KACE Product Support

Hey guys,

My name is Colin, I've been a stalker around here for a little while and I was just at the Konference with a bunch of people in Sydney earlier in the week. There I made a promise to drop in a script which we use in some of our smaller deployments. Hopefully this helps some of you guys out and if it does feel free to leave some feed back. Its deffinately got room for expansion and I'll make a list of changes and recommendations to larger orgs for its use. As we start to use our K2 more (now that WIM is supported as of the beta) I'll enhance and grow it. [:D]

What it does:

In a nut shell it queries the machines bios and pulls the serial number then throws it into an sql query which joins our Asset table and Asset_data_5 table (which is computer asset type data in our environment, you can tell yours by looking in the address bar of your browser after clicking the Asset Type in the Assets section of your K1). After making the join it uses the serial number it has received and gets the appropriate data field Asset_NAME. After its stored the name, it goes through the motions of a simple domain join. Detecting if the machine already exists and asks if you want to delete it or not. If it cannot find an asset it will prompt for a machine name.

How We Use It:

- In our environment we created a final post install task which was an application type with the script 'start /wait wscript.exe RenameBasedOnAssetV2.vbs' and attached the script to it.

- We created the assets in advance via a spreadsheet provided by the manufacturer and ran a report prior to deployment which checked for duplicate serial numbers

Recommendations:

- This works primarily on the premis of the machine being in AD already as a random machine name but should work otherwise also, remember if you random the machine name DO NOT INSTALL THE AGENT BEFORE RUNNING THIS POST INSTALL, otherwise you'll get two machine accounts and a bogus name which wont change untill you clean up your assets again

- Create another asset field for your Computer type named 'Auto Naming Enabled?' type Single Select values Yes/No and query this also to ensure that the machine is even ALLOWED to be auto named.

- You could also only allow logged on user to make changes by checking for an assigned user field if you set it.

- If you drop the script in plain text with a delegated user and password in the top you should probably self delete the file also as an extra precaution, or obfusicate it

- Use the registry function down the bottom to detect if the MySQL driver you use in the script is installed during run, I took it out because not all registries are created equal, didnt want to risk messing with peoples heads

- Use this as the final post install action, running this and then rebooting the machine will be a good time for the gpo to push the agent out (personally we tack on a run once for next logon which moves the machine in AD, gpo then pushes the agent and the machine has a check in forced)

Changes you as a user of the script should make:

- Rename it to VBS. Yeah... I said it...

- Upon downloading the script you should open it up and change the values at the top of the script where appropriate and have a bit of a read through it. I've commented and indented it to suit me and added some extra to help others but if you've got questions about it just ask.

- Have a bit of a play around with it, this works in my environment a treat (though we dont use our K2 for large deployments, WDS handles that for now) it may not work as planned in yours, I suppose this is also the disclaimer part of the post haha!

Where Problems with probably arise with this

- We use BIOS Serial Number as the 'Mapped Inventory Field' and Serial Number as the 'Matching Asset Field' on our Computer asset type, TEST THE HELL OUT OF THIS before pushing it out as you may end up with duplicate assets this KUID mis matches without doing this (KACE Guys help me out here does this happen? It hasnt happened here yet though.)

- If you've changed your reporting username and or password or have multiple orgs you'll need to change the .CommandText on line 83

- If your user doesnt have permissions to perform these actions you'll obviously have troubles, make sure the user has rights in the OU your machine is currently in

- If your MySQL driver isnt installed before this then it will return bugger all

- If your info in the asset database is wrong and/or someone has created duplicate assets this will steer you wrong

- If you install the KAgent before this and let it sync before renaming you'll likely get the wrong info go to your server, this is the second warning!

- Again on the .CommandText area on line 83, your Serial Number field may not be Field_34, you'll need to play around and find out what yours is. I recommend FlySpeed SQL for this, its my best friend at the moment.

Okkkkay, so thats a long list of warnings and info etc, read it, play with it, let me know if it works for you and we'll all go from there! I'm just trying to cover myself and make sure I dont get a bunch of angry guys looking for my home address. [;)]

have a good one!

Cheers,
Col
BGS

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