[wpkg-users] Question about wpkg

[Rainer Meier]

Hi Luca,

Luca Manganelli wrote:
> And can WPKG inform the user with a dialog box "Installing <application>, please be patient..."?

This is done using the logon delay feature. It will display a generic
screen that WPKG is doing some software updates. Within the latest WPKG
(1.1.x) in conjunction with latest WPKG client (beta) there is a
status-print feature which should allow to display which package is
currently installed by WPKG - but I never used it.

Please note that there is no possibility to interact with the user
desktop when a user is logged on. Services are usually not allowed to
interact with the user desktop. So this feature only works when a logon
delay is used and the window is displayed before the user is allowed to
log in.


> Another question.
> 
> Can WPKG do this:
> 
>  1) download the package in local computer in background, during user session, NOT after login, but at a random time from 30 minutes to 5 hours (to avoid bandwitdh consumption, I have to manage 1000 PCs)

You might run WPKG using the task scheduler. You might also configure
WPKG client service to exit when it's done and then just re-run the
service in scheduled intervals. However be warned that in this case you
might run into troubles updating software which is in use at the time of
upgrading.


>  2) the download can be "limited in speed", like at 20KB/sec?

No.
Such "advanced" features could be achieved by doing the download
manually by specific and advanced download tools like "wget". You might
write a cmd script which is using WGET to download and then installs the
package silently.

You might also use traffic limits on the download server or a squid
proxy in between. Limiting each client on client-side is usually not the
option I would go for. Servers are much more efficient when doing
load-balancing.

In any case I strongly advice you to provide the packages on a local
Windows share (SMB/CIFS) and not on a public web server. Downloading is
not very well tested and actually I recommend not to use it. Especially
in corporate environment where WPKG is read from CIFS share anyway it is
usually better to use the same servers to supply the software.
An internal HTTP server might be OK but downloading from unreliable
internet sources is not recommended.


>  3) install it at the next user login?

You might achieve this using the task sheduler. Please note that you
should NEVER run WPKG from a logon script since it would be executed
with user privileges and therefore it usually fails because users should
not have privileges to install software.

br,
Rainer