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Questions regarding Multicast.

  • August 25, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 8 views
T
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Hi everyone,

I'm in the process of migrating everything over to Casper. I'm in that in-between phase where I haven't had the chance to create all of my individual packages yet, so for the moment I'm still deploying "NetRestore Style" monolithic images. I do know that the base image is supposed to be relatively clean, but that's just not an option at this point in time.

Anyway - I plan on multicasting these images down to the lab computers. I'm already familiar with Mike Bombich's multicasting tips, but after reading the documentation included with the Casper Resource kit I just wanted to be sure I'm following the correct steps:

1.) Upload the MultiCastRestore.sh script to Casper Server using Casper Admin. Give it a priority of "Before".
2.) Create a Configuration that has the MultiCastRestore.sh script in it (Lets call it "Lab Multicast"). If I don't have any additional packages to install, then MultiCastRestore.sh would be the only item in the Configuration, since everything would else would be installed in the monolithic image I'm multicasting out to the clients.
3.) Start up and configure the CasperMCS application.
4.) Boot up clients and have them run "Lab Multicast" configuration from Casper Imaging.

One concern I have is the clean up after the multicast session is completed. If I were just installing this normally as a package it would go in and cleanup the ByHost information for the computer at the end of the installation. It doesn't seem like the multicast script does this.

Again - I know Casper isn't fully designed to deploy images in this way. I know the proper workflow is to have a very simple base image with all my settings and applications configured into packages and added to the configuration, then compiled for block copy distribution if needed. However time constraints are forcing me to use this method for the time being as I get everything prepared for the upcoming semester.

Thanks for any help or feedback you can provide.

-- Ted August
Salve Regina University

    1 reply

    A
    • Anonymous
    • August 25, 2009

    We were very much in the same situation this summer. I was disappointed in the multicast restore script provided in the resource kit. It seems to me to be a little rough (although I may have been doing something wrong.) In particular, you don't get a lot of status information while the system restores, and if the multicast restore fails, you may not get an indication of this and Casper will install packages anyways (instead of alerting you that your machine is not functional).

    We used this workflow instead:

    - I created a custom report and exported data out of Casper in a format understood by DeployStudio (and NetRestore)
    - We named and multicast-imaged our machines using DeployStudio
    - As a post-install step, a script was put in to run at startup that would remove the history of the machine from Casper and then recon it (as Casper was located in the image).
    - I then had it change the login background screen so you could tell the computer had been reconned.

    Anyone interested in pursuing this can send me a direct e-mail, and I can send you the (internal) instructions I wrote up and scripts that you can modify.

    Cheers,
    Clinton Blackmore

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