[wpkg-users] separate per user scripts

[Malte Starostik]

Hi Sebastian,

Am Donnerstag, 19. April 2012, 19:15:18 schrieb Sebastian Elsner:
> Hello,
> 
> we are using a samba domain with roaming profiles (limited users). I
> want to have packages that execute for each user (for example copying
> files to %APPDATA%) as well as packages installing stuff to
> %ProgramFiles%. What is the best practice doing this?

Our setup is a little different, bus as I don't know of any published best 
practices about this, maybe you can still use some input - and I'm also very 
much interested in your results :)

> I was thinking something like this:
> 
> + a separate wpkg.xml for each user in this own roaming profile, only
> user packages are executed
> cscript wpkg.js /quiet /nonotify /synchronize
> /settings:'%USERPROFILE%\wpkg.xml' /profile:'user_packages_only_profile'

This is very much what I was thinking of before resorting to the quick and 
not-too-dirty way of using Active Setup instead.

> + a wpkg client which runs as System or Admin (whats the real difference
> in this case anyway?) with standard usage of settings, profiles, hosts
> and packages.xml

This - let's call it global - WPKG setup installs the registry keys needed to 
run a per user Active Setup stub at the next logon.  Plus it copies any 
necessary files, e.g. the stub (script/reg file) itself, anything to be copied 
to the user's profile.  Thus it will work even when there is no network 
connectivity when the users log in.
It has worked for us very well - BUT we only have a very limited number (~10) 
of packages that actually need it.  I don't think this approach scales too 
well.  I still decided to go this way for now, because:
- a separate per-user instance of WPKG seemed a little overkill for so few 
packages
- Active Setup causes a well-known - or infamous? ;) - UI to show that shows 
what's going on

The approach you outlined above in fact seems a lot more flexible, scalable, 
and integrated with the global WPKG instance to me.  So if you get to 
implement it, please lemme know about any gotchas you encounter :)

With roaming profiles you might as well get away with injecting stuff into the 
profile copy on the server as long as $user is not logged in, but maybe that's 
a little fragile ;)

Kind regards,
Malte