Ghost Solution Suite

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  • 1.  unable to launch the ghostcast service process

    Posted Aug 09, 2007 05:29 PM
    Initial setup has been learning experience.
    After setting local 3com switches: igmp-snooping enable / igmp-query enable and then
    setting 3com core 7700: igmp-snooping enable / multicast routing enable
    and in the advanced seciton of my tasks adding ghost command line parameter: -jaddress=10.10.1.25
    I was able two nights ago to send my image back over the network to 5 workstation in my lab.
    Today, I assumed I would re-image the balance of the lab with the same task.  Bummer - the task fails every time with the "unable to launch the ghostcast service process"
     
    I have double checked all of the changes made on the switches in the local building and the core switch at HQ.
     
    Can anyone shed light on what I must be missing? 
    NOTE: the initial 5 successful workstations are the same model and have the same updates.  All d530 CMT HP workstations.  During trouble-shooting today - I updated the broadcom netxtreme Gigibit drivers and had no success.
     
    Whitney


  • 2.  RE: unable to launch the ghostcast service process

    Posted Aug 09, 2007 09:17 PM

    the task fails every time with the "unable to launch the ghostcast service process"

    That's a really unusual error message. Whatever the cause, that error message describes something happening on the console machine itself, either in launching the process or accessing the image. The network configuration shouldn't be involved at this stage of things unless the source image is located on some network storage.

    Let me explain how this works:

    As part of executing a task, once things get to the imaging stage the console machine network service ngserver.exe spawns a copy of the interactive GhostCast utility GhostSrv.Exe to handle the imaging process. When launched this way on behalf of the console, the GhostSrv.exe process connects to NGServer.exe and notifies it of how it is progressing.

    Now, if you launch the task on the server, the GhostSrv.exe process is launched under the identity of the user who started the process, and uses their permissions to access the underlying image file (client-initiated tasks launch as the SYSTEM user).

    The first thing to check is whether the person launching the task has permission to access the underlying image file; I'm not completely confident that we get the right error message for this in every case. It may be that if an image is stored someplace (e.g. under the "My Documents" folder) with an unusual access-control list it may be that the underlying cause is a permissions problem and this error message is coming up instead of something more friendly.

    If that's not the cause of the problem, then it's probably something more exotic. Can you launch the GhostCast process interactively on the console machine?


  • 3.  RE: unable to launch the ghostcast service process

    Posted Aug 10, 2007 10:01 AM
    Nigel - WOW
    Thank you for the insight as to how the processes work and how they initiate themselves.
     
    I initiated the Ghost Console via 3 different id's all Domain Admin's and one being the Domain Administrator.
     
    The images are all located on a NAS and the Console points to them using the admin UNC share.
     
    I am able from all 3 ids used to initiate the Ghostcast Server from the Console.
     
    Today:
    I added the GHOST_APPS-AV user account to the Administrators group on the local Ghost Server and then:
     
    I decided to make some changes to the task.  I enabled the WOL and Shutdown when finished.  A variety of items complete successfully, but, the overall task fails on all machines with the following details:
      Details for: To Virtual Partition
      Failed to reboot client to recovery partition. 
     
    Are there additional debugging settings that I can add to try to isolate this further?
     
    Thanks
    Whitney

    Message Edited by Squink on 08-10-200707:09 AM



  • 4.  RE: unable to launch the ghostcast service process

    Posted Aug 14, 2007 01:54 PM
    Nigel
     
    I am still perplexed.  It works inconsistently.
     
    I do not believe that the multicast functionality has ever worked.  But, I could be wrong.
     
    It seems as if - Once a GhostCast session works that the Core (3com 7700) shows a multi-cast route in the internal table, but, when it is failing there is no such route when it is failing.
     
    I can not seem to determine how to force the Core Switch to keep a route for the GhostCast Server?
     
    There is functionality called PIM - protocol independent multi-casting.  Is this a feature that should be utilized to support the Ghost Cast server?  I only ask this because I can set the default server ip or ip range of multi-cast servers.  If I should be using this feature then I will have to disable the igmp functionality that I enabled.  They seem to conflict.
     
    Whitney