RIS servers control almost all aspects of image installation and distribution, including availability, security, and installation features. Fortunately, there are a variety of tools you can use to manage your RIS servers and ensure that your installations are fast and effective.
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Managing RIS Server Properties with Active Directory RIS is managed through property pages within objects in Active Directory. To access the RIS property pages for a RIS server, open the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in, navigate to the container holding the RIS server, right-click the server, and select Properties. You can set the following options for the RIS server from the Remote Install properties page:
■ Client Servicing This specifies whether the RIS server responds to all clients requesting service or only to prestaged clients. If you select the Respond to clients requesting service option, RIS will response to any client computers requesting an image (this is also how you enable the RIS server if you initially did not check this option when running the RIS Installation Wizard). If you select the Do not respond to unknown client computers option, the RIS server will only respond to prestaged clients. For information about prestaging RIS clients in Active Directory, see “Prestaging Computers,” later in this section.
■ Verify Server This option launches a wizard that checks the consistency of the RIS server by verifying settings and configuration. If key RIS files are missing, you’re prompted to provide the Windows Server 2003 installation media. The Verify Server option is only available if you are logged on locally to the RIS server or connected through Remote Desktop.
■ Show Client This option allows youto search the Active Directory for RIS clients. A dialog box displays, showing a list of client computers (both prestaged and not) along with their globally unique identifier (GUID).
■ Advanced Settings These settings allow you to finely control how client computers respond to the RIS server. The subfeatures of this option include:
■ Automatic client computer account naming format This allows you to specify a naming convention for client computers, so that this information doesn’t have to be entered by the person executing the installation at the target computer. To ensure name uniqueness, you can use the following parameters:
Parameter Substituted Value
%First First name of logged-on user %Last Last name of logged-on user %Username Network logon name of user
%MAC MAC address of target computer’s network adapter
%# Inserts an incremental number that is tracked by the RIS server In addition, you can insert a number after the percentage sign in any of the preceding values to specify the number of digits. For example, the naming format “%1First%7Last%MAC” would yield a computer name of “JHAMILTO0030628AC74D”, assuming the user installing the target computer is named John Hamilton, and the MAC address of the first NIC in the client is 00-30-62-8A-C7-4D.
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■ Active Directory location of client computer accounts Identifies the container in which prestaged target computer accounts are found, and the container in which computer accounts for nonprestaged target computers are created.
Manage RIS Server Properties Using Risetup The Risetup utility is a command- line tool designed to allow you to manage and automate aspects of your RIS server, such as images. The syntax is
risetup [/add] | [/check] | [/autofilename.inf] where:
/addtells Risetup to add a new installation image on the RIS server.
/checkperforms a test to validate that the RIS server is functioning properly, identifies and fixes most problems related to RIS servers not functioning correctly, and reauthorizes the RIS server in Active Directory.
/autofilename.inftells Risetup to configure the server automatically, as defined by the file filename.inf. This file defines the configuration of the RIS server in a manner similar to the RIS Setup Wizard, but doesn’t require any administrative interaction. Here’s a sample .inf file for the Risetup /auto parameter:
[Version] Signature = "$Windows NT$" [Risetup] RootDir = "e:\RemoteInstall" Source ="z:\InstallSource\i386" Directory = "WIN2K3_STANDARD"
Description = "Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition"
HelpText = "Base image for all servers in the Philadelphia office." Screens = "overwrite"
Architecture = "x86" Language = "English"
These entries are rather self-explanatory, and all are mandatory within the .inf file. A few entries need some further explanation:
■ [RootDir] Identifies the drive and directory where the RIS files are located. This is the folder that is shared using the \RemoteInstall sharename. If RIS is already installed, and you have run the Setup Wizard to specify the location of the RIS folder, then this path must remain the same (you can’t change this entry to move the location of the RIS folder). The path must be a local drive, not a UNC, and the maximum number of characters in the path and folder name is 127.
■ [Source] Identifies the location of the installation media from which to create an installation image. The path to the files can be either local or a UNC, and can be up to 260 characters.
■ [Directory] The directory that will be created in the RIS server’s \RemoteInstall share to hold the files of the image. This name can be up to 39 characters.
■ [Description] The short descriptive name of the image. It can be up to 65 characters in length.
■ [HelpText] The longer descriptive name of the image. It can be up to 260 characters in length.
■ [Screens] Identifies the action that will be performed on existing .osc files when installing the image; .osc files contain text that is displayed on the screen of the target computer during installation of the RIS image. The three values allowed are overwrite, backup, and leavealone.
■ [Architecture] Specifies the processor architecture for the image. This can be either “x86” for 32-bit CPUs or “ia64” for 64-bit Itanium family processors. RIS will not let you install an image on the wrong processor.