Altiris BootWorks: Under the Cover
Trying to get Bootworks to Behave for My Lab Environment
Sun
Bose Headphones
First the proverbial I haven’t posted in forever.
Second, I may have finally sold my house in Ohio.
Third, I became an Altiris Certified Professional, and haven’t contributed squat toward the community. It’s with this guilt that I began this post.
So, the issue: We’re currently implementing Altiris globally, right? And we’ve decided, for the time being (until late FY07) to keep Deployment Server 6.1. It’s as stable as they come..
So I’ve been trying to test our build of XP SP2 on my lab server, which happens to share the subnet with the production server of our Western Hemisphere server. Normally this causes no problems for Deployment Server jobs. Application testing runs great.
The craw in my hat at the moment, however, is trying to test the XP build. It’s a scripted OS install, and PXE defaults to the WHEM Server.
I turned to my trusty friend Bootworks to point me in the right direction. So, it helps at this point to mention what and how Bootworks works.
In this case, it’s an automated partition built on the local hard drive which stores what amount to a DOS floppy’s worth of data used to connect to the deployment server.
I’ve deployed it to my Dell test workstation which was running XP prior. (This can be accomplished by right clicking the machine in the deployment server console and choosing advanced, install Bootworks partition.
BE FOREWARNED: Getting Bootworks off is quite a chore. So, make sure you’re using a box no one will mind having fdisked after testing.
So, I’ve installed the bootworks partition. What’s all the fuss?
Well, it doesn’t seem to want to grant rights to the saved user account in its default database (which I believe is setup during the DS install. As I installed DS recently, this should all be working well.
So the error I received was Warning a network drive has not been mapped correctly! Bootwork may not operate as designed.
I checked the Altiris forums and kb articles and came up to a brief reference to network access. So then I began digging.
First, it may help to understand how Bootworks gets triggered. The AClient will send a little message to the master boot record within Windows (yes, it gets it’s fingers in the naughty place.) saying, hey man, I got this job to run, so, at next boot, can you please use me?
Windows obliges, the reboot occurs, the nic boots aname launches, bootworks loads, and the Drive mapping fails.
ERROR: Unable to open TCP socket
ERROR: Unable to connect to the deployment server.
If you do the F2 to run diagnostics on the next go round, you’ll be granted access to the bootworks partition, which, like I said, is a glorified DOS floppy.
It sees the server just fine, but won’t start the Windows scripted OS install.
If you exit at the error, Windows comes up, gets the MBR flag again, and it’s Groundhog Day, but you’re not laughing at Ned.. .. Ned Ryyyyeerson.
So, the solution? The update? The fix?
Are you ready?
This from Altiris: “Bootworks and Scripted OS’ don’t work together. It’s an image only solution, there. Yeah.”
So, if you’ve run into this, cut your losses, and build a Sysprepped WinXP image, or find a machine built, well, after Groundhog Day.
Bose Headphones..
I forked the money for the headphones. I really thought I bought it in a lucid moment, and I’ve already felt the joy of hearing classical music walking next to a Metra liner.
I just need to get over looking like such a Dumbass with them on.