Slashdot Mirror

Back when I did IT support for a large university, we had a problem of disting Windows images to each machine (for those who are not familiar, it's to synchronize each machine with a master image upon logout). It was easy on the Mac, but the best we could do in the Windows world was to use PC-RDist, a piece of software written probably by high school kids in their parents' garage. It did not handle Microsoft software very well. Even with a fully-functional image set up, we had to manually go to each machine and install the MS software (WindowsUpdate patches, Office, etc.) BEFORE we can download the updates from the master image. Plus, any updates to the registry would not be copied because of Windows Protection. Eventually, we just gathered up enough funding (it was hard) to get disk imaging software whenever we needed to hose down a machine and start from scratch. I'm glad I don't have to work in IT anymore. :-)

Check PC-Rdist out. We used them in about five labs to sync about 200-300 PCs running from Windows 95 to 98 to 2000 to XP. It's really fast, works extremely well, and has a lot of options that will let you customize how it runs. For example, if they're computers for students and students are prone to accidentally leaving their files on the PC, you can set it so when it runs it will save all .DOC files less than 1 MB (or whatever size) in a particular folder of your choosing, and after a week of being there they will be deleted.

Remarkably, it's pretty extensible. And it runs (for 2000 and XP) as a startup script through group policy, so there's no getting around it.

At least give it a look.

Since I have been there, Aug. 2000, Cornell has been using PC-Rdist.

This is a very good set forward, but how do you know that the re-imaging software hasn't been compromised?

Futhermore, you can install stuff after the PC gets re-imaged and reboots because when it starts back up, it sits already logged into windows with a pop-up saying that it has booted cleanly. Anyone can install a keylogger, and by not closing that window and leaving the mouse cursor in the center of the screen, it would appear that no on has done anything since the clean boot, but it still limits the the damage a s/w keylogger can do.

its actually ACMAINT, not ACTMAINT (most people confuse those).

No wonder I couldn't find any literature on it!

Here is a link to a paper describing ACMAINT (Z'd PostScript format)

Here is a readme for ACMAINT. It is open source, as its source is publicly accessable and located here. There is a homemade software license in the file headers, which basically says give us credit where credit is due... no GPL constraints, etc. (Makes me wonder why people actually bind themselves to the GPL anyway; whatever happened to good old "I trust you with the source and you won't rip me off." Anyway...) It looks like it requires a dedicated database server to do its operations, according to the article linked above. However, it is a very conveinent solution to what the original article was indicating (he never said he was using Kerberos). The plus for ACMAINT is that is works with pretty much any Unix; Solaris is used heavily in its primary implementation, though.

About PC-RDist, I believe that they are sticking with it for WinXP last time I checked. Which, although nice, sucks as it flushes and refreshes the registry at logout, a feature, although nice, takes about 5 minutes.

At Reading University, where I attend, there are several big labs running Windows. Used to be Win95, now Win2K. Anyway, the apps for the machines are on a central server(s) somewhere, as are user's home directories, email, etc. The machines are automatically kept in synch with a master copy of Windows somewhere.

I think that the server is *NIX, and the apps, etc. are brought over a Samba share to drive-letter N-O, or something. The drive is kept synched (or, it used to be under Win95, not sure now...) with PC-RDist.

Hope this helps, as the labs are quite speedy, and although you can change a lot of setings, etc, when the computer is rebooted, everything is reset.

Good luck,
lyceus./

http://www.pyzzo.com/pcrdist

PC-Rdist can manage the filesystems of 95/98/NT, as well as the registries. The way it works, you store an image on the server, that contains the filesystem and registry exactly how you want it, and then you have the workstations synchronize to that image. Since it's just file-sharing based, linux+smb will do the job.

Pyzzo software makes PC-Rdist.