Just wondering how many people have this module and what you think about it.
My initial impressions of it is that it is still a "Beta" solution and its still full of bugs.
No comments?
I have only played with it briefly, around beta time, and had a lot of trouble installing repositories. In the next week or two I will be doing a full internal test of it, so will provide any feedback I find as a result of that!
I'm also having trouble setting up the repositories, the problem I found is that the repository machine required direct http or https access to the Kaseya server to download the required files to setup the repository and it fails.
after about 4 attempt of installation the repositories are installed on 2 machines at 2 different sites. I can not create a image. I have a freshly rebuilt laptop with XP Pro and office 2007 at one site, and when create a image after about 30 min later and no data sent to the repository it says failed and doesnt say why. I have a call logged.
This program is great idea but right now it looks like it is more of a waist of time then a time saver.
We had it installed last weak and i tested it this weak. I can't get it to work. The installation of the repository is going well. After that i wan't to create an new image. The process starts with the activation and configuration of the repository. After that it fails on 33 percent of the Creat new image step with the info "Unable to mount test to /shared/repository"When I look in to the log file the last 2 messages are:
Nov 11 14:19:14 imgsrv1 kernel: [99974.789225] CIFS VFS: Error connecting to socket. Aborting operation Nov 11 14:19:14 imgsrv1 kernel: [99975.052436] CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -110
Any idea what this could be?
Thanks in advance
It sounds like the virtual machine is unable to connect to the shared folder on the repository server. Check you have the latest KID 5-Nov-11 hotfixes applied and try recreating the repository.
If that doesn't help, then please raise a support ticket.
I've been wrestling with it on and off for the past month and am almost there. I have an image that works and have been able to deploy it. I am now working on the Auto Deploy feature and hope to have that set up in the next day or so. I think it will work, but it has not been an easy setup. The instructions are very very basic and don't offer any help if you get stuck. If you know how to edit the unattend.xml file you can customize your deploy. Once i found that it helped a lot. I was able to 1:) enable the administrator account and 2:) set the administrator password. These things are helpful when you create a generic image that may or may not have the correct drivers for your network card. :) Right now I am stuck at setting up the PXE boot and can't find any information for what info to put into my DHCP config to make it work.
One more thing, - I leaned on support a lot for this, but the person who had my ticket is apparently not in my timezone. I would update the ticket then get a response back at 9pm. That makes it difficult to troubleshoot.
All in all, I think it will work, but it has been much more difficult than I anticipated. I'll muddle through and eventually get it running, but it would be nice to have a little bit more to go on than the instructions that they give.
You shouldn't set up your own DHCP server for PXE boot as KID provides one, and it will complain if it finds another server offering boot files on the same network. All your DHCP server needs to do is give a routable IP address to the KID VM. If you have already have managed to deploy an image your DHCP server is probably set up ok.
To enable AutoDeploy, edit the repository and choose a default image. One gotcha is you need to wait for the Edit job to complete before you start trying to PXE boot machines.
BTW KID is developed here in New Zealand (UTC+13 hours).
We have been thinking about posting some kind of FAQ on the Kaseya Wiki. Any suggestions on what we should include in that?
My DHCP server doesn't seem to be giving out addresses so I am still working through that. I'll post more when I figure it out.
As far as the Wiki goes, I do have some suggestions:
Making changes to the unattend.xml file used for the deploy. This is nowhere to be found in the documentation and is extremely helpful for doing a mass deploy.
I don't know if this is the documentation or not, but mine works much better when using a physical server for the repository. It should also be noted that the repository server will reboot when you first set it up. And you should also note that your repository creation will fail if the subnet specified in the autodeploy for the repository does not exist.
I am imaging HP EliteBook 8460's. The tech I worked with at Kaseya said the video drivers are there, but when I pull an image from one of them my screen turns to static for a good 10 minutes of the process. At first I was cancelling but I figured out that it will eventually work.
I'll add more as I encounter them.
Yes, the repository needs to be a physical machine, since KID installs a VM on the repository to host the PXE server and other things. From the docs, the minimum requirements for a repository are:
* A Kaseya agent must be installed.
* Only physical machines are supported, not virtual machines.
* Microsoft Windows XP (SP3), 2003, 2003 R2, Vista, 2008, 2008 R2, 7
* Linux and Macintosh are not supported.
* 1 GB RAM for XP and 2003, and 2 GB or more for Vista and above.
* 100 GB disk space. Image sizes can range between 300MB and several GBs.
* At least one connected, physical ethernet adapter. Wireless adapters are not supported.
* Network access to a DHCP server. The repository agent machine can have a static IP address, but the Virtual Server running on the repository machine must to be able to obtain a DHCP address.
* Do not use the Kaseya server as the repository source. This may interfere with Kaseya functionality.
With regards to the unattend.xml -- this is potentially useful, but it's also possible to break things. For actions like creating a local account, you can also just make these changes to the source machine before creating the image.
Also very important, you can't install it on a Hyper-V server as Virtualbox is not compatible with Hyper-V, and the deployment repository host server needs to have direct internet access to your Kaseya server to download all of the components.
I had an argument about the initial repository deployment process with one of the developers as many of us would use this in an enterprise environment that has a proxy server and some of us use secure our Kaseya servers with SSL certificates and other firewall rules (KID had a problem with this and the developer had to rewrite the downloader tool, not sure if this as been applied as a patch).
If you have time constraints I would recommend using the free Microsoft deployment tools (WDS and MDT2010) instead as it is proven documented technology that actually works. Kaseya can still play several different roles when you use MDT2010 and WDS, one of them being replacing SCCM.
That's a great idea about enabling the local administrator account and setting a password for it while you are making your source image. That would be great information to add to the instructions, which have no information or suggestions on setting up the source image.
I find the whole physical server thing irritating too. We are running VMWare ESX on HP Blades, so I don't have a lot of physical servers that are SAN attached and have access to storage (small company and all). I was able to use the backup server since that one is still physical.
I tried WDS and MDT and hated them both for imaging and patching. That's why I moved to Kaseya. It's not a perfect solution, but I like it way better than anything else I have tried and it fits within my budget.
Thanks for the suggestions for documentation.
Yes have become very aware running a virtual machine, and so requiring a physical server for repositories, is a big source of pain with KID 1.0. We are planning on getting rid of this in our next version of KID.
WDS and MDT are basically free tools so it would fit into anybody's budget and if you know what you are doing you can make it work alongside Kaseya. Also WDS and MDT works on virtual machines and you would still use Kaseya for patching as MDT and WDS was never really meant as a patching solution.
Both WDS and MDT can be very complicated but it does not have to be as you can use it in a very simplified way. Here is what I did;
1) Build, Configure and test the deployment images in MDT (give on online and offline installation media)
2) Mount your MDT deployment share's boot image in WDS (give you PXE capabilities)
3) Use Kaseya to deploy any application that changes often post install and do a "Initial Update"
Thanks for the helpful tips on WDS and MDT. I will take those under consideration.