Re: [Unattended] Obtaining values from a spreadsheet
On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 10:51 am, Patrick J. LoPresti wrote: The question is whether to leave this as an example or to make it (or something like it) the default. There appears to be a larger number of options that people want to support each day. If we have 10 different options for people to choose about how they store their data, which one should be default? I assume this is sort of where you question is going Patrick. This is why I still think you are better off leaving the default as answering the questions. Create information in the documentation about how to copy config-sql.pl, or config-txt.pl to config.pl. And what information you have to supply in the relevant files. This will mean people don't need to know how to use perl, just how to copy files :) I've found 2 bits that are hard with unattended; 1. Getting all the apps going by themselves 2. Getting it all to boot by itself, not user intervention (Spreadsheet, PXE) Thinking out loud gabble Usually people will want to sort out applications before worrying about how the machine boots, because they will be there testing everything. But then again, maybe they don't want to answer questions while doing that. /Thinking out loud gabble So with a number of options arising, SQL, LDAP, txt, csv. My thoughts are that people can just copy the relevant file over config.pl if so desired. Regards Russell Smith. --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470alloc_id=3638op=click ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
Re: [Unattended] Obtaining values from a spreadsheet
- Original Message - From: Russell Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is a helpful and useful Idea, however I'm not 100% sure making it default is easiest/best. Having a set of configs that people can just copy in to make things work would probably be helpful. But Others, like myself will want to mix and match. The way the sample-config.pl that I wrote is just an extension to the questions that already exists. If any of the fields are blank or it can't find a record with matching MAC then it falls back to the question. This makes it so you don't loose any functionality but gain the ability to to have lookup tables. If we integrate this into the default behavior I would assume that it would behave similar. Also by integrating it into the base distribution, if you don't like the behavior you can still override it by writing your own config.pl like you have done. Personally I don't see this changing anyones installation but will give the ability to manage entries to those that aren't comfortable writing perl. -Shad --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470alloc_id=3638op=click ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
RE: [Unattended] Obtaining values from a spreadsheet
Having a set of configs that people can just copy in to make things work would probably be helpful. But Others, like myself will want to mix and match. snip but will give the ability to manage entries to those that aren't comfortable writing perl. For me it has major advantages, so I'm supportive for these kind of sample's (untill I understand the perl part enough) This system (way of life ?) is capable of a lot, and it takes some time to figure it all out. Any help is welcome ;) GreetZ, Stephan --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470alloc_id=3638op=click ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
RE: [Unattended] Obtaining values from a spreadsheet
Hi, Just some ideas. I am not much of a coder so I can't really offer samples. Everyone is going to want to do things differently. Would it be possible to offer a variety of mechanism (spreadsheet(s), SQL, text file, etc.) to store the relent information? A configuration file or config.pl could specify what mechanism will be used for that particular site. Support for each could be added incrementally. I personally would like to store the information in AD (LDAP). My 2 cents Brad --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470alloc_id=3638op=click ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
[Unattended] Obtaining values from a spreadsheet
In Unattended 4.0b, we added some new files to the install/site directory: hardware.csv software.csv sample-config.pl The file sample-config.pl is the actual config.pl which Shad uses. It automatically sets several installation parameters based on the values in two comma-separated-value (CSV) spreadsheets. We are thinking about making this behavior, or something like it, the default for the next release. So this message is both a description of the implementation and a request for feedback on it. The first spreadsheet, hardware.csv, has fields for MAC address, computer name, owner (aka. [UserData]/FullName), and organization. These are fairly self-explanatory... If the MAC address of the system matches a line in the spreadsheet, the remaining fields will be used to fill in the corresponding unattend.txt parameters. In other words, the MAC is the index key for this spreadsheet. The second spreadsheet, software.csv, lists software licenses. It has fields for owner, software (the name of the software product), the license key, and the local admin password. The owner and software keys are the index keys for this spreadsheet. The software field must match the operating system name (e.g., Windows XP Professional). The owner field must match either the MAC address, user name, computer name, or organization of the machine. If a match is found, the license key and administrator password are set from the values in the spreadsheet. The idea is that a software license is owned by a machine (MAC address or name), or by a user, or by an organization (think volume licenses). I am thinking of ways to generalize this to use a key other than MAC address, like (say) the Dell service tag. More on that later. But the implementation described here would still be the default. What do you folks think? (By the way, it is a fully functioning implementation. If you want to try it out, just copy sample-config.pl to Z:\site\config.pl.) - Pat --- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470alloc_id=3638op=click ___ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info