Ghost Solution Suite

I am currently attempting to use Ghost Solution Suite to do a rollout of 180 Windows XP machines. 

 

I have a text file with a list of the machines with their MAC address, computername and some other details.

 

What we wish to do is import this list into the GSS console and "pre-stage" the machines so when the GSS management client contacts the server for the first time it will find the "Client Object" we have imported and it will use the settings in this object to image itself.

 

As of yet I have been unable to find any way to do this other than to manually rename and setup computer objects after the GSS client has connected for the first time.

 

Is there any more automatic way that we can do this. (The naming convention for computernames in GSS appears to only be capable of being related to the unique ID given to each computer object by the GSS as it is created for the first time and the rules are too basic for our needs)

Hi Jason,

 

What version of Ghost do you use?

 

We use scripts to apply pre-configured machine names. It is relatively easy with GSS 2.5 and WinPE, but need to use a scripting environment such as awk for earlier versions.

 

Krish 

Krish,

 

Can you post the method you use?  I have 200 new machines which have all been setup in dhcp and dns with the correct name and mac address.  They are replacing old machines so they also have objects in our AD.  I want to be able to name the machines without having to do it all manualy.

 

Thanks,

J

 

I forget to mention, I am using GSS 2.5.

After a bit of investigation I ended up designing a windows script to insert records into the GSS database. (GSS 2.5)

 

In the base install of GSS, Symantec load onto the machine a directory with a bunch of windows scripts.  In this directory is a script called delclients.wsf which I used as a basic starting point to achieve my goal.  I also obtained a copy of the sybase development tools to assist me with writing the script. 

 

In the end it worked quite well but the script took a while to figure out, but depending on how much database experience you have it might be quicker for you.  We were able to pre-load all the clients into the database and when they came online and were discovered (when ghost management client was PXE booted from client) the machine was discovered and the pre-loaded settings used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi James,

Ghost uses Ghconfig.exe (or GHConfig32.exe in WinPE) to rename the machine. When the task is started, configuration data for GHConfig is send to the machine in a file called 'ghregupd.reg'. This contains the new name of the machine.

It was easy to do it in WinPE since you can use vbscritp and easy to get th the MAC address. But in DOS I just used a text files to map the Console created names to what I wanted, and used a script to change the ghregupd.reg file with the new name. If you look at the task scenario, it will show you what is assinged to each machine.

Alternatively, you can do the clone without configuration step, but create a new ghregupd.reg file and then execute GHconfig.exe (or GHconfig32.exe) with execute command. This will work too. The format for the ghregupd.reg file is available in the manual.

In DOS I tried using awk, and it was very successful.

Please let me know if you need more info.

Krish

Krish,

 

Is it possible for you to provide a tutorial of sorts for this? I would like to image a set of machines (with nothing on them -- i.e., booting from a cd) but preset the names in a list (since they are already in Active Directory). I'm using WinPE; however, I am not exactly sure how to accomplish this.

 

I need to do this with Vista and XP using GSS 2.5. I've configured sysprep; however, this does not seem to be the place to name the machine(s) based on a predefined list. In the properties of the clone task, I see "Use Ghostwalker to perform a SID Change on the target machine" which would change the SID (I assume) but on the Configuration tab, I do not see a way to set the names from a file.

Hi,

I really want to do this for a long time but couldn't find time. I will try to do it in this weekend. Basically, I used GHconfig32 to change the name, reading a text file containing MAC address and computer name.

By the way, I already published a similar script to replace the Windows Product Key in

http://juice.altiris.com/article/5102/applying-unique-windows-product-keys-when-deploying-images

We already have a page for similar techniques (where everyone upload) in

http://juice.altiris.com/products/ghost-solution-suite

We are in the process of adding more stuff, but it has a few things already.

Krish

Hi, 

 

It had being a while, but I just uploaded a script to Juice. Direct link is 

 

   https://www-secure.symantec.com/community/node/6550 

 

Krish