[wpkg-users] Questions about offline mode and executing the wpkg service

[Tomasz Chmielewski]

Dieter Scholz schrieb:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm currently evaluating wpkg for software distribution in my company using a 
> Vmware environment. After testing some commercial products without much 
> success, I'm really surprised how well software deployment works with wpkg.

Thanks for nice words.


> My current setup should work like that:
> 
> Whenever a PC is powered on and is connected to our LAN the wpkg script should 
> be executed before a user may login. So I set the maximum logon delay to 10 
> and enabled the offline mode.
> 
> But there is one issue I couldn't solve so far:
> Because we have several laptop users working offline from time to time the 
> offline mode of the wpkg client is an important feature for us. The 
> wpkinstall program offers this mode by testing the availability of a server. 
> But I have problems to configure it correctly. Whenever I set the network 
> interface of my Vmware instance to disconnected and reboot the computer the 
> wpkg service starts at the beginning and shows its dialogs. No user is able 
> to login until the maximum logon delay timeout is reached. Any tips on how to 
> fix this? ( ... please see my settings.xml and the Windows event log excerpt 
> I attached to this mail)

Ha! Bad boy! Microsoft does not support running Windows in virtualized 
environments (unless it's Microsoft virtualized environment) and so WPKG 
don't support it neither!

(WPKG part was a late Aprils Fools' joke; Microsoft part is true)

I'm not sure what happens with Windows when you set the network to 
disconnected in VMware (i.e. how does system see a card which doesn't 
want to send or receive any packages).

If you test it on a real laptop (or any other real system), it should 
work just fine for you.


It was tested and verified that it works here in several scenarios.

To simplify the test, notepad was used as a "execute before" command.

1. Boot a laptop with a network cable disabled
2. Boot a laptop with DHCP, network cable plugged in, but Samba not 
running on the server
3. Boot a laptop with DHCP, network cable plugged in, firewall on the 
server silently dropping any packets (no reply)
4. Boot a laptop with a static IP and a false route to the server
5. Etc.


I can only guess that when you disconnect an interface in VMware, 
Windows can't send any packets, but the system doesn't get any 
confirmation (or not immediate) that the packages were not sent? But 
it's only a guess.


If for some reason VMware was not only for testing, but you have to use 
it in normal day operation, you may have more luck with a "Custom 
script" instead of sending packets to a server. There, you could detect 
if VMware network card is connected or not etc.
How to detect if a VMware network card is connected or disconnected in 
Windows is perhaps a question for VMware forum.



As of another issue (AutoIt), I think Reiner gave you enough hints.

I myself also don't use AutoIt, and never had to - in most cases there 
are better ways to install things than to use AutoIt.
Unless you happen to have really crappy software - so far I had luck and 
haven't seen such a crappy installer.


-- 
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org