[Fusioninventory-user] Is there a MSI to initally push the agent out to win clients?

[Guillaume Rousse]

Le 07/08/2010 00:22, Rob Townley a écrit :
> .MSI files are  Microsoft Installer format.  With a OCSagent-setup.MSI
> installation program,
> current MS Active Directory administrators would be much more likely to
> deploy the agent because it can be seamlessly pushed out with a couple of
> clicks to all 10,000 workstations at next bootup.   I push out
> OpenOffice.msi and FrontMotionFirefox.msi
> and their updates to all workstations by default using this.  But to
> use ActiveDirectory to _push_ software,
> the software must be packaged as a MSI.  So obviously, OCS / Fusion
> can fill a major void.
Hi Rob.

I've been very interested by msi packages too, hence the creation of a
ticket in fusioninventory tracking system:
http://forge.fusioninventory.org/issues/199

However, unless I'm wrong, msi package deployment only occurs when
rebooting the target computer. Which largely reduces the difference
between 'pushing' software and 'pulling' them from boot-time scripts.
And I don't want to reboot my hyperv servers just to install new software...

Otherwise, they still seems to have advantages over standard interactive
installers:
- installation/upgrade logic handled by AD, garantishing consistent
behaviour between software for users, and less work for developers
- ability to uninstall automatically the gpo doesn't apply anymore
- automatic restoration point creation on target computer

> What is a little trickier is configuring the default install, but not
> too difficult and
> there are options.
>  1.) If sysadmin can use a default hostname for the server, then no
> configuration is necessary.
Being a slave to default configuration values is not very appealing.

>  2.) Server 2008 uses XML for creating Group Policy Objects to
> configure pushed out
> Microsoft Installer Files so that a single MSI could be configured as
> Group Policy Object.
We have initial admx/adml templates already, see in the contrib
directory. The only issue being fusioninventory using two different
locations in registry on 32 and 64 bits hosts, because it is only
available in 32bits. Separating perl itself from the agent package would
help there.

>  3.) Or the admin could make a Microsoft Installer Transformation
> (MST) package to modify - which isn't
> too hard either because it is really just the diff from the original MSI.
Really too much work, compared to previous solution, and still suffering
from the you-have-to-reboot-to-apply-the change issue.

> The bottom line is that providing a simple MSI agent, the userbase for
> Fusion / OCS
> would explode.
Or just make life eventually easier for the current user base. At least,
having a exhaustive list of available deployment strategies would be a
huge benefit for unix admins coming to windows world.
-- 
BOFH excuse #33:

piezo-electric interference

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