SOLUS 3 Agent Install via GPO!

[MattGibson]

Hi Everyone,

 

Just wanted to share my experience of the good old SOLUS 3!! - I want to deploy the Agent via GPO because we don't have desktops in the classroom every teacher has a laptop which they are allowed to take home. The issue was when installing the agent from within SOLUS 3 it would immediately fail and after reading several posts it seems that if SOLUS is unable to find a DNS entry it would produce the "failed to install" message. Reason for this is because it's the summer holidays, staff haven't been into school therefore the DNS entry for that laptop has expired. Therefore I needed away for the agent to install at startup, I tried every combination of trying to get the "Solus3AgentInstaller.bat" to run within my GPO startup script and failed to do so for several hours!

 

I then read a TechNet article explaining that you can in fact add JavaScript directly into the Startup GPO (I never knew this!) and hey, presto it worked!

 

Steps outlined below:

1. Select an existing GPO or create a new one
   
2. Copy ALL Agent installation files to the GPO folder (Show Files..)
   
3. Add the Script: "AgentInstaller.js"
   
4. Add Script Parameters: "agent_installer.log" "net.tcp://localhost:52966" "net.tcp://MY-SIMS-SERVER:52965" "Solus3.Keys.DeploymentService.Public.xml" "SOLUS3AgentInstaller_x86.msi" "SOLUS3AgentInstaller_x64.msi"
   

 

 

I hope this may help someone that is experiencing the same issues as we did. As always there maybe a better way but I guess its whatever works for your setup.

[jinnantonnixx]

Nice one.

 

I took a different approach - I made an MST transform file which sets the properties needed by the SOLUS agent MSI directly to the properties table. The tricky part was generating the GUID - I used an MSI custom action to generate a GUID, then another custom action to set the AGENTID property in the MSI table.

 

But your solution is much, much simpler.

Edited August 15, 2014 by jinnantonnixx

[matt40k]

@jinnantonnixx They should be pushing out the GUID from the server in a future release. Worth poking @PhilNeal about.

[TheScarfedOne]

3.8 as well as handling updates when Sims apps are open

[Andthomson]

Hi,

 

Sorry to reactivate an old thread, but is this method still working for you?

 

I have a similar setup where we're moving to SOLUS3 but half my clients are off site for the summer holiday so deploying via startup script would really solve the problem of setting the SOLUS install when they are all back at the start of the school year.

 

I tried your solution above but no joy, just wondering if anything has changed since then as its looks like this was about a year ago?

 

Cheers

[dapaulio]

I'm new to solus 3 and I have come across the same frustrations when deploying the agent. There doesnt seem to be any gpo support. If you manually install the agent it doesn't add it to the console which is rubbish if you buy new computers to replace old stock that you want to have the same computer names. You have to remove it and then reinstall from the console. Edited July 28, 2015 by dapaulio

[Zammo]

Yep. SOLUS3 is a disjointed, badly designed piece of software.

 

From it's blobby, unresponsive interface to its odd way of deploying updates it really needs scrapping and starting again

 

It's frustrating when just about every other piece of software on our network can be deployed via GPO or SCCM but SIMs has to be a completely separate process

 

end of rant

[ohickmott]

I used an MSI custom action to generate a GUID, then another custom action to set the AGENTID property in the MSI table.

 

Hi jinnantonnixx, please could you advise what the action was that you used to generate the GUID within a MST?

 

Thanks in advance!

[matt40k]

If your on the latest version you shouldnt have to worry about guid, if its null the server will push it out - least thats what i've been told!

[jinnantonnixx]

@ohickmott

 

You might not need this any more, but nevertheless it might be of some use.

 

I used the free InstEdit software to create an MST transform file (never edit the main MSI directly), but I guess the principle is similar whichever editor you use.

 

 

By the way, I've abandoned this for now as I couldn't get SOLUS to work across different domains when I last tried it.

Edited December 3, 2015 by jinnantonnixx

[KyleWhite]

@ohickmott

 

You might not need this any more, but nevertheless it might be of some use.

 

I used the free InstEdit software to create an MST transform file (never edit the main MSI directly), but I guess the principle is similar whichever editor you use.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]33612[/ATTACH]

 

By the way, I've abandoned this for now as I couldn't get SOLUS to work across different domains when I last tried it.

 

Could you explain a little more on what you customized all together in the MST file? I'm looking to roll out the Solus agent to around 50 machines at a school and the instructions in the OP unfortunately don't work for me

 

Thanks in advance!

[jinnantonnixx]

@KyleWhite

I had a quick look but I don't have that info any more. I abandoned the idea when I discovered that SOLUS wouldn't work across different domains, so that was the end of that.

[timbo343]

I looked to rollong out SOLUSAGENT via MDT but decided not to and found installing from SOLUS3 is possibly the easiest way even though the software is a dog.

[ItsOggy]

When I first went to roll out S3 last year I had issues at first, but once I got the GPO set for firewall / security options it was fine pushing from the console.

 

I don't mind the S3 console, think I'm used to it now!

 

I agree it's a pain if the target device isn't on or away from the network, would be nice if the agent install could be set to retry every few hours until successful of stopped!

[KyleWhite]

As the S3 console is run by the LA, we don't have access to it - all we've been given is the standalone files that you can generate in the S3 console itself.

 

Looks like it'll be a manual install!

 

Thanks guys