Altiris Deployment Solution for Clients 7.0: Installation of Task Services

A task server is required to support the Deployment Solution for Clients 7 (DS7.0) tasks. The Notification Server (NS) by default (after a new installation) is a Task Server. In small Altiris environments having the Notification Server as the task server will work great. Larger environments where the NS has thousands of agents connected from multiple physical locations, the NS will become overloaded.

The concept of Site Management in NS allows the administrator to setup subnets, sites, and site servers. The concept is extremely important because it allows you to segment the traffic and assign services, such as, task services, package services, and out of band services.

In order to review the current settings for site servers go to the following policy:
 Setting -> Notification Server -> Site Server Setting

Figure 1: Site Server settings after new NS installation. In this case, SERVER1 is the Notification Server

Site maintenance is the management of sites, subnets, and site services in your organization. You can manage your computers according to site and subnet, which lets you control groups of computers while minimizing bandwidth consumption.

A site is typically a physical location in your organization (such as a particular building, or a level of a building). A subnet is a range of logical addresses on your network.

Under normal operating conditions each site server services only the Altiris Agents that exist within the sites to which it is assigned. If no sites have been defined, all site servers are available to service all Altiris Agents (although this is not recommended).

Install or Create Site Servers and Subnets and Sites as Needed

The best method for creating sites and subnets in the NS is to use the Connector for Active Directory to import the subnets and sites. In addition, Connector for Active Directory overrides any subnets and sites that were previously created and that conflict with the import. For example, if you manually assign subnets to a site that conflicts with what is in Connector for Active Directory, the Active Directory information is used.

The steps for installing or creating a new site server with the task service are as follows:

1. The Task Service requires a server class computer such as Windows 2003 Server. It cannot be installed on Windows XP or Windows Vista
2. The Task Service also requires that IIS is installed on the target computer. Since we are installing a new site server with the intent of running a new task service, IIS is required to be installed on the machine. In addition after IIS is installed, the machine needs to update its inventory data and synchronize to the NS server.
    a. IIS Installation Steps (if IIS is already installed then ignore these steps):
     i. On the Windows 2003 server class machine, select Start-> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Manager Your Server
     ii. In the Manager Your Server console select -> Add or Remove a Role
     iii. Click Next at Preliminary Steps
     iv. In the Server Role selection box check to see if Application Server (IIS, ASP.NET) is configured. If not then select it and click Next
     v. After selecting the IIS role, follow the on-screen instructions until complete
3. If the requirement of IIS is not met then the Symantec Management Console will show the Task Services checkbox as grayed out during installation
4. In the Symantec Management Console select the menu item Setting -> Notification Server -> Site Server Setting:
    a. Expand the Site Management folder
    b. View the Subnets folder there should be just one subnet entry with one site server assigned
    c. View the Sites folder -> It will be empty
5. Select Site Servers folder -> One site server will appear with the type of services that are installed
6. In the left pane, select New -> Site Server to create a new site server
7. The Select Computers dialog box appears -> Highlight a Windows 2003 Server machine and move it to the Selected Computers box. Click OK. The reason that we selected a Win2003 computer is that Task Server will only run on a server class machine.

   

   Figure 2: Choose a new managed computer to be a new site server

8. Because we are installing a second task server on the same subnet (remember the NS is a task server). In the Add/Remove Services window, select the task services. Click OK.

   

   Figure 3: Select to add the Task Service to the new site server

9. Select Next and the Click OK to finish

Installation and Configure the Deployment Server Task Handlers for the Task Servers

Notification Server 7 includes Task Services. Task Services give NS the ability to perform jobs and tasks immediately or by scheduling them to run at a specific time. A computer running a task service is called a Task Server.

By default, a Task Server does not contain the libraries (tasks) needed to perform DS 7 tasks. Therefore, when DS 7 is installed, a Deployment Server task handler is installed on the Notification Server's task server, giving it the DS 7 task library.

1. Therefore, when DS 7 is installed, a Deployment Server task handler is installed on the all task servers, giving it the DS 7 task library. In order to see the status of the Deployment Server task handler, go to the following policy:

   Actions -> Agents/Plug-ins -> Rollout Agents Plug-ins -> Deployment And Migration folder -> Deployment Server Task Handler Install (x64 or x86)

2. To help reduce the load on the Notification Server, additional Site Servers running Task Services and the Deployment Server task handler can be added to your network.
3. To deploy an image created on one task server to a computer connected to a different task server requires the image to be replicated to the other task server. Although this is accomplished using the basic package replication found in NS, specific replication rules can be configured for disk image packages (see Disk Imaging Packages ).
4. The Altiris Agent can be opened to view the task server to which it is connected.

   

   Figure 4: Open the agent details on the new task server and the view that the Deployment Server task handler plug-in has been installed.