To prepare and capture the OS image, choose a reference system (i.e., a Windows 2003 or Win2K server that represents the standard installation you plan to image and deploy). Tune all Windows services as necessary, customize the desktop, and add any additional packages (e.g., Support Tools, resource kit tools, antivirus tools) that you want in the reference installation. Install applications only if they support the Sysprep process, which is a necessary part of capturing an image to deploy to multiple servers. For example, don't install Microsoft Exchange Server or SQL Server, which don't support Sysprep, on the reference system. Also install the Administration Agent on the reference system by starting the ADSAgentSetup.msi package. You'll need to provide the ADS certificate file (ADSCert.cer), which you can find in the ADS server's C:\program files\microsoft ads\certificate folder, during agent setup. This certificate is necessary to establish encrypted communications between the agent and the ADS server.
Next, copy Sysprep (sysprep.exe), which you can find in support\tools\deploy.cab on the Windows 2003 or Win2K Server CD-ROM, to the reference system's C:\sysprep\i386 folder. During its first phase, Sysprep generalizes the original OS installation by removing all settings specific to the installation (e.g., computer name, SID, IP address). During Sysprep's second phase, at the first boot of the imaged OS on a target system, Sysprep runs a mini-setup process to customize settings that are specific to the target system. These settings are defined in the sysprep.inf file—an ASCII file that contains a series of placeholder strings for system-specific ADS device variables. ADS replaces these strings with values that you define for the target system. (For more information about these variables and how to configure them, see the Web-exclusive sidebar "Device Variables," http://www.winnetmag.com, InstantDoc ID 41400.)
ADS comes with several sample sysprep.inf files (in the ADS server's C:\program files\microsoft ads\samples\sysprep folder), each of which corresponds to a particular deployment setup. Choose the file that suits your deployment—for our example, I use sysprep-wg-w2003.inf, which is designed to deploy Windows 2003 in a workgroup environment—and copy it to the reference system's C:\sysprep folder. When you use one of ADS's default deployment task sequences, ADS will automatically execute Sysprep's first phase, with the help of the Administration Agent.
When your reference installation is complete, you need to register the reference system as a new ADS device (i.e., a system that ADS can control). ADS supports automatic registration of devices, as I explain later, but let's look at the manual registration process first. ADS stores a device record for each device, identifying the system by its media access control (MAC) address or System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) globally unique identifier (GUID). ADS uses MAC addresses by default. If you want to use the SMBIOS GUID rather than the MAC address to uniquely identify a device, you'll need to open the Controller Service's Properties dialog box from within the ADS snap-in, then change the Device Identifier setting. This example assumes that you'll use MAC addresses.
First, use ipconfig.exe (or getmac.exe, on Windows 2003 only) to determine the reference system's MAC address. Reboot the system and let it remain at the logon screen. Open the ADS snap-in, right-click the Devices folder in the console's left pane, and select New from the context menu. Specify a device name—for this example, I use the name MAC0008C79905F1, where 0008C79905F1 is the reference system's MAC address—and type the MAC address in the MAC field. Click OK and wait for a message confirming the successful creation of the device, then click Cancel to close the dialog box.
To control a device from the ADS server, you must configure the device to operate in Control mode. To do so, right-click the device and select Control from the context menu. The device's status (listed in the State column) should change from Disconnected to Connected Full OS. If it doesn't, the ADS server isn't communicating with the Deployment Agent, perhaps because of a mistake in the MAC address or because of a network communication problem between the ADS server and the system (e.g., the Deployment Agent isn't running).
After the device is connected, you can start the capture process on your reference system. Right-click the device and select Run Job. Click Next, select Run a template, and select a capture job template (I use capture-image.xml). This sequence uses the Administration Agent to execute the first phase of the Sysprep process, with Sysprep's -quiet, -reseal, and -reboot switches. Next, the sequence reboots the system into the Deployment Agent to capture an image of the local disk (the default sequence settings are first disk, first partition). This sequence is designed to capture an image of a booted, fully customized OS. To monitor the capture's progress, open the Running jobs folder in the ADS snap-in's left pane and double-click the job in the right pane. The capture's duration can vary greatly depending on the size of the image, the reference and ADS systems' hardware capabilities, and network performance.
Preparing the Target System
After you've captured a reference installation image, you're ready to use ADS to deploy that image on one or more target systems. To do so, you must register the target system as a device so that the ADS server can accept PXE requests from the target system. I've explained the process of registering a system as a device, but collecting MAC addresses or SMBIOS GUIDs for many target systems can be tedious. However, ADS can create a device on the fly when it receives a PXE request from a target system.
To take advantage of this functionality, open the Controller service's Properties dialog box and set the PXE Action field to Add. (You'll need to make sure that no other system on your network, such as a RIS server, will be affected if you configure the ADS server to accept all PXE requests in this manner. For this reason, and because the deployment process can put a high demand on bandwidth, Microsoft recommends that you use a separate LAN for your deployments.) You must also configure the target systems to issue PXE requests and to boot in a specific sequence—NIC PXE boot, 3.5" disk boot, CD-ROM drive boot, then hard disk boot. (If the ADS server doesn't answer a system's PXE request, the target system will boot as defined in its BIOS settings.) Finally, make sure you have a DHCP server available to distribute IP addresses to systems that boot through PXE. Be aware that any router between the ADS server, the DHCP server, and the target system must support the DHCP relay feature that Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) 1542 describes and will complicate deployment.
After you configure the ADS server to accept the target system's PXE boot request and to automatically add the system as a device, boot the target system. Figure 2 shows the resulting process, from the target system's first boot-up to the deployment of the OS image. First, the target system issues a PXE boot request to the ADS server (Step 1). The ADS server adds a device record for the target system. After the creation of the device, you must place the device in Control mode, as I explained earlier. If a specific hardware setup (e.g., for a RAID configuration) is necessary, you can use ADS's virtual floppy tool (vfloppy.vfi in C:\program files\microsoft ads\tools) and dskimage.exe tool to customize a bootable DOS image disk that will execute that configuration. ADS then loads the Deployment Agent onto the target system, which stores the agent in RAM (Step 2). At the end of this process, the device's status is Connected to Pre-OS.
Deploying an OS Image
To illustrate the deployment process, let's run through a sample deployment of the OS image you created earlier (i.e., the device MAC0008C79905F1). For this deployment, you'll use ADS's da-deploy-image-wg.xml sample sequence, which corresponds to the sysprep-wg-w2003.inf file that I mentioned earlier. First, you'll need to create variables for the target device (as I explain in the sidebar "Device Variables"), set a default job template for the device, and ensure that the device is under Control mode.
For this example, the following device variables are necessary:
- The ProductKey variable, which must contain your Windows Product Key, replaces the ^ADS_WINDOWS_PRODUCT_KEY^ placeholder string in the sysprep-wg-w2003.inf file.
- The adminpassword variable, which must contain the default Windows Administrator password, replaces the ^ADMINPASSWORD^ placeholder string.
- The machinename variable, which must contain the machine name to set during the Sysprep process, replaces the ^ADS_COMPUTER_NAME^ placeholder string.
After you set the device variables, select boot-to-da as the default job. This job assumes that the device is a new system without an existing OS and instructs the system to boot to the Deployment Agent, after which you can perform ADS management tasks such as capturing or restoring a local disk image. Finally, set the device to Control mode and reboot the target system.
To deploy the OS image, right-click the target device and select Run Job from the context menu. Click Next and select Run a template. Select da-deploy-image-wg.xml to begin the deployment sequence, during which ADS downloads the OS image onto the target system's local disk, using multicast TFTP by default (Step 3 in Figure 2). After the sequence is completed, the target server reboots to the imaged OS (Step 4), which contains the Administration Agent, which in turn lets you manage or customize the target server (e.g., install additional applications) by pushing scripts from the ADS server (Step 5). You can monitor the deployment by opening the Running jobs folder in the ADS snap-in and double-clicking the job.
The Image of Easy Deployment
ADS is useful for performing Windows 2003 and Win2K Server deployments. Although ADS requires some customization, it uses standard OS tools and technologies, so you don't need to learn a new set of tools or languages—you simply need to learn how ADS's sequences work and how to organize them.
End of Article
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