On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 5:57 PM, M. Jason Stewart <mjstewie at gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Rainer Meier <r.meier at wpkg.org> wrote: >> Hi Jason, >> >> M. Jason Stewart wrote: >>> More like 200 separate DSL connections. We use Citrix as an >>> alternative to individual VPNs. If you're not familiar, just think >>> Teminal Services over HTTPS. Users get their applications via a web >>> portal, it's like remote desktop for individual applications. As >>> such, the client machines are not joined to our domain- they are just >>> stand alone PCs. >>> Thanks for the links, looks like I have some more reading and >>> experimenting to do. >> >> The use case you describe is not fully clear to me yet. Citrix is well-known to >> me as a way to remotely access Windows environments. Personally I am using RDP >> quite a lot. >> But when using Citrix/Terminal services, then the software environment is fully >> located on server side (centralized). This is actually exactly the reason for >> such services - concentrate all data and environment on a centralized server. >> >> But in this case you don't need WPKG on your road-warrior clients but on the >> central server to install software on a central location. If your clients are >> using Citrix remote access then the whole software installation is located on >> the server. >> >> Well, you could deploy the Citrix client to your workstations using WPKG but I >> don't think it's updated very frequently. >> >> In any case WPKG is usually run from an SMB/CIFS share. If you don't have a VPN >> then it's unlikely that your clients will be able to access any share. So what >> you could do is to install WPKG locally on every client (wpkg.js installed >> locally). But WPKG by default reads its configuration (hosts, profiles, >> packages) from the same location where it's executed from. Alternatively you can >> provide these XML files on an HTTP server (which could be a web-server of your >> company which is available via internet). >> >> After you managed this hurdle you cannot fetch the software from CIFS share as >> WPKG usually does. However you could use the HTTP-download functionality to >> fetch the installer files from a public server (might be your company webserver >> too). But remember that licensing might not allow you to publish the packages on >> a public internet server (where actually everybody could download it from). >> >> >> >> If you really want to use WPKG for this kind of deployment have a look at the >> change notes where it's documented how to use the downloading feature.... >> >> NEW: Added download extension as initially proposed by Tomasz Chmielewski (with >> some changes). A download definition is specified as follows: >> <download url="http://server.domain.tld/path/to/file.msi" >> target="subdir/file.msi" timeout="7200" /> >> >> The 'timeout' attribute is entirely optional. It defaults to the value of >> 'downloadTimeout' as specified within config.xml (7200 if not omitted). >> The value is specified in seconds. >> >> The 'target' attribute specifies a path relative to the 'downloadDir' as >> specified within config.xml (defaults to '%TEMP%' if omitted). >> NOTE: You need to specify the full file path, including the file name, not >> just a directory name! >> >> So to install the package above could be installed by the following >> install command definition: >> <install cmd="msiexec /qn /i %TEMP%\subdir\file.msi"> >> >> and >> >> MOD: Download XML nodes are now allowed as sub-nodes of any command (install/ >> upgrade/downgrade/remove). This allows you to specify a download which is >> only downloaded for a specific command. This was implemented since it >> usually makes no sense to download the installation package again right >> before the remove commands are executed (which usually runs a local >> uninstall command which does not need the original installer). >> Specifying a download XML node on the global package level (not below a >> specific command definition) is still allowed. Such downloads will be >> executed regardless of the command to be executed. So you can specify some >> global downloads which are executed in any case. >> Note: If multiple install (or upgrade/downgrade/remove) commands are >> specified WPKG will download the the files of all command nodes of the >> same kind before starting to execute the commands in sequence. >> Example: >> <package...> >> <donwoad url="http://example.org/package.exe" target="package.exe" /> >> <install cmd="%TEMP%\file.exe some arguments" ...> >> <donwoad url="http://example.org/file.exe" target="file.exe" /> >> </install> >> <install cmd="%TEMP%\file2.exe some arguments" ...> >> <donwoad url="http://example.org/file2.exe" target="file2.exe" /> >> </install> >> <upgrade cmd="%TEMP%\update.exe arguments" ...> >> <donwoad url="http://example.org/update.exe" target="update.exe" /> >> </upgrade> >> </package> >> This definition will simply download "package.exe" (global). "file.exe" >> and "file2.exe" right before the install commands are executed in >> seuence. >> In case of upgrade it will download "package.exe" (global) and >> "update.exe" before executing the upgrade command(s). >> >> >> >> However I am not sure that you need it in case you really use Citrix >> remote-desktop solution. >> >> >> Please also remember that the downloading feature is quite uncommon and not very >> widely used, so testing and fixing would probably require some time. >> >> >> br, >> Rainer >> > > > Rainer, > Thank you for the info. You are correct about our apps being centrally > managed through Citrix, I was just illustrating why we don't/won't use > VPNs. I'm looking at WPKG as a method to deploy applications that are > local to the client machines. Examples: Windows Defender, Antivirus > software, custom registry changes, Asset management client, etc. > All, Thank you again for the help. I have WPKG configured to work over an internet connection. I installed wpkg.js to C:\Program Files\wpkg and put the hosts, profiles, and packages XML files on my web server. I set wpkg_base to the address of my server, and added the <download url> tag to my packages.xml with the same info. I was able to do a proof-of-concept deployment of DIA and it worked perfectly. Great tool! The only issue I have so far is the WPKG client doe not seem to be synchronizing at startup- I had to manually run the script. How often does the WPKG Service check for updates, is it only on startup? |