[wpkg-users] WPKG and WOL (WAS: Re: Global max execution time hardcoded?)

[Nicolas BRICHE]

Hello all,

G.Ott a écrit , Le 04/04/2013 18:58:

> Hi,
> As the discussion already widened the topic a bit, I would propose to
> ask the community how they actually use wpkg.
> Perhaps a doodle would make sense here too.

I don't have a domain here for my 200 clients and ~10 servers (yeah, shocking; I
weep at night about that).  So I'm using a collection of bash scripts and winexe
from my Linux workstation, to trigger a remote manual run of WPKG on a
particular machine (or group of machines) for particular package (or group of
packages) whenever I need it.

The scripts can loop until all specified machines updated all specified
packages, which can take weeks if nobody actually powers up the box (I'm looking
at you, medhosp2.  I haven't seen you since mid-December; you don't write, you
don't call...).  Thus my interest in WoL.

The scripts also determine which %SOFTWARE% path (the server part of the path,
really) will be used, according to the netmask of the client, since I've got one
"package server" for each major subnet.  I haven't found a way to do that in
WPKG itself yet.

WPKG is also used in a post-install batch script in my nLite and rt7lite OS
setups.  It automatically runs a specific WPKG profile that installs all my
"core" packages, including a special "drivers" package that runs the Stand Alone
Driverpacks utility.  That's my only case use of profiles as of today.  Maybe I
should look into it as well...

Finally, I'm using a WPKG package to force a run of either OCSInventory or
FusionInventory (I'm slowly migrating to the latter) after each WPKG run.

I don't use WPKG (or its derived tools) to keep track of packages or profiles; I
use GLPI (linked with OCSI and FI) for that.

I also don't use WPKG for Windows hotfixes or service packs; I've got a WSUS
server.  I do use WPKG to point the clients to the WSUS server, though.

All that will probably be overhauled when I finally have an AD and the GPO that
go with it, but well, I'm the sole IT staff here and setting up an AD for 200
clients is a full-time job, so, yeah.

Nicolas