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KACE SDA - Pushing Image to Workstations with No user interaction

Hi IT Ninja Community, 

Need to know if there is a way to push a System Image from the Deployment Appliance to Network devices without having to boot to PXE first.  

I am going to have to deploy my system image to the entire business within the next few weeks-months and need to do it without end user interaction or myself having to attend each computer.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Asked 6 years ago 1928 views
0 Comments   [ + ] Show comments

Answers (4)

Answer Summary:
Posted by: Nico_K 6 years ago
Red Belt
1
if the systems are already installed with any OS and in the network:
Run a network inventory (at best multiple times)
When you have the majority and it is the right time run an automated boot action.

Comments:
  • Thanks Nico_K. Will this automatically boot them into PXE and deploy the correct image? I tried using this boot action and could not get my device to auto deploy. IP and Mac of the workstation were both correct and i ran both on next boot and scheduled date/time and neither got pushed to the device. Any ideas? - ChrisATQ 6 years ago
  • Details of Automated Deployment

    Name: Push Image - Corporate Laptop
    From: K2000-Servername
    Deployment: ATQ SOE v1.3 UEFI x64 - CL
    Schedule: Run at next boot (have tried both options)
    Type: Unicast (as i will be completing the deployment in batches)
    Selected Devices: MAC + IP of device - ChrisATQ 6 years ago
    • if you setup correctly, yes.
      Since it is best practices to always boot into the KBE and use boot from hard disk as default, this will work if you set this up like that.
      You can change the BIOS settings with a script used by the SMA (contact the vendor of the devices to do so, with Dell there is an easy to use tool which produces an exe file you can simply run in Windows, so if you want to setup back later you can set a post install task with the BIOS settings you like to have) - Nico_K 6 years ago
      • Thanks Nico. What i have ended up doing for the devices i have with me is what i think your saying. Modify PXE in boot order to 1st.

        The default when it boots to PXE is to revert back to HD load. So i have reduced the time out down to 3 seconds (likely will drop it even further) This will work for me as long as i can remotely modify the bois settings for all of the devices in my environment. - ChrisATQ 6 years ago
Posted by: akmagnum 6 years ago
Red Belt
1

Top Answer

For legacy boot images.......

If you setup the "Onboard nic" to be first in the bootup sequence on the client machine..... That should start of the automated boot action sequence on the next reboot with no more user interaction. If you already have this setup in your environment, then you're good to go.

In my case I create UEFI boot images ......

So if a uefi partition exists on the machine, it will still not boot into pXE regardless of if it was first on the BIOS boot list. (The UEFI partition will always boot first). So after setting up Automated deployment, I still have to manually select pXE boot from the client machine. And that's it.......(Still trying to figure a way around this).

Either way you need at least one interaction with the client machine.........except like I said earlier if you are using legacy boot to deploy your image AND if you already have pXE boot as your first boot option .

Hope this helps.

Will be watching this post to see if there is a better way.



Comments:
  • Thanks akmagnum, for the moment im setting all our devices to boot to PXE in the boot order (even my UEFI devices so far are working like this) i just reduced the selection timer down to 3 seconds and they auto boot to PXE allowing for me to kick of an image on next boot. Not my prefered method but will work. Now just need to modify the Bios on a mixed manufacturer environment. - ChrisATQ 6 years ago
Posted by: five. 6 years ago
Second Degree Green Belt
0
Are they new machines or already in the SMA? If they are already in the SMA, there is a way to do a scripted install to kick off the reimaging. The modern way involves default deploy. I have had good luck using the batch file at the end of these slides that I posted awhile back. Those slides show the original code that was introduced at a kace conference years ago.

The biggest benefit of using default deploy, is you only have to build out your custom KBE / WIM once. Once that's done you can just point to the # of the scripted install / system image that you want to deploy. In the past you had to build out a custom KBE for each image.
Comments:
  • Thanks Five, I will look into this if the PXE boot option doesnt suit my situation anymore. Thanks for your reply :) - ChrisATQ 6 years ago
Posted by: John Price 5 years ago
White Belt
0

I developed a solution for this that may work for you. I created a KBE and slightly modified it to support the passing of parameters. The KBE was loaded into the K1000 with a script that checked to see if the machine was BIOS or UEFI. The KBE was downloaded and applied to the system and the boot was set to boot to the new KBE. A text file with the batch file number assigned to the deployment was written to the hard drive.  Then a restart command was sent. The machine would reboot running the KBE.  The startnet command would read the txt file and run the deployment batch file based on the number passed in the parameter.

Comments:
  • Your solution sounds very intriguing. Can you give us a more detailed explanation on how you accomplished this? - AAnschutz 5 years ago
 
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