a few years ago. They made me push the native landesk.pkg out to the mac’s with Casper. The one issue we had (Back with Landesk 6.5) was the .PKG Landesk created we could not push through Capser, it stated the “netadmin did not have sufficient rights to install” . The Landesk engineer found out that the permissions were getting changed by the Landesk server when it created the .pkg. Once that was fixed we pushed it out to around 200 machines. No one ever did anything with the Apple Data in Landesk, I continued to do everything with Casper, and a year ago they begged me to remove the agent from our Macs that were still out there. Any time they want the data in one spot our sql admin grabs it from the JSS and adds their inventory.

Sean

[#5]

Rick,

If you have a .pkg that you re currently pushing via ARD successfully, you
should be able to just upload that file straight into Casper Admin.

There would be no need to re-compile the .pkg within Composer to either the
.DMG or .PKG format.

Also if you need to run any post install scripts, this whole process could
be done within one policy. Just create the policy, add the package, and then
under the advanced tab you can run a script that will execute once the .pkg
has run.

-- Jason Weber
Technology Support Cluster Specialist
Independent School District 196
jason.weber at district196.org

[#6]

My question really is technical one - I'm trying to understand how Policies handle third party PKG files, in this case. As far as the decision to use LanDesk at all, its not my call, (I've just been brought in to try to get Casper working on the Mac side as well as LanDesk is for Windows).

I would say that it doesn't bother me to have redundant inventory tools on clients. In my last job I had Radmind working smoothly in labs and used it to push out LanDesk (for asset management only) without any problems, as a concession to the department decision to standardize on LanDesk, and I had to fight against dumping Radmind, so to me this is the best of both worlds. My goal is to show that we can't get Casper to do whatever is needed by way of software distribution, including push out LanDesk or any other PKG file.

Thanks, Sean, for the suggestion - I'll take a look at permissions, but my question still would be - why does the package install differently with a Policy then with Casper Remote or an ARD - Install? Both seem (on a cursory examination) to install files in the correct place.

My guess gues is that the Policy is not correctly running the LanDesk install scripts when it executes. Is this an issue with Policies for third-party pkg? (If so, is there a nice work-around)?

The Composer manual says you need to drop in the original pkg file and then "Build Source" - does this copy and handle preflight, postflight (etc) scripts correctly? I built the Casper package as a dmg - is this a mistake?

Or should I just copy over the publisher's original .pkg bundle as a normal folder, then run /usr/sbin/installer remotely on the target system?

Any ideas would be welcome.

Thanks,
Rick