Ghost Solution Suite

At this stage where GSS 3 is concerned it is rendered useless to our environment without the needed enhancement that functions like "ngctw32.exe" and allows us to automate our task the way it was done in GSS 2.5. This is a significant part of our testing setup with close to a mixture of hundred physical and virtual test systems spread over a variation of windows XP and windows 7 configurations. We’re trying to expand to Windows 8 and Windows 10 but cannot do so with the new version of task executing software. GSS 2.5 does not support Windows 8 and Windows 10. I strongly suggest that this be considered for GSS 3!

I’ve called into to Symantec tech support a number of times hitting a wall which cannot be remedied. We’ve waited a long time for this new GSS 3 to become available with assurance that it would support Windows 8, 10 clients only for it to be an obstacle and a dead end. From what I understand there’s an enhancement in works by this number “EM-19469”. My question is; what does it entail?

Adding to this; how is a product released without adequate support?!

Advances forward should never be a setback which this is turning out to be!

Current setup in GSS 2.5

The batch text below "ghost_init - bat" starts the restore image task to put the system back to a clean state.

:: Initiate PC Ghost Restore or VM Hard Reset

:: Wait a few seconds so that the Hudson job which asynchronously called this script has enough time to complete;
:: otherwise the Hudson Agent may shutdown before the job completes, causing it to fail.
echo Sleeping for 20 seconds...
ping -n 20 127.0.0.0>nul

if [%COMPUTERNAME:~0,2%]==[VM] goto :IS_VM

:IS_PC

:: Initiate ghosting restore task.  If successful, last_successful_ghost_id will also be copied to the Test PC.
echo Launching ghost restore task...
echo %BUILD_NUMBER% > \\test01\hudson\ghost\%COMPUTERNAME%_ghost_id

REM Disabled this line because new ghosting server has trouble connecting to host machine and loading files on client machines
REM "C:\Program Files\Symantec\Ghost\ngctw32.exe" -initiate %COMPUTERNAME%%GHOST_TASK_SUFFIX%
set PROGRAM_FILES=Program Files
if exist "C:\Program Files (x86)" set PROGRAM_FILES=Program Files (x86)

"C:\%PROGRAM_FILES%\Symantec\Ghost\ngctw32.exe" -initiate "%GHOST_TASK%"

goto :END

:IS_VM

:: Copy dirty marker file to VM, so that we can later verify if the VM reset worked.
echo This file must be omitted from VM images > c:\hudson\vm_image_is_dirty

:: Stop Hudson Agent service before hard resetting the VM, as the reset will kill the service abruptly without
:: shutting it down.
schtasks /end /tn hudson-slave-agent
ping -n 20 127.0.0.0>nul

:: Reset the VM
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware VmPerl Scripting API\reset_this_vm.bat"

:END
echo Ghosting has been initiated. Machine will come back online in a few minutes.

I'm afraid I've never used GSS 2.5 so don't know what ngctw32.exe or the Hudson agent are.

But if you want your Restore Job to do different things based on say the machine Type you can use Conditions.

And you can use the "On Success" option to chain Jobs together. 

There used to be the AxSched command in the predecessor to GSS 3, Deployment Server 6.9, don't know if that still survives.

Thanks for getting involved! The thing of most importance is to get this line going "C:\%PROGRAM_FILES%\Symantec\Ghost\ngctw32.exe" -initiate "%GHOST_TASK%". All the other sfuff we configure on our end.

I've never heard of "AxSched". I looked it up and found that another user had a similar issue back in 2013 which appears to be unsolved. https://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/how-do-i-start-altiris-job-batcmd-program

That poster was trying to use it with ITMS, which never had axsched.

David Evans is the PM for Ghost - you should find his details in previous postings. Why not email him direct and see what he says.  Are you using Ghost as part of Deployment Solution by the way?

I contacted David Evans on February 15 without response to this date. Is there someone else that can look into this?

I've just checked my version of GSS and it does have the AxSched command. i think this is what you need. If you can't find current GSS documentation covering it the old Deployment Server docs do:

"Altiris™ Deployment Solution 6.9 SP4 from Symantec Admin Guide"

Schedule Job Utility
Syntax: axSched <computer/group> <job-name> (options)
OR
axSched /q <filename> (options)
Options
Note
The format for <time> is “yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm.” If the date is omitted, the current date
is assumed.

• /t <yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm> Time to schedule
• /n Don't notify servers of the changes
• /f <folder-name> Schedule the job-name found in this
• folder
• /q <filename> File used for exporting jobs
• /y Suppress confirmation prompts
• /dsn <odbc-dsn-name> ODBC data source name
• /d <db-server> Database server name
• /u <db-user> Database user name
• /db <db-databaseName> Database name
• /p <db-password> Database user password
• /lu <login-user> Deployment Server login user name
• /lp <login-password> Deployment Server login password

If the /t switch is not used, the job is assigned to the computer but not scheduled. As a
result, it will not execute.
If you would like the job to run immediately, choose a date in the past.
If you have a group or computer name which include spaces, put the name in quotes.
All Computers can now be used as a group option.
Example 1: Schedule a job called Office2003 to run on Oscar’s computer at midnight on
12-31-2002.
axSched Oscar’s Office2003 /t "2009-12-31 00:00"
Example 2: Schedule a job called Office2003 to run on the Accounting Group
computers tonight at 10PM.
axSched Accounting Office2003 /t "2010-2-15 22:00"
Example 3: Schedule a job called ShutDown to run on all computers at tonight at 10
PM.
axSched "All Computers" ShutDown /t "2010-2-15 22:00"

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC2129

I don't think you guys understand what he wants.  I have the same issue.

In Ghost 2.5, there was an icon in the system tray.  A user could click on that icon and execute from a list of tasks defained by the Ghost Console.

For example, if I had to test 3 different OSes, but I only had 1 PC.  

I could create the 3 Oses, and then dump them via Ghost.

Then after assigning a reimage task for each of those 3 OSes to the user's test PC, he could then right click on the systray Icon and be presented with menu like this:

Reimage Windows 10

Reimage Windows 8

Reimage Windows 7

After choosing one of those, the imaging task would launch.  This is all done on the Client PC, w/ no addition input or scheduling required from the Admin.

I also want this feature back.