[wpkg-users] WPKG installer 0.90 released

[Tomasz Chmielewski]

Greg MacLellan wrote:
> One of the problems I've run into is with laptops .. they often don't 
> have a (wireless) network connection when the services start (eg, wpkg), 
> so wpkg never actually runs. I solved this by using srvany to run a 
> script that pings the server, and waits for a response before starting 
> wpkg 
> (http://wpkg.org/index.php/Installation_instructions_-_mixed_environments), 
> but it might be a good feature to include in this installer. 

Should be fairly easy to delay it with the current installer - just add 
a "Execute before" script which instructs to wait. The script could be 
located on the local workstation/laptop.


You could put there something as easy as below:

ping -n 20 127.0.0.1

Perhaps something more intelligent would be better though.
A rework of the script you posted on the page above: it should take two 
arguments: server name/IP and maximum delay:

cscript %PROGRAMFILES%\wpkg\invoke-wpkg.js 192.168.200.100 30

Which you put into "Execute before".


> Of course, 
> it would need to be implemented so if the server was unreachable at 
> startup, it would allow the user to login immediately. When the 
> connection is established and wpkg actually runs, if there isn't a 
> logged in user, they should also be prevented from logging in at that 
> point (that may be harder to do..).

When the "Execute before" is executed, the service will try to execute 
cscript \\server\path\wpkg.js /your /flags

Of course, if \\server is unreachable, user will not be unnecessarily 
delayed - you will find in Windows Event Log that WPKGService couldn't 
connect to a network drive.


> I also have users that rarely log off (especially with laptops, and I'm 
> definitely guilty of that), so I also schedule a 3am run of wpkg 
> /synchronize (not using the server ping stuff, if it can't run then, it 
> just doesn't run). Might be a good option to have in your installer as 
> well (as a /daily:0300 parameter for example).

Task Scheduler is for these things IMHO, we shouldn't reproduce the 
system's functionality.

And you can add such a task from command line (or using WPKG as 
execute="once"). (just invoke: net stop "WPKG service" / net start "WPKG 
service").


-- 
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org






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