[Samba] Automatic Windows Patch Deployment (OS Agnostic)

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Sun, 2003-10-26 at 12:16, Jerry Haltom wrote:
> A month ago I mentioned on this list work on a automated package
> deployment tool for Windows systems, which is server agnostic. At the
> time, I didn't have the time to put it up in a place for public
> consumption. I do now.
> 
> The utility is named wpkg (punny isn't it?) It's nothing more than a
> simple .js (jscript) file which needs to be run on Windows, from a
> directory containing three XML files describing packages, hosts, and
> profiles to be installed on a system.
> 
> Each package consists of nothing more than a set of command lines to run
> on install/upgrade/removal, a version number, and a name. When the
> script is run (preferably as a service at boot, using srvany.exe, or
> FireDaemon), it checks a local C:\$SYS$\System32\wpkg.xml file, which
> lists the package entries of locally installed packages, determines
> which new packages are available, and attempts to install them according
> to their command lines, and reboots if neccassary.

Have you considered making it look in the registry for the hotfix keys? 
For sites which are not deployed from scratch, this could help move to
this central system, without needing to standardise all the machines
from scratch.  

> It is very simple, but I've now been running it for a week, with about
> 10 boxes (about to roll it out to all my systems), and it is totally
> successful. It's very easy to add new packages, or upgade existing
> packages, and then force a system wide reboot.
> 
> I am sending it to the list because I imagine there are similar Windows
> administrators out there, running Samba (or not) that need a good
> software deployment utility. Microsoft's SUS sort of requires IIS, SMS
> isn't much better. Also, I would like people to check it out, and submit
> patches, or changes, or new features to me, so that I may make use of
> them too. :)

As I mentioned on IRC, the big thing I think it needs is a GPG signature
over the patch repository, to try and prevent spoofs.

> The source code is currently hosted on my subversion repository, at:
> 
> http://jack.feedbackplusinc.com/svn/repos/wpkg/
> 
> Username: guest
> Password: your email address
> 
> The package is released under the GPL. (Can one of you license guru's
> tell me if the GPL is appropiate for a windows patcher written in
> jscript?)

Well, it doesn't have much of a binary form, but the GPL works pretty
well for almost anything :-)

> Enjoy.

I certainly will :-)

Andrew Bartlett

> --
> 
> My current setup is using this sytem, with FireDaemon to launch the
> service at start. Soon as Monday rolls around, im going to play with the
> ResKit's srvany.exe program.
> 
> -- 
> Jerry Haltom <jhaltom at feedbackplusinc.com>
> Feedback Plus, Inc.
-- 
Andrew Bartlett                                 abartlet at pcug.org.au
Manager, Authentication Subsystems, Samba Team  abartlet at samba.org
Student Network Administrator, Hawker College   abartlet at hawkerc.net
http://samba.org     http://build.samba.org     http://hawkerc.net
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