Deployment Solution

Scenario:

We had two site servers within the same subnet, however only one of them was a package server that hosted our Windows Image. We were running into issues when the machines booted into WinPE they would default sometimes to the wrong Site Server.N This Resulted in trying to grab the image from the wrong path due to the @SiteServer token used in the imaging method. Causing failure…

Resolution:

We would implement HTTP imaging so the download path for the image was a website rather than a specific location on a site server, at this point it didn’t matter which Site Server it tied to because the image would always be pulled from an HTTP location.

Here’s how we completed this task.

Step 1 – Prep your environment to be ready for HTTP imaging. (Technote 32421)

To enable image deployment via HTTP only, you will need to first open the basic client communication ports. Second, you will include RDeploy in your WinPE and Linux preboot images. Third, you will configure IIS to allow image uploads and downloads via HTTP. Fourth, you will create run script tasks to capture and deploy images using RDeploy via HTTP.

1. Open the basic client communication ports.
2. Include RDeploy in your WinPE and Linux preboot images.

On your Notification Server and each server with Deployment Site Server Components installed, run the following commands either in the command prompt or as a batch file.
SET TaskHandlerPath=C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Agents\Deployment\Task Handler
COPY /Y "%TaskHandlerPath%\rdeploy\RDeployt.exe" "%TaskHandlerPath%\bootwiz\oem\DS\winpe2\x86\Base\RDeployt.exe"
COPY /Y "%TaskHandlerPath%\rdeploy\x64\RDeployt.exe" "%TaskHandlerPath%\bootwiz\oem\DS\winpe2\x64\Base\RDeployt.exe"
COPY /Y "%TaskHandlerPath%\rdeploy\firm.exe" "%TaskHandlerPath%\bootwiz\oem\DS\winpe2\x86\Base\firm.exe"
COPY /Y "%TaskHandlerPath%\rdeploy\x64\firm.exe" "%TaskHandlerPath%\bootwiz\oem\DS\winpe2\x64\Base\firm.exe"
COPY /Y "%TaskHandlerPath%\ghost\GhRegEdit32.exe" "%TaskHandlerPath%\bootwiz\oem\DS\winpe2\x86\Base\GhRegEdit.exe"
COPY /Y "%TaskHandlerPath%\ghost\x64\GhRegEdit64.exe" "%TaskHandlerPath%\bootwiz\oem\DS\winpe2\x64\Base\GhRegEdit.exe"
COPY /Y "%TaskHandlerPath%\ghost\GhConfig32.exe" "%TaskHandlerPath%\bootwiz\oem\DS\winpe2\x86\Base\GhConfig.exe"
COPY /Y "%TaskHandlerPath%\ghost\x64\GhConfig64.exe" "%TaskHandlerPath%\bootwiz\oem\DS\winpe2\x64\Base\GhConfig.exe"

You will then need to rebuild your automation environments to include the new files

Step 2 – Configure IIS to allow downloading images via HTTP

Please follow this link for IIS6 configuration : http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO25953

IIS 6 –

1. Open IIS Manager.
2. Browse to Default Web Site.
3. Create a new Virtual Directory.
    a. From the Action menu, choose New > Virtual Directory...
    b. When prompted for the Alias, type "Images". (without quotes)
    c. When prompted for the Path, browse to an existing directory where you want the images to be stored. For example, “C:\Image Location Here”
    d. Enable the permissions Read, Write, and Browse.
4. Right-click the newly created Virtual Directory and choose Properties.
5. Go to the Directory Security tab and click on the Edit button in Authentication and access control.
6. Leave anonymous access enabled.
7. Enable Basic authentication.
8. Click OK to apply changes and close the Authentication Methods window.
9. Go to the HTTP Headers tab and click the Mime Types... button.
10. Click the New... button.
11. Under Extension, enter ".*" (without quotes).
12. Under MIME type, enter "application/octet-stream" (without quotes).
13. Click OK three times to apply changes and close the Virtual Directory properties.
14.Right-click Default Web Site and choose Properties.
15. In the Web Site tab, make sure Enable HTTP Keep-Alives is enabled.
16. Change the Connection timeout to 1200 seconds.
17. Click OK to apply changes and close Default Web Site properties.
18. Select Web Service Extensions.
19. Select WebDAV and click Allow.
20. Close IIS Manager.

Please follow this link for IIS7.5 configuration: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH161430

IIS 7.5 (If you are using IIS7 IE windows 2k8 not R2, you must install webdav manually!) –

1. Open the Server Manager and click on Web Server(IIS).

2. We now need to install WebDAV Publishing. Scroll down and click on Add Role Services

    a. If WebDAV Publishing is checked then click on cancel. If not Check WebDAV Publishing, click on next, then Install, then click close when the install is done.

3. Open Web Server(IIS), click on Internet Information Services(IIS) manager. Open the server, open sites then click on Default Web Site.

4. Double click on WebDAV Authoring Rules.

    a. On theactions menu choose Enable WebDAV.

5. Create a new Virtual Directory.

    a. Right click on the default web site and choose Add Virtual Directory

    b. For the Alias type "Images". (without quotes)

    c. For the Path enter the existing directory where you want the images to be stored. For example, "C:\Image Location Here”

6. Do the rest of the items when Images is highlighted in the connections menu.

    a. Double-click on Authentication

        1. Leave anonymous access enabled.

        2. Click on Basic authentication then choose Enable from the actions menu. Click cancel if a menu appears.

    b. Open Mime Types.

        1. Choose Add.

        2. Under Extension, enter ".*" (without quotes).

        3. Under MIME type, enter "application/octet-stream" (without quotes).

        4. Click OK.

    c. Double-click on HTTP Response Headers, then click on Set Common Headers

        1. Make sure Enable HTTP Keep-alive is checked

    d. Open ASP, expand the session properties, and make sure it says 00:20:00

    e. Double click on WebDAV Authoring Rules.

        1. On the actions menu choose Add authoring Rule

        2. Click on the following: all content, All Users

        3. check Read, Source, and Write

        4. Click on OK

** by this point you should be able to open an internet browser and browse your virtual directory, this should show you the Virtual Directory path previously configured** IE – http://server/DSImages

Step 3 – Time to capture the image over to the virtual directory location using NS.

**** Here you can either place an existing image in this location and change your deploy image job, or capture the image to this location from the get go. I will show you the capturing piece here.***

1. Create your Image capture job within Notification Server.
2. Create a new client job and name it HTTP Image Capture
3. Add your Prepare for image capture task
   1. Apply the OS Type, Product Key, and domain credentials here
   2. Tell the job to reboot to automation or PXE, whichever you have configured.

1. Create a “capture image job” using the HTTP functionality.
   1. Give the image a name, in the appropriate box and any details as necessary.
   2. You will see an advanced button in the bottom right corner of this job, select this.
   3. Inside you will select the HTTP imaging tab, point it to the virtual directory path that you created earlier.
   4.  Go ahead and capture your image at this point from your sysprepped master template.

Step 5 – Create the Deploy Image task necessary to distribute the master image.

1. Create a deploy image task with the image you captured above as the source.
2. Select the Product Key to use
3. Select the Deployanywhere option if you use this within your environment
4. Determine how you would like to generate the sysprep file
5. Enter the credentials used to join the machine to the domain.

Your image jobs will now be transferred via HTTP rather than directly from the site server that the machine is tied to. This will help eliminate the issue of your machines tying to a site server within the subnet that doesn’t host the image. From what I was told by Symantec the machines not being able to reach across site servers to grab the image is a known issue that they are currently working on. Hopefully until then however you will be able to circumvent this with the above steps I’ve laid out for you.

If you have any questions at all feel free to comment here or PM me.