RIS Installations & The Uniqueness Database File.

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Evening gents,

I have been touching up on my RIS knowledge recently.

I have a question which is starting to because I cant install RIS due to lack of hardware etc.

Basically,

How does the RIS server know which entry from the .udf file to use with each install?

for instance, I know you actually include which entry from the .udf file to use when issuing the command for a normal unattended install, be it from the CD source or from a network location with:

Code:

winnt /s:<location of src i386 dir>:\ /u:unattend.txt /udf:client01,unattend.udf

but when installing via PXE boot and from the RIS... at which point can you specify which entry from the .udf to use?

I am thinking in terms of a fairly big rollout of XP for instance.

does the "windows installation client" give the option to specify the desired computer name?

thanks

-tibbz

 

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To me your question is not very clear.. maybe I didn't read it right but I assume you are referring to prestaging the macine in Active Directory and setting the GUID?

As an alternative you could use the mac address as the GUID and pad it up to 32characters using 0's - is this what you want to know?

 

sort of

I am aware of pre-staging the computer in AD, but even with that, I don't understand how the RIS installation on that box will be linked to the AD computer object (does it only refer to the GUID set in the AD object?), because prior to installation, that box does not have a name to link it to the AD object.

thats where my question comes in:.. I know you can apply the answer file to the image in the RIS server configuration, but where/how do you configure it with the unique database so it can properly install on multiple boxes using the computer names specified in the UDF?

its just, if you were installing on 100's of boxes, I would imagine that it would be alot of admin work to pre-stage the accounts (mainly because of the GUID's of each box).

I havn't seen anywhere that allows you to A) specifiy the .udf, or B) on a box per box basis, be able to specify which computername from the udf it should use for that install.


sorry, hope thats clearer.