[Samba] Automatic Windows Patch Deployment (OS Agnostic)

Jerry Haltom jhaltom at feedbackplusinc.com
Sun Oct 26 17:04:33 GMT 2003


Oh man I must be getting old.

Somehow I managed to reply to your message twice, with two completely
distinct messages.


On Sat, 2003-10-25 at 23:51, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> 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.




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