As discussed in Part 1, there are 3 ways of installing the Deployment Server Solution. We have discussed in detail the Simple Installation method, and in this article we will discuss the Custom and Component installation methods in detail.
First up is the Custom Installation Method:
Custom Installation
The custom installation is beneficial to you in the sense that you have more flexibility in the options that you would like to install and how you would like the installation to be completed. Typically used by people with more knowledge of Deployment server. First time users would normally use the simple installation method.
The following features are now available in the custom installation:
- Multiple pre-boot operating systems can now be installed during setup. Remember that I mentioned in part 1 that only 1 pre-boot OS can be installed during Simple installation.
- Components that are optional do not need to be installed; can now be excluded from the installation.
- Components are now customizable
- Machines can be targeted for Deployment Server installation.
You can start the custom installation by running the axInstall.exe file in your extracted setup files.
You will be presented with the following window, make sure you selected custom installation to proceed with the custom installation method.
Your 2nd configuration window will appear where you will be able to configure more components. Among the first to configure will be your Deployment Share.
You need to specify where your installation will take place, either on the C-Drive or on the D-Drive, all depends on how your company likes things to run. You can do this any way you like as there is no real good or bad installation path, but it does help if your eXpress share is on a different partition than the Server Operating System.
What I have seen happening is that some people do the installation on the Operating System partition which they have configured with a limited amount of Disk space and as your eXpress share grows, in the sense that you continually upload images and packages to that share, and before you know it, all the space is gone. To rectify this you would then either have to use a 3rd party partitioning tool to repartition or reload you Deployment Solution from scratch.
Note: To make it easy for yourself, install to the D partition.
Next we have the licensing, as it was in simple install, you would need to either specify the location of your purchased or evaluation licenses or use the "Free 7 day license" provided to you free of charge to evaluate the Deployment Solution Software in your environment.
Remember if you are upgrading the Solution from 6.5, 6.8 to 6.9 you can use the existing license file if it hasn't expired and will not need to re-enter the license file.
On the following window we will need to specify more in detail Deployment Server information:
We need to specify the target computer information, will the Deployment Server be installed on this computer or will it be installed on a remote computer, that is to say a computer other than the 1 we are working on. If it is going to be on a remote computer, you can either enter the name or IP address in the boxes provided or browse to the computers location.
Note: If you are installing to a remote computer, .NET framework will also need to be installed there for the software to function correctly.
The default TCP port used for Deployment Server Solution is 8080.
Select the installation path on the target computer where the Deployment Server will be installed to, remember what I mentioned earlier about System partition and disk space.
Last but not the least on this form, and I guess the most important part of the installation would be the administrative account needed to install the Deployment server either locally on this computer or on the target machine. As mentioned in Part 1, you can create a service account that has domain admins rights, which will solve your administrative issues during installation.
Deployment Database
You can either run your eXpress database on the same machine as where your Deployment Server installation has taken place or you can install it on your dedicated SQL 2000 or 2005 server, the latter would help significantly in the performance area of your server as your server has less workload. Please keep in mind that an off the box eXpress database needs to have at least 1GB network connection to function smoothly.
Instance Name
On the box SQL installation, you can select your (local) as the instance name or if it is off the box SQL installation then you will have to specify the complete instance name, which will be provided in a drop down box.
Question: How do I get tall the SQL instances? Well Deployment Server scans your entire network to find all instances of SQL and then combines them in the drop-down box for your selection.
Database Name
You can either enter a database name that you would like to use for the Deployment Server or you can use the default eXpress database, which is by the way recommended. This will avoid confusion in further troubleshooting or supporting articles that you might find on the net and in the Altiris Forums and Knowledgebase.
Database Authentication
To connect to the Deployment Server database you would also have to specify the Authentication type that you would like to use. 2 options:
- Windows NT Authentication
- SQL Server Authentication
Note: Using SQL authentication you would need to specify an account with Admin rights on the SQL database. Usually the SA account will be used, but you can create other accounts as well.
Pre-Boot Operating Systems
We are now presented yet again with the options to install the pre-boot operating systems, but the difference to simple install here is that we can now install multiple pre-boot operating systems during the installation process.
Pre-Boot Options:
- FreeDOS -Locate the FIRM file called BDCgpl.frm
- MS-DOS - Located on the Windows 98 installation cd or can be downloaded from www.bootdisk.com or Altiris website.
- Linux - Locate the file called BDCgpl.frm
- Windows PE (WinPE) - WinPE requires access to the WINPE files as well as the operating system files and service packs. WinPE can be purchased from Altiris.
- WinPE 2004 uses Windows XP SP2
- WinPE 2005 uses Windows Server 2003 SP1
Optional - PXE Server Configuration
What is PXE, well it is a Pre-Boot Execution Environment, which is used to deploy Operating systems to various target machines. PXE uses 1 of the pre-boot operating systems, FreeDOS, MS-DOS, Linux or WinPE to load network drivers and distribute the images.
During Custom Installation we have the option to either setup the PXE server now or later. We will have a look at the options to set it up now.
If you want to use PXE, please select the "Yes" option from the window, please make sure to specify if it will be located on the Deployment Server or on a remote machine. If on a remote machine, please also specify the name.
PXE Server and Deployment Server IP Address
Please enter the IP addresses of the PXE server and Deployment Server, if they reside on the same box then they will have the same IP Address.
PXE Server Installation Path
This would normally be the same as where the Deployment Server has been installed.
Default Pre-Boot
You are also presented with the option to select a default pre-boot operating system, which will always be used during your PXE imaging process unless otherwise specified in the Imaging job.
AClient Configuration
You need to specify an IP address for the AClient as to which Deployment Server it will be connected to be managed.
Deployment Console
Deployment Server has 2 types of consoles that you can work with. The win32 Console and the Web Console.
The first is normally used directly on the Deployment Server or can be installed to a remote desktop. The Web Console is typically used by the helpdesk personnel. This is accessed through a web browser so that they do not have access directly on the Deployment Server to cause any damage to the system.
Please find the PDF formatted file attached.