automatic rename machine after ghosting

[PEO]

as the title says, can this be done?

 

if so, how would I go about doing this. Reason I ask, is my technician who is new has a diffrent way of naming machines to me. I think this automated solution will help.

 

cheers gang

 

PS ... sorry chris

 

Kev

[FN-GM]

as the title says, can this be done?

 

if so, how would I go about doing this. Reason I ask, is my technician who is new has a diffrent way of naming machines to me. I think this automated solution will help.

 

cheers gang

 

PS ... sorry chris

 

Kev

 

How is it different? When you type the name in after sysprep shouldn't it be the same?

[PEO]

How is it different? When you type the name in after sysprep shouldn't it be the same?

 

not when you do a mini sysprep, it removes all SIDs including machine name. so during windows setup it always asks for us to input machine name. everything else is done for us

[FN-GM]

I know that but i dont get the bit how your technician can do if different from you.

[PEO]

PM sent

[srochford]

You're going to have to have some way of deciding what each machine should be called.

 

If you use the Ghost console then it allows you to build what's essentially a database of MAC addresses and the names you want them to have; you then run Ghost from the console with sysprep configured to just give a random name. After the mini-setup, ghost runs a task to rename the way you want.

 

You can do something similar without the console. For example, sysprep will run the commands in a file called cmdlines.txt; if one of those (eg) looked up the MAC address in some central database then it could force a machine rename (eg using netdom - this can rename and join to the domain)

 

It depends on how many machines you've got to do whether it's worth while building your own solution.

 

Of course, if the problem is that he wants to call them PC01, PC02, PC03 and you want to call them kermit, scooter, waldorf etc then there's probably no technical solution :-)

[PEO]

Just found this

 

https://forums.symantec.com/syment/board/print?board.id=109&message.id=10415&format=one

 

any thoughts on this?

[powdarrmonkey]

This is a person problem, not a technical one. What's your position relative to your technician, NM? in which case you just need to make an executive decisions, 'workstations will be named according to the convention xyz'.

[andyrite]

If your machines have guid you can prestage them in AD and then sysprep can take the names from there.

[cromertech]

If your machines have guid you can prestage them in AD and then sysprep can take the names from there.

 

How is this done? Are you using WDS or can it be done in AD using the MAC addresses

[DMcCoy]

If you ghost them via the console then it can rename them for you.

[andyrite]

I'm using WDS but its sysprep that does all the renaming.

 

Lots of info on here about it.

[srochford]

Just found this

 

https://forums.symantec.com/syment/board/print?board.id=109&message.id=10415&format=one

 

any thoughts on this?

 

it will work - it's more or less what I was suggesting above.

 

Not sure why the writer of that post is doing it; their message is in the Ghost Solution Suite forum. Assuming that they have that product then one of the "solutions" is renaming based on MAC address etc - effectively they're just reinventing the wheel rather than doing a bit of RTFM :-)

[PEO]

If your machines have guid you can prestage them in AD and then sysprep can take the names from there.

 

any white papers on that?

 

Im not sure what you mean

[PEO]

If you ghost them via the console then it can rename them for you.

 

how do you do that ?

[DMcCoy]

how do you do that ?

 

When you perform an imaging task on machines that are in the console you can tick the configuration option, then leave it on default and it will rename the machine after cloning when it connects back to the console, you just need to have the ghost client on the machines.

[browolf]

in ms deployment toolkit which doest need to involve sysprep, it asks for the machine name as part of the deployment process. it doesnt seem to need prestaging as it adds to the domain but there's an OU option, if u dont fill in the OU bit it just sticks it in the computers OU.

 

however I should think it would be feasible to alter the deployment wizard script to do a lookup on the network to find out the computer name from say the mac address and I already have auto generated log files for that, filename:mac address, contents:machine name.

Edited January 22, 2009 by browolf