[wpkg-users] Question about wpkg
Some questions: 1) can WPKG download and install a package in background, while the user is working, not just before the login screen? 2) same as before, can it do an uninstall in background ? - wpkg-users mailing list archives >> http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Question about wpkg
Hi Luca, Luca Manganelli wrote: > Some questions: > > 1) can WPKG download and install a package in background, while the user is > working, not just before the login screen? Yes it can. Basically WPKG is a service running in background. All its tasks can be performed in background. The logon delay is just imposed if configured on WPKG client. Nobody forces you to use this feature. Personally I never used it in production. However there are some constraints when running WPKG in background. The user might start applications and due to this fact some upgrades might fail (files locked while in use). So either you have to live with some failures or you need to take this into account when building the packages. For example a Firefox upgrade might fail in the background if the user is currently running Firefox. To solve this you might use taskkill to kill all instances of Firefox right before starting the silent installation in background. However this kills the user session and the User might not like it ;-) Alternatively (how I do it) you might just run WPKG on Windows startup. Usually logon takes a while and WPKG has enough time to run all updates in the background even before the user runs a program. If it happens that one fails due to the fact that the user was "faster" then proper package checks will detect on next reboot that the package has not been applied and WPKG just tries again. In general this approach works pretty fine while not blocking the users or giving them any hint that WPKG is doing something in the background. > 2) same as before, can it do an uninstall in background ? Same answer as above. Uninstalls where some files are locked might fail. By the way most Windows-Installer packages handle this case pretty fine. Locked files are just removed on next reboot. br, Rainer - wpkg-users mailing list archives >> http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Question about wpkg
- "Rainer Meier" ha scritto: > > Yes it can. Basically WPKG is a service running in background. All > its > tasks can be performed in background. The logon delay is just imposed > if > configured on WPKG client. Nobody forces you to use this feature. > Personally I never used it in production. And can WPKG inform the user with a dialog box "Installing , please be patient..."? Another question. Can WPKG do this: 1) download the package in local computer in background, during user session, NOT after login, but at a random time from 30 minutes to 5 hours (to avoid bandwitdh consumption, I have to manage 1000 PCs) 2) the download can be "limited in speed", like at 20KB/sec? 3) install it at the next user login? - wpkg-users mailing list archives >> http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Question about wpkg
Hi Luca, Luca Manganelli wrote: > And can WPKG inform the user with a dialog box "Installing , > please be patient..."? This is done using the logon delay feature. It will display a generic screen that WPKG is doing some software updates. Within the latest WPKG (1.1.x) in conjunction with latest WPKG client (beta) there is a status-print feature which should allow to display which package is currently installed by WPKG - but I never used it. Please note that there is no possibility to interact with the user desktop when a user is logged on. Services are usually not allowed to interact with the user desktop. So this feature only works when a logon delay is used and the window is displayed before the user is allowed to log in. > Another question. > > Can WPKG do this: > > 1) download the package in local computer in background, during user > session, NOT after login, but at a random time from 30 minutes to 5 hours (to > avoid bandwitdh consumption, I have to manage 1000 PCs) You might run WPKG using the task scheduler. You might also configure WPKG client service to exit when it's done and then just re-run the service in scheduled intervals. However be warned that in this case you might run into troubles updating software which is in use at the time of upgrading. > 2) the download can be "limited in speed", like at 20KB/sec? No. Such "advanced" features could be achieved by doing the download manually by specific and advanced download tools like "wget". You might write a cmd script which is using WGET to download and then installs the package silently. You might also use traffic limits on the download server or a squid proxy in between. Limiting each client on client-side is usually not the option I would go for. Servers are much more efficient when doing load-balancing. In any case I strongly advice you to provide the packages on a local Windows share (SMB/CIFS) and not on a public web server. Downloading is not very well tested and actually I recommend not to use it. Especially in corporate environment where WPKG is read from CIFS share anyway it is usually better to use the same servers to supply the software. An internal HTTP server might be OK but downloading from unreliable internet sources is not recommended. > 3) install it at the next user login? You might achieve this using the task sheduler. Please note that you should NEVER run WPKG from a logon script since it would be executed with user privileges and therefore it usually fails because users should not have privileges to install software. br, Rainer - wpkg-users mailing list archives >> http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Question about wpkg
Hi, I'm a new user to WPKG but an old user of a very similar package distribution technology that is provided with our education network (RM Connect 3 if that means anything!). I was pointed to WPKG after looking for something that would work alongside the large number of peer-peer networks I use that have no server. You might want to consider looking at something along the lines of BeyondExec/WOL or similar - these can be used to schedule restarts and shutdowns of your computers so you could use this to roll new software out at times when the computers are not being used. Chris> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:31:41 +0100> From: luca_mangane...@comune.trento.it> To: wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org> Subject: Re: [wpkg-users] Question about wpkg> > - "Rainer Meier" ha scritto:> >> > Yes it can. Basically WPKG is a service running in background. All> > its> > tasks can be performed in background. The logon delay is just imposed> > if> > configured on WPKG client. Nobody forces you to use this feature.> > Personally I never used it in production.> > And can WPKG inform the user with a dialog box "Installing , please be patient..."?> > Another question.> > Can WPKG do this:> > 1) download the package in local computer in background, during user session, NOT after login, but at a random time from 30 minutes to 5 hours (to avoid bandwitdh consumption, I have to manage 1000 PCs)> > 2) the download can be "limited in speed", like at 20KB/sec?> > 3) install it at the next user login?> -> wpkg-users mailing list archives >> http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/> ___> wpkg-users mailing list> wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org> http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users _ Hotmail, Messenger, Photos and more - all with the new Windows Live. Get started! http://www.download.live.com/- wpkg-users mailing list archives >> http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
