[Casper] Software Update - laptop labs, progress indicator

[Miles Leacy]

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Jeff Strauss <jstrauss at loyolahs.edu> wrote:

>  Will bandwidth throttling via your own SUS carry through if Casper
> policies are applying updates?
>

Yes.  Casper says "go to SUS 'X' and get all available updates".  The update
process is still governed by your SUS settings.


> I’m dealing with the same issue as Clinton; I have more than 500 laptops
> strewn throughout campus in carts, and they’re all using 54Mbps wireless, so
> updating (and general connectivity) can sometimes be a pain. I was thinking
> of deploying Self Service to all the machines and adding it as an allowed
> application via WGM only to computer groups that I want to have updated, so
> at least updates can be scattered and somewhat managed on a computer group
> to computer group  basis. I’d add a loginwindow message letting students
> know there are updates available and to run Self Service when they log in. I
> don’t know if that’s the best solution; I’m still wrestling with it in my
> brain.
>

In general, and because one must cater to the least adept user, I leave end
users out of management tasks.  Self service is great for things that the
user wants, such as an application, a peripheral driver or a printer, but
for items that the end user cannot see any tangible benefit to, they're a
lot less likely to actually run the self-service policy.

I'd suggest that if waking a machine with the lid closed turns out to be a
dead end, to find a room that you can be sure will be and remain locked on
weekends (preferably a room with lots of table/desk space and power).  As an
end of week procedure, plug in and open up your laptops in this room.  Get a
student volunteer(s) to help you if you can.


> Otherwise, you could set updates to run at startup or via the “any”
> trigger, but my experience with that has been mixed. I’ve tried to run
> updates at startup and users will get upset that it takes forever to log on,
> and I’ve tried it at “any,” which seemed to work better, but can still
> impact performance and the user will get weary if they don’t know they’re
> receiving an update. I think my experience also has to do with the fact that
> all the machines are wireless, and connectivity becomes heavily impacted
> when there are more than a few dozen machines pulling down large files from
> the server simultaneously.
>

Laptops can be a bit of a pain for routine maintenance since you can usually
never be sure when and for how long they'll be on the network.  What I have
done and suggest is that you convince management (or school administration
or whatever serves as the "authority you don't question" in your
organization) that in order to provide security/stability/meet SLAs/etc.,
you need to have it mandated that laptop users bring their laptops in to
stay on the premises overnight once every 'X' days.  That X will be
determined by your specific environment's needs.  When the user brings their
laptop in, you plug it into the network, and let the updates run overnight.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.jamfsoftware.com/pipermail/casper/attachments/20090402/b77bdd8d/attachment.html