Prestaging...Should I or shouldn't I?

[mrforgetful]

Hi,

 

At the moment when I image a room I just have to go round the PCs, rename them (roomname-computernumber ie Z3-01), run a diskpart script to map Virtual CD Drives, and a script to install that room's printer.

 

It's not an arduos task, it only takes 10 or 15 minutes per room.

 

But I'm looking into setting up Prestaging - is it any good? So far I'm thinking these:

 

Pros: set off imaging job done forget about it.

 

Cons: I sometimes need to move PCs around/swap them out when problems arise etc.

[Dos_Box]

Prestaging is fantastic. It also makes the PC's self-healing as they replace any corrupt files (where possible) from the source. They also name themselves, add themselves to the domain and lots of other little lovely things.

In short, spend a few days gathering mac addresses and do it. It's so nice to be able to re-image a machine and not have to return to it.

[Geoff]

Lazy way to get those MAC addresses is with arpwatch.

[danIT]

we like ghost multicast, i know like you said its manual entry of computernames but how long does it take really, we've just imaged a whole room, installed all software and named them? total time for 25 computers 35 mintues, thats ok isnt it?

[wesleyw]

I thought you could play around with the ghost console and do that anyway? Or am I thinking of something else?

 

Wes

[Dos_Box]

we like ghost multicast, i know like you said its manual entry of computernames but how long does it take really, we've just imaged a whole room, installed all software and named them? total time for 25 computers 35 mintues, thats ok isnt it?

 

Yes, but if you prestage it only takes the few mins that you need to start imaging, saveing you half an hour, much typing and it make you look cool.

 

 

*the last bit may not be true.

[NetworkGeezer]

OK you're gonna tale a boredom hit the first time you do it because of all the prep work involved. It's the subsequent rebuilds which will benefit.

[mrforgetful]

I'm just confused as to how to get it to load an image.

 

At the minute I boot using PXE and have a Ghost Image that I choose. How do I add that image to RIS?

 

Can I use a standard sysprep'd image?

[Ste_Harve]

Have a look at the RIS topic ni the How do you do it section.

 

I've just started to prestage PC's as i'm going round and it certainly makes rebuilding machines much quicker.

 

All I do is start one machine with ris and then stop it when it's added to the domain. When this is done I get the guid and add a new computer. Give it the proper name and restart the machine again with RIS and leave alone.

[E1uSiV3]

I just did it manually the first time round and subsequent RISes go on fine as the account already exists.

[tarquel]

exactly - no need for collecting mac address [unless you are reserving IP address - which is still nice as you can add them in DHCP as you go along because it displays the MAC address during the very begining of the process lol]

 

*mental note - remember to play with RIS again*

 

Nath.

[ZeroHour]

Not sure what benefit prestaging has as I did not set our ris up I have not seen this feature yet. How do you automate it?

I know the concept of prestaging but I can find the killer benefit other then security in comparison to normal PXE booting with ris of a unknown client.

Does this allow remote rebuilds?

How?

 

cheers

[plexer]

The only manual thing we have to do when ghosting sysprepped images is to enter the computer name in mini-setup.

 

All software is then installed via GPO and printers are setup each time a user logs on so they only get the one in the room and maybe the next closest one to the room as well.

 

Ben

[Richie1972]

We used to use ghostcast, but it meant that we had a load of images for each set of hardware and different departments.

We've now moved over to RIS and we have one install (no images), a script that runs on first boot which renames PC - there's a database with mac addresses linked to computernames -, moves it to correct OU and installs some software. The rest of the software is installed via GPO.

The only manual part of the job is having to boot up via PXE, enter logon details then start install

[NetworkGeezer]

How much did it cost for the Ghost licenses?

[ZeroHour]

The only manual part of the job is having to boot up via PXE, enter logon details then start install

We just need to drag and drop our rebuild command here

Not RIS though, WinINSTALL client reset.

We have RIS too as a backup methord.

[Richie1972]

ghost licences are about £20 each i seem to recall - as we have over 500 computers we decided to go down the free route of RIS on a 2003 server. We don't need to worry about updating images and we just have to add drivers to the RIS server for new PCs

[ZeroHour]

Except if the hal type changes

[Richie1972]

hal is irrelevant - we don't have RIS images - it does a RIS install on each machine - if it was an image then hal would be a problem.

As long as the PC can PXE boot then we can install on it

[ajbritton]

Prestaging is fantastic. It also makes the PC's self-healing as they replace any corrupt files (where possible) from the source. They also name themselves, add themselves to the domain and lots of other little lovely things.

In short, spend a few days gathering mac addresses and do it. It's so nice to be able to re-image a machine and not have to return to it.

 

Surely once the PC has been built, renamed and moved to the right OU then reimaging is just as painless. As for the self healing, surely thats a function of Windows going back to the installation source which would be the same regardless of prestaging.

 

The only reason I can think of to pre-stage is in corporate environments where installation engineers do not have permissions to create computer accounts. The computer account must be pre-created by the infrastructure people (or whatever) and then the PFY gets the PC out of the box, plugs it in and kicks off the RIS build. I suppose the other reason might be to load balance across several RIS servers on different subnets..

 

FWIW here's what I do when installing a batch of new PCs

1 - Configure RIS server to name PCs NP+MAC and put all new accounts in a temporary OU which will pick up basic software used school wide.

2 - Build each PC, noting its location and last 5 digits of MAC (this is displayed during the client installation wizard)

3 - Once all the PCs are starting to build, go to the server and move all the computer accounts to their required destination.

4 - Rename the computers remotely using either MSTSC or VNC.

 

...and another thing; surely prestaging requires the UUID, not the MAC address. A bit tedious to boot every new PC, run a utility to get the UUID, write it down (majorly prone to error). Unless of course the supplier gives you a list of UUID to serial numbers.

[NetworkGeezer]

The MAC is only needed to synthesise a GUID if one is not availible.